Not WLS related but what is wrong with this thinking?

Author Archive Send to a Friend Print Version   October 22, 2009 4:00 AM Be a Good Victim Under current law, the Second Amendment ends at your front door. By David Rittgers In August, a man shot two people to death on a bridge near San Francisco. At the moment of the killings, two on-duty Marin County sheriff’s deputies were within 100 yards of the shooter. One was close enough to see the muzzle blast of the shotgun. The police officers, however, did not move against the culprit. One, stuck in traffic, called in a description of the killer’s vehicle as he fled. The other positioned her car to prevent traffic from entering the crime scene. These two law-enforcement officers did what police officers tell the public to do: Don’t intervene. Get a description of the offender. Call the police. Be a good witness. Much debate ensued about whether the officers’ behavior was appropriate, but the real tragedy is that the victims of this rampage did not have the legal opportunity to arm themselves. To them, the message was clear: Be a good victim.

Am I missing something here? If the police don't and won't intervene when someone is being gunned down, who is suppose to do it?

Something tells me there's something missing from the story.

The rest of the article, the author used to spread the NRA line against gun control, so I did not include it since I see the question of why the police did not try to save these people as a greater issue. In fact the article later blasts the chief of police as having praised the actions of these police who did nothing while watching a murder in process.

Nick, this is a no brainer.  Its San Fran enough said.  Fly swatters and mouse traps are aganthe law

That is why I live in Texas.

Didn't Texas just pass a law that makes it a crime to be mean to a Texan on line? I want to go on record as saying that I love Texas and most everything Texan. Especially Beef and Oil.

 Nick   are you sure this isn't some kind of online hoax?    Did you check it out with www.snopes.com? 

 There would absolutely be no reason for an officer not to fire at that close of range to defend the lives of others ..   That is well withn "self defense" law doctrine ..    The only reason I could think that they wouldn't, given they had the opportunity to do so, was that they were afraid of the victims or other bystanders getting hit should they miss .. 

I got this while reading the NRA website and I did not want to use this forum to advance any of my views on gun control in posting this since I see the issue of the police doing nothing as a greater issue here. I doubt that this link on the NRA sight, to the newspaper article is a hoax. It seems to be a real story. I did wonder about possible bias reporting of it in this article, but looking into it further I have found two other articles about this occurrence and they explain it in better detail. Seems the one cop was in traffic and couldn't or wouldn't get out of his squad car, being that close, to respond, (he preferred to radio in a description of the murder and describe the get away); and the other felt it her duty to block of traffic to preserve the investigation scene instead of trying to prevent anything. Seems that both officers were armed and within 50 yards of this. The sheriff is defending his officers lack of response claiming that other cars may have been shot at by the perp. The guy was already shooting! Lets see, this guy had a shot gun and already fired 3 or 4 rounds, of his 5 shot max shotgun, and the cops with their Glocks and 22 round clips might only have had 44 rounds between them so I can now see where the danger to the public comes from in that logic, if county deputies are blind and can't aim. The cops didn't even make an effort to follow this guy. They jus****ched him walk to an airport limo and leave. Seems that the local police are just livid over this and at odds with the county sheriff over the lack of response from the county sheriff deputies on the scene. Heck of a fine way to serve and protect! This county needs Dirty Harry to run for sheriff! I hope that Clint Eastwood reads OH.

That is why I will fight the right to bear arms till I die. That is one reason I love the state of Indiana. I took a application filled it out. Took it to the police station and about 1-2 months later I got my concealed weapons permit. Not to much hoopla.

Assuming the story is correct, the deputies' inaction smacks of cowardice and/or incompetence and they should be punished.  Police work is not for the faint of heart, which is why many counties and municipalities require newbies to spend some time doing guard duty in jails and prisons.  If the story is true I hope these deputies lose their badges.

But it's bootstrapping to say that the victims died because they couldn't arm themselves.  You can't take an incident here and there and conclude that police nationwide are failing in their duty, justifying a mass private arms race.

I respect that you don't want to get into a gun control debate here, Nick, but do you really want the Wild West?  Every man for himself with a sixgun?  That's what the author of the article wants, but it ain't a world I want to live in.  Nobody at the NRA wants to admit that many weapons used in crimes are stolen, borrowed, or purchased offline from legitimate owners.  For this reason alone, there is a legitimate public safety interest in keeping tabs on gun owners and transactions.  I'm not in favor of a total gun ban (it is culturally, politically, and practically impossible anyway), and I shoot occasionally for fun.  I have no problem with the current gun laws, but the NRA takes everything to an extreme.  AFAIK, most murder vicitms know their killers -- universal gun ownership certainly won't fix that.