The Cop Revolt Against Gun Control
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http://www.richardpoe.com/column.cgi?story=130

The Cop Revolt Against Gun Control

By Richard Poe

October 23, 2003

AN ALL-OUT REVOLT against gun control may be brewing among rank-and-
file police officers.

In my last column, “Gray Davis’ Cop-Killing Gun Law,” I revealed that
anti-gun zealots such as Sarah Brady and Ted Kennedy have found a new
enemy: cops. No longer content to disarm ordinary citizens, gun
prohibitionists now want to strip off-duty and retired police of the
right to keep and bear arms.

Reader reaction to my column was mixed. Virtually every correspondent
favored gun rights, but many expressed disdain for the rights of
police.

“Maybe when their CCW [Concealed Carry Weapon] rights are stripped
away they will look more favorably on ALL of us being allowed to
carry,” grumped one reader on the FreeRepublic.com message
board. “Police officers should not get special rights.”

“Hear Hear! Screw the cops? let them see how it feels!” responded
another.

“[I] find it hard to feel too sorry for the cops,” opined a third
reader by e-mail. “?Let them taste some of what we supposedly free
Americans have been dealing with. If I can’t carry across state lines
or into a government building, why the hell should a cop be able to?”

The resentment these readers express is understandable. Police
spokesmen often publicly applaud gun crackdowns. But police brass in
big cities are not free to speak their minds. They get their marching
orders from City Hall. If they want to keep their jobs, they must toe
the party line. Often that means pretending to support gun control,
when in fact they oppose it.

During a 1990 crime wave in New York City, an ex-cop named Stephen
D’Andrilli suggested on a TV talk show that the city issue one
million permits to carry handguns. Host Dick Oliver asked then-New
York Governor Mario Cuomo to respond. Cuomo snapped, “Why don’t you
ask the cops what they think of everybody packing guns?”

Oliver replied that a Mr. Byrne, then head of the Police Benevolent
Association, had said of D’Andrilli’s plan, “It’s a good idea.”

“Well, somebody better talk to Mr. Byrne, straighten him out,” said
the governor.

Many high-ranking police have been “straightened out” behind the
scenes just as Governor Cuomo prescribed.

“The Clinton Administration was particularly successful at enlisting
police support for gun control,” notes the Web site of the Law
Enforcement Alliance of America (LEAA) a national anti-crime
organization of law enforcement professionals, crime victims and
concerned citizens, based in Falls Church, VA.

“[The Clinton White House] funneled millions of your tax dollars in
political payoffs, disguised as `research’ into the pockets of
national law enforcement organizations?,” states an online article
published by the LEAA. “?In one year during the Clinton
Administration, the Police Executive Research Forum, the
International Association of Chiefs of Police, the National Sheriffs
Association and the Police Foundation collectively hauled in $4.4
million in Justice Department grants. ?[P]olice groups that scurried
to do Clinton’s bidding happen to be the same ones that were awarded
the lucrative federal grants.”

The same LEAA article notes that many police officers were literally
ordered to support the Brady Bill and the 1994 “Assault Weapons”
Ban. “In some outrageous cases, police officers who actually opposed
the legislation were forced by their superiors to appear in staged
photographs as if they were solidly behind gun control!” charges the
LEAA.

Despite all the payoffs and political arm-twisting, when the National
Association of Chiefs of Police conducted a mail survey of 15,000
sheriffs and police chiefs in 1996, 93 percent said they approved of
law-abiding citizens arming themselves for self-defense.

More and more pro-gun cops are working at the grassroots level in
support of citizen gun rights.

Shortly after the 9-11 attacks, Sheriff John Raichl of Clatsop
County, Oregon proposed recruiting armed citizens to guard docks,
bridges, reservoirs, power stations, gas lines and other potential
terrorist targets. Governor John Kitzhaber shot down Raichl’s plan.

Kennesaw, Georgia and Virgin, Utah passed laws requiring every
household to own at least one gun. “Hundreds of towns and cities are
passing or considering similar ordinances,” claims VirginUtah.com, a
Web site which promotes the town’s unusual gun laws.

Meanwhile, Sarah Brady and Ted Kennedy continue antagonizing police
by opposing Senate bill 253 ? a law that would permit active and
retired cops to carry concealed weapons anywhere in the USA, without
restriction.

Gun-ban activists have made a fatal error by targeting police. They
have laid the groundwork for a grassroots alliance of gun owners and
lawmen ? a coalition that could well tip the scales in favor of our
beleaguered Second Amendment.