How to respond to an anti that says we should “rely on the police” for protection.

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The police are not unreliable. The antis make the assumption that when, under duress in a dangerous situation, you have the time to call 911, explain the situation, and sit tight and wait for help.

In the time it takes to dial 911, you can be shot 10 times. In the time it takes to explain your situation, you can be shot another 30 times. In the time it takes for the closest officer to respond, you will have already been dead.

It takes less than a second for a bullet to leave it's casing. It could take minutes for an officer to get to you.

Police just can't protect everyone. It is their responsibility to protect the public, but I think it's my own responsibility to ensure my safety when the police aren't standing right next to me.
 
The facts are clear. The police generally work hard but they are overextended.

Look at your local newspaper. How many times have the police been able to catch a rapist in the act? How many times have they interrupted a robbery in progress, stopped a home invasion as it occurred, or thwarted a mugger who was about to strike? Such events would be front-page news.

While professional law enforcement and prosecution can discourage and limit crime, it can't prevent a crime. Whether you choose to lock your doors, have a burglar alarm, employ pepper spray, a kubitan, or martial arts, or use a firearm, ultimately your defense and safety is up to you.

Or you can lock yourself in a panic room, cry, and hope the police get there before folks bleed out.

Just my 2 cents.

Chris
 
Point out the inherent fallacy of their argument:

If the cops can prevent crime, then why is there still crime? Show them their favorite U.S. murder statistics and ask why these people are dead if the cops could have saved them?
 
Zen21Tao said:
How to respond to an anti that says we should “rely on the police” for protection.
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Knock the anti to the ground with a large cucumber and take his/her wallet or purse. Then ask him/her if cucumbers should be banned and how good a job the police are doing keeping him/her safe.

Obviously I am just kidding. Never bring a cucumber to a zucchini fight.
 
Don't forget our rural brothers. Here in the Cornhusker State, many folks are 20, 30+ minutes from police help. And that's during the day. I sure wouldn't want to be the deputy dispatched to a violent encounter in the middle of the country, driving down dusty, dirt roads flanked by corn on all sides WHEN IT'S PITCH BLACK OUT.

But it's okay, not THAT MANY people live in rural areas. It's fine if we neglect them and leave them with no means of defending hearth, home, and family. Nothing good ever came out of rural America anyway.
 
Didn't you really just answer your own question?

When I call 911, I need them NOW. Not in 5 minutes, not in 10 minutes, NOW. I'm knee deep in doo doo and I need help. Now lets say this is a home invader. If they're comming directly to the bedrooms, I have only 30 seconds or so before they get to me. Now as an unarmed anti, I call 911 now and hope they come to save me before I'm beaten/stabbed/shot to death.

How long does it take to seriously maim/kill someone? I'm willing to guess a lot faster than it takes for the police to arrive. Time is working against you when you're being attacked. No matter how fast the police are, they can never show up in .00001 seconds. Every second that ticks by before the cops show up is lowering your chances of survival.

Top that off now with the fact that you can be put on hold while calling 911, waiting for the 911 operator to alert officers, waiting for the officers to arrive, and if you live in the country like I do, wait a very LONG time (15 minutes when I called in a large fire).

So if you're willing to wait for someone to save yourself/family fine. Good for you. But in my world, I will do everything possible to protect my family. And that means I don't solely rely on others to save me and my own.
 
Let them know that the Supreme Court has determined that Law Enforcement has "NO LEGAL OBLIGATION" to protect any individual. Then tell them to read, "Warren vs. District of Columbia", "DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services", "Balistreri v. Pacifica Police Department", "Freeman v. Ferguson".

Many states, however, have specifically precluded such claims, barring lawsuits against State or local officials for failure to protect, by enacting statutes such as California's Government Code, Sections 821, 845, and 846 which state, in part: "Neither a public entity or a public employee [may be sued] for failure to provide adequate police protection or service, failure to prevent the commission of crimes and failure to apprehend criminals."

or simply tell them to Google or Yahoo "law enforcement, no legal obligation" and see what they get.

They will disarm you to "protect you" but have no legal obligation to do so and furthermore limit your ability to protect yourself. Even with something other than a gun. Kinves, Nunchuk, brass knuckles, buckle knife, any leaded cane, any zip gun, any shuriken, any unconventional pistol, any lipstick case knife, any cane sword, any shobi-zue, any air gauge knife, any writing pen knife, any metal military practice handgrenade or metal replica handgrenade, or any instrument or weapon of the kind commonly known as a blackjack, slungshot, billy, sandclub, sap, or sandbag, wooden clubs or batons, hard plastic knuckles are al illegal in California.
 
