—–Original Message—–
From: Paul Green
Sent: Tuesday, July 03, 2001 12:03 AM
To:
Subject: Thoughts on cops

Readers of my posts and my column (East Valley Tribune in Mesa,AZ)know that
I share the apprehension of many on the list at the sundry instances of
tyrannical behavior on the part of LEOs that have been reported of late.
This is exacerbated by the often tolerant attitude of officialdom toward the
same.
The issue has a particular sting for people like us, who believe fervently
in our right to be armed and defend ourselves – and face a rabid pack of
political predators whose stated aim is to abrogate those rights through
force they intend shall be brought to bear by those very LEOs. We observe
the insular nature of the police subculture, jealous of its privileges and
fiercely protective of its own, and regard the possible comportment of LEOs
in the event of a gun-control future with dread.
But is this entirely justified? I have to wonder. From what I can see, this
list is full of cops – cops whose views are not at all in accord with those
of our would-be suzerains. It may be argued that such are a minority, but my
own encounters with LEOs on the street cast doubt on this.
Not too long after I got my CCW, I got pulled over for a burnt-out
taillight. Thinking it was the drill to inform the officer I was armed, I
handed him my CCW along with my DL. He asked me where my gun was and I told
him on the passenger seat. He asked me to get out of the car, reached in and
took it, and went back to his cruiser. I figured, OK, he wants to run the
serial number – sensible enough. He emerged from the cruiser, put my 1911 on
the hood, and told me the gun had come up stolen. Flabbergasted, I told him
I’d bought it new fifteen years ago and there had to be a mistake. I
recalled I’d gotten it at J&G when I worked there, gave him the address, and
told him that’s where the 4473 would be. Another cruiser pulled up, and
another, and more cops got out, all with these stony-looking faces. An older
guy, a sergeant, asked me if I’d bought it at a gun show or off someone
who’d run a want ad and I repeated what I’d told the first guy.
I figured I’d seen the last of that gun until a godawful gauntlet of
paperwork had been run – or maybe ever – but instead they radioed the
station and had the dispatcher call the PD in the town out of which the gun
had supposedly been reported stolen up in Colorado. Turned out there was
indeed a mistake – one character in the serial number had been entered
wrong. So what do they do? They give me my 1911 back and apologize for the
hassle. Hardly the act of a gang of gestapo.
I’ve been stopped other times – I’m given to insomnia and taking walks in
the middle of the night – but though sometimes an officer will act a bit
intimidating I’ve never had one get nasty. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus
said that “with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again,”
and I’ve found that to be the case with LEOs. If you don’t get huffy they
won’t trouble you.
On a societal level, the situation appears ominous. There are many more
police than there used to be and they are more empowered and more
militarized than they were of old. To a considerable extent they have become
the kind of force Jefferson cited as a usurpation in the Declaration of
Independence; a standing army kept among us in time of peace. They can pull
over our cars; they can stop us on the street and even order us around. It’s
grating at best and an outrage at worst – especially for people who can take
care of themselves.
Yet would we really be freer without this force in place? To what extent
would our movements be restricted by elements we would not necessarily want
to fight our way through again and again? To what extent would our kids be
at risk from the creatures that are always getting arrested for flashing or
fiddling with themselves in public? To what extent would cartels and mafias
control sectors of the economy? An America with a radically diminished
police presence would probably look a lot like post-Soviet Russia, which is
perfect for predators and perilous for everyone else.
That some LEOs’ actions are problematic can hardly be denied; I wrote of
just such an instance for my paper last weekend. But those instances make
the news precisely because they’re not the norm. The norm, as I have seen it
both personally and as someone who has edited the news for a living for the
past decade, is precisely what we want and expect – discipline, competence
and courtesy.
And it behooves us to recall the dangers cops face. A stretch of the
Beeline Highway north of Mesa is named for Bob Martin, a DPS officer killed
six years ago during a traffic stop by a slimy punk who used his sidearm to
kill a store clerk during a robbery later on. Marc Atkinson of the Phoenix
PD was killed a couple of years ago pulling over a car full of mojado dope
dealers. LEOs have to stop cars and walk up to them dozens of times every
week, and any one of them could turn into a situation like that.
I reiterate that I am deeply uncomfortable with certain trends in American
policing – the militarization, the federalization, the isolation from the
citizenry, and the gravitation toward the methods and mechanisms of
technotyranny. But I am equally uncomfortable with a default us-versus-them
attitude that plays right into the hands of the enemy by further driving a
wedge between gun folks and LEOs.

Long-windedly yours, Paul
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