Did you see the story on Thursday's front page about the Wake SWAT team's getting its weapons stolen on the way to a competition? We toyed around with cartoon ideas about the story, but we ended up writing an editorial instead. Here's a rough sketch of one of my cartoon ideas on the story:
I heard that Mayor Bloomberg sent his private eyes down your way to steal those guns just to show the BATF how easy it was to do. You know, the reason that New York City is so awash in gun crime is the fault of easy access to guns in the cars of all your Southern SWAT teams. At least, that's his story this week.
Gun Control and a good time will be had by all!
This is a pretty serious topic.
For years, We The People have been lectured by all the usual activists on the notion-ONLY MILITARY AND POLICE should have firearms.
We have had to watch our tax dollars used to distribute badly designed and in some cases, dangerous FREE (ie taxpaid) gunlocks to the general public.
We have been harangued about the manner in which we acquire, possess, and transport our weapons.
We are routinely threatened with some new restriction
or requirement and yet we look with wonder on our counterparts in Government who are somehow exempt from this entire kerfufle.
And it is these bureaucrats who manage to leave a breadcrumb trail from here to Timbukto with their <gasp!> FULLY AUTOMATIC Weapons!
A Google search will reveal this type incident is not exactly an isolated occurance. Not to mention Chicago Police who were actually caught trafficking in weapons between Chicago and Miami.
I voted for Donnie Harrison, twice, because I believe he runs an above average operation and does his best to build and maintain a completely professional agency.
But this is a serious demerit in his column.
What exactly are the CALEA Standards for the storage and transport of issue weapons and munitions in his department?
Even as we speak (type) there is a push to treat thousands of people guilty until proven innocent as "mentally defective" because of an event at Virginia Tech tailor made by bureaucratic fiat to produce the maxim amount of havoc possible and then with a flip of the coin we find more bureaucrats working overtime to produce even more havoc when they release their official government issue select fire weapons into "the wrong hands".
Heaven forbid these firearms should somehow become c-c-c-crime guns!
Enough already.
This situation would not be as nearly as serious as it is in today's society if we had the kind of reverance for the 2nd Amendment that existed prior to the 1968 Gun Control Act.
Desperados would have to live in fear that they could be outmatched at any moment by ordinary citizens who have both the interest and the time to be
competent in the use of their individual weapons.
Not a widely publicized viewpoint, but one known to many more people than will admit to it. (publicly)
Best regards to all,