Call 911, yea right. Did that one time but the deputy was too busy to respond until I said "if the sumbatch breaths wrong I'll shoot him" dispatcher asked me how I'd shoot him. "Simple can't miss the 44 mag is up his nose and he's against the wall". I'm sure donuts got dropped some where as the deputy was there moshkosh. Yes, one nostril was plugged the other flared.

I've had anti's give me the same argument, 'why do you need a gun'. I state for my family's defense and my own. You can call 911 but don't bother calling me because you have the same opportunity as me to protect you and yours and chose not to exercise that right. :banghead:
Some people just don't get it but the gene pool keeps expanding inspite of their stupidy, just proves it doesn't take brains to _____ well you know, make kids.
 
Quote: "Remember, when seconds count, the police are only minutes away." Unquote.

I would just add that only some cities with dense police coverage can get a "few minutes" response time.
In cases where Sheriff's Dept state patrol and in many jurisdictions where officers cover huge areas, response might take a half hour or more. Remember, the cop in your area may already be on a call that takes hours. Maybe you will be lucky and the next area's officer can handle the call. Or maybe he will be busy. One thing not commonly known, is that officers who make arrests have to take the arrestee back to jail, fill out reports, and often spend little parts of a shift actually patrolling their area. Half the force or more might be in the jail area doing paperwork. Good luck getting help in that circumstance.

Having worked in law enforcement, it was only a slight exaggeration to call ourselves, "armed secretaries", who mostly fill out reports of crimes that have happened with perps long gone. It is a rare call when an officer is lucky enough to have real criminals wait for him.
Anyone that says we should rely on a responding officer to save our lives is an idiot, probably living in a very low crime area.
 
For the police to be 100% reliable than there would have to be absolutely zero violent crime victims as the police would always be able show up and to save the would-be victims in time.
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To address her argument, I think you could only say that there would have to be zero violent crimes that aren't gun related, as she is attempting to take guns out of the picture. And you got some good examples from the pocket knife, strangling, and cucumber posts to address that.

Maybe address this question with her: What is it about a uniform that suddenly makes the wearer of it trustworthy and competent with a gun? People are people and you don't have to be a cop, soldier, or a security guard to be intelligent, law-abiding, honest, helpful, trustworthy and competent with a firearm. In my opinion, there is room to be concerned that some people may be attracted to those noble careers for less than noble reasons. I'm not saying a lot of people, and I'm sure that most of those that might want to abuse their position as paid gunslingers get weeded out, but I think it is a possibility that they're out there.
 
Cucumber? Are you people out of your gourds? :neener:

I grew up in the middle of corn country. Around us were miles upon miles of corn fields. I knew it was, at best, a twenty minute drive from the county courthouse to our farm. Put eight foot tall corn rows among many square miles of white farm houses and red barns and you try to tell the deputy that has never been to your place how to get there while some knucklehead is stealing your diesel fuel (if you are lucky) or shooting your cattle (if you are not so lucky) or... well you get the idea.

While living on the farm I sometimes wondered what would happen if hooligans tried to do more than steal our ATV (I don't think the culprits were ever caught). We kept the firearms in a kitchen cupboard, far from the second story bedrooms.

We didn't rely on the police. I think Dad might take a shoot first ask questions later policy if anyone tried something that truly threatened us or our property. Not many people live where law enforcement might take HOURS to get to you like I did. Seconds do count. I have to wonder about a backup plan if the phone doesn't work. Perhaps that is another aspect of my upbringing. The phone could go out in even the lightest storm. Sometimes it would happen with a fluke as some farmer was digging where they weren't supposed to.

I don't think it's a matter of calling the police OR pulling out a gun. I'd do both. But that's just me.
 
Sure the police are reliable.

The problem is that they're not right there.

Best police response time in the USA is 3 min I believe.

You will be all sorts of dead and raped in 3 min, not to mention 15-20 min some places.

Or imagine if your phone is dead or broken.
 
this brings up the old argument--"when guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns." Police are human beings, and subject to the inherent fallibilities of being human. I have had cops pull me over and harass the hell out of me for being out and about in the suburbs late at night, and I have had cops protect me from dangerous situations. When it comes to cops, I evaluate each one on a case-by-case basis, but as a whole, when some ******* is sticking up the 7-11 i'm in because he's jonesing for a hit of meth and his sense of logic and reason went out his pipe in smoke about a year and a half ago, i'm inclined to pursue vigilante justice, because the "seconds vs. minutes" argument is the real issue. When some paranoid junkie is going to take the $21 dollars i have on me then shoot me so i can't identify him in the lineup, i'd rather be skulking behind the potato chip display with some equal or greater countermeasures for the benefit of myself and any innocent bystanders...and i'm not talking about Pepper Spray...but that's just my two cents. (although, pepper spray is good for marinating a steak when you're camping and forget the spices)

p.s. with the exponential deterioration of society at large, i'm glad i moved to gun-happy Arizona and don't live in Chicago anymore, where owning a handgun is illegal in city limits...and if it's illegal, that means no one does it, right? (shakes head in disgust) Ask anyone who got raped and robbed at gunpoint on the El train in the last few years. I saw a great piece on the history channel about Chciago in the 1920s...everyone carried guns, so everyone was polite to each other...can't we go back to that? who wants to start a petition?
 
