"Jay P Hailey" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> Sorry, Rob, I have to be an absolutist on this issue. Allowing off-duty or >> retired police officers to carry concealed is not an expansion of the >> "people's" rights. It's an expansion of the govt's authority.
>Arguable snce police officers are presumeably answerable to local and county >authority not federal (A nit pick) As if that weren't "gov't". >Also retired cops don't seem to answer to much of anyone, except perhaps >ntheir spouses, do they? >In any case I agree with you >The underlying feeling is that having been a minion of authority makes one a >safer and less unporedictable carrier of a firearm >Which then carries the hidden assumption that those of us who aren't or >never have been minions of authority are inherently less safe with guns. >-- Maybe I'm a legislator at heart, probably because I've looked at lots of legislation, dealt politically with committees, and am interested in game rules & other technical writing. Anyway, it gives me reason to see such a bit of legislation as a "natural". The status quo is that only certain persons are allowed to possess guns on such gov't property as streets. For reasons that are second nature to everyone here, we seek to allow more people to do more peaceful things. The ostensible presumption of gun carry laws is that many or most people are too dangerous to carry certain weapons, and that other people are not too dangerous to carry them. It seems reasonable to assume that a key criterion in deciding how safe someone is with a gun would be formal training in their use. Therefore one could liberalize some gun laws by allowing people to carry guns if they've had formal training in their use. The question then would arise, how much & what type of training would be sufficient? Legislators could haggle over that for a long time, and wind up delegating part or all of the decision-making to bureaucrats. However, it would seem that all would have to agree that at least the training police receive is sufficient, for to call that into question would be too disturbing. Therefore while details of further liberaliz'n are being worked out, it would seem a reasonable step would be allowing police to carry off duty, and for a certain length of time after retirement. The same could probably be achieved for current & former members of the organized militia and standing armed services. Whether police are ACTUALLY safer in their use of guns is not of major importance here. As long as they are PERCEIVED as such, legislation such as this would have a good chance of passage. Such legislation would also serve as a slight "sweetener" for recruiting for such jobs -- a perk possibly in lieu of a few $ pay. Bounty? Rely, Iris!, Robert in the Bronx _______________________________________________ Libnw mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] List info and subscriber options: http://immosys.com/mailman/listinfo/libnw Archives: http://immosys.com/mailman//pipermail/libnw
