Conversion attempt fails

[BADSBSNF81]

"Since 1934, only one legally owned machine gun has ever been used in crime, and that was a murder committed by a law enforcement officer (as opposed to a civilian). On September 15th, 1988, a 13-year veteran of the Dayton, Ohio police department, Patrolman Roger Waller, then 32, used his fully automatic MAC-11 .380 caliber submachine gun to kill a police informant, 52-year-old Lawrence Hileman. Patrolman Waller pleaded guilty in 1990, and he and an accomplice were sentenced to 18 years in prison. The 1986 'ban' on sales of new machine guns does not apply to purchases by law enforcement or government agencies. "

The above can be interpreted to mean that the MAC 11 was either department owned, or purchased by the officer with the department's permission to be used in the course of his duties as a police officer. If so, then it was not owned by a civilian. In that case, we now have two instances of machine guns owned by police departments used to commit a crime.

If he bought it for his own use, and it was registered in his name, then we have one legally registered machine gun used by a police officer to commit a crime. A subtle, yet , important difference.

 

[jimpeel]

Here is a bit of thinking to impart to your Socialist friend.

Your friend wants to ban all guns in private hands. He/she wants the police to be the only ones to have them. Would those be the same police that kicked in the wrong door and caused a 70 year old minister to have a heart attack and die?

That caused the deaths of 20 children at Waco, TX for their own protection?

That shot a mother holding a 10 month old baby after the rules of engagement were illegally changed?

That have regularly shaken down black motorists on Hwy. 95 in Florida?

That went on a drunken rampage in Los Angeles firing their weapons at signs, street lights, and a California Highway Patrolman?

That broke into the home of Donald Scott in Malibu, CA and shot him to death in a botched seizure raid that netted nothing but the death of Mr. Scott?

That fled from the scene of the Los Angeles riots leaving the people to fend for themselves with privately held firearms?

Are these the same police who played a starring role in the corruption investigations of the Knapp, Mollen, and Christopher Commissions?

Would these be the same police that have been turned into bounty hunters by the seizure and forfeiture laws?

The same police that have had seizures projected into their budgets so moneys can be supplanted elsewhere thereby forcing officers to seek out the funds through seizures to make up the shortfall?

Or perhaps the type of police who testified in the Whitey Bulger and Stephen Flemmi trial in Boston who took gifts and payoffs and allowed murders and other criminal activities to occur and go unpunished?

In ‘The Development of the American Police: An Historical Overview’, Craig Uchida notes that "If there is a common theme that can be used to characterize the police in the 19th Century, it is the large-scale corruption that occurred in most police departments across the United States" (Uchida, 1993).

In ‘Forces of Deviance: Understanding the Dark Side of Policing’, Kappeler, Sluder, and Alpert point out that corruption among police is not new or peculiar to the late 20th century. "To study the history of police is to study police deviance, corruption and misconduct." (Kappeler et al., 1994.)

These are the people that your friend wants to be the only armed people in America. He/she ignores the fact that those who hold a monopoly on guns will also hold a monopoly on gun violence. He/she has but to answer one simple question: Who will protect us from those who protect us?