Will the Police Protect you?
By Nicki Kenyon, August 18th 2014
JPFO writer contributor, © 2014.
We often hear gun grabbers preach that only the police and military should have guns. After all, it's the police's job to serve and protect, and the military's job to protect this nation against outside aggression. Why should anyone else have guns? The police are there to protect you, right?
Gun rights advocates often cite the District of Columbia Court of Appeals case Warren vs. the District of Columbia to remind their interlocutors that the police have no obligation to protect individuals from violence. Indeed, the court ruled that "...the duty to provide public services is owed to the public at large, and, absent a special relationship between the police and an individual, no specific legal duty exists."
In a way it makes sense. As we always point out, when seconds count, police are minutes away.
The media is replete with stories about unfortunate victims who called 911 and waited only to be raped or killed. Indeed, an entire book has been written on this topic. Carolyn Warren and her friends were viciously robbed, raped and brutalized for fourteen hours– FOURTEEN– while waiting on police, prompting the lawsuit that resulted in the ruling that absolved police of all responsibility regarding individual citizens.
Detroit Police Chief James Craig – the same Chief Craig who recognizes the importance of citizens' right to armed self-defense - suspended two dispatchers last year for failing to dispatch police to a call for more than an hour after a distraught woman called 911. The woman was stabbed to death, and a cruiser did not arrive on the scene for more than 90 minutes.
Another woman's body was discovered in her home by her family TWO DAYS after she called 911 to report that her ex-husband was attacking her! The 911 call captured the woman's screams as he was killing her, but police claim they did a perimeter check, knocked on the door, and no one answered.
A Detroit couple waited SIX HOURS for police to arrive after an attempted home invasion.
And more recently, as hordes of looting savages rampaged through Ferguson, MO after the shooting of Michael Brown, store owners took responsibility for their lives and property into their own hands – with those AR-15 rifles that Judge Catherine Blake claimed were not used for legitimate self defense.
And yet, hoplophobes, who fear not only what they refer to as the "killing machine" called the gun, but its availability to the average citizen, insist that you should rely on police to protect you rather than take responsibility for your own safety and that of your loved ones.
They claim we live in fear of constantly being attacked.
They claim police are more professional and better trained to handle firearms, so regular citizens don't have to. Well, we know how well that plays out!
Frankly, the Warren vs. DC decision makes sense. It is just not possible for police to protect every single person. It is not reasonable to expect them to do so. If it was, every one of us would be paying for personal body guards to watch over us around the clock.
Each and every one of us has the duty and responsibility to defend life, liberty and property in the absence of law enforcement. The store owners in Ferguson learned that lesson well. The thousands of people who defend themselves from violence every year using firearms know this.
And while you hope you never have to find it out first-hand, it's smart to understand the lessons of others and not just know how to effectively defend yourself, but also work to protect that right for others.
Nicki Kenyon has been an avid gun rights advocate since she returned to the United States from an overseas Army tour in Germany. She began writing about Second Amendment issues in 2001 when KeepAndBearArms.com published her first essay, "The Moment.". She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in International Relations from the Johns Hopkins University and a Master of Arts degree in National Security Studies from American Military University. Her area of expertise in those fields is European and Eurasian affairs. When not writing about gun rights or hanging out with her husband and son, she practices dry-firing her M1911 at the zombies of "The Walking Dead." Nicki Kenyon's Archive Page.