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Simply tell them that when an officer's wife is home alone and someone tries to break in, what does the officer do? He tells her to lock herself in the bathroom with the pistol. He asks her if its loaded and off safe.

[I could post the video, but I haven't made it yet, based on an episode of COPS where the officer finishes up an arrest and then gets a call from his wife where someone is trying to break into the house. When its done, I'll post it.]
 
Howdy, Zen. I'll have to drop by Huffpo again. Last time, I couldn't find Helmke's drivel over there. So, Kelli is still at it.

What cracks me up about Kelli, is that she lives in Chicago, home of the most useless, corrupt police dept. in the country. Not only are LEO's not legally obligated to protect ANYONE, in Chicago, they just aren't around. They're too busy policing the drunken yuppies on Division Street. They are paid under-the -table, by the bar-owners, to do so.

I saw street crimes being comitted in the Gold Coast (a nice section of Chicago) all the time when I lived there. Once, I called 911 to report a crime in progress, at 2PM on a Tuesday. No one answered the phone. I hung up, waited a minute, and tried again. Still, no one answered. I related this story to Kelli, on the Brady Blog, but got no response from her, as usual.

I'll have to pay her a visit on Huffpo. :D

I also appreciate how the gutless Mr. Helmke has foisted his problems (with us) off on the Huffpo's. The man is a supreme coward. :barf:
 
My wife believed that the police were indeed here to protect us individually. The argument went along until I went into the kitchen and got the biggest knife and walked toward her. She asks me what I was going to do with it. I said that I was going to saw her head off with it and see whether the police would stop me. I was right in front of her and asked what there was that'd stop me at that moment. Her response, "Well, when you put it that way..." I think that she had not really thought about it and was very content with the false sense of security that her faith in the system provided her.

She a 'nut now :D
 
This one is a no-brainer.

If the police were capable of protecting you, if they had the means and the wherewithal to protect you, there wouldn't be any crime in this country.

Pure and simple.
 
Zen, it's been great having you with us debunking Bryan Miller on his blog and I hope you'll continue there as well as HuffPo.

I rarely go much further on this line of reasoning than pointing out the court rulings that the police have no responsibility for my safety, nor liability for any failure to respond adequately.

After that, I just point out that they're free to make their own choice, and I wouldn't dream of forcing my opinions on them.

Personally, it wasn't until my first kid was delivered that I started taking my defense seriously. Even more so when she started riding to/from work with me for onsite day care.
 
I like to hand the person my cell phone and show them my pocket knife. I tell them to call 911, I'll wait until they get connected, so they can tell the police anything they feel is important, before I kill them.

Police make reports after the fact. They are rarely there during the fact, unless by chance. If they feel safe thinking the police will protect them, oh well, doom on them.
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Try these two:

Invite the anti-gunner to acquire a beef roast, a butcher knife and a stopwatch.

Have them obtain the average response time for the police in their area.

Then have them start the watch and start stabbing the roast with the butcher knife for the duration of the time it would take the police to intervene.

Have them count the number of times they were able to stab the roast. To account for them running around evading their assailant, divide by three.

Then ask them if they think they could survive that many stab wounds waiting for the police to arrive. My godsister couldn't.

OR

Say to them, "911 is a communications system, not a matter transporter."
 
What cracks me up about Kelli, is that she lives in Chicago, home of the most useless, corrupt police dept. in the country.
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Do a Google search on "Chicago Police" and you're as likely to find crimes COMMITTED by them as investigated by them.

The latest incident was a woman savagely beaten in the back of a squad car by an off-duty cop. She allegedly struck him at a party and another officer offered him a "free shot" at her while she was handcuffed in the back of the cruiser. Her nose was broken in two places and her eye socket broken.

Anybody who expects "protection" from the Chicago PD is either Mayor Daley or insane.
 
We need to avoid citing instances of mass murder. They are too rare to be relevant to the day to day question of individuals using guns to defend themselves and stop crimes of violence. They are glaring examples used by anti's to emphasize the danger to the public of guns.

Let's stick to simple facts.

Do paramedics, firefighters and police officers magically appear when we're in danger in time to stop the threat from appearing?

No?

Does a paramedic, firefighter or police officer pop out of the phone when we call 911?

No?

If they don't then how much time does it take for them to get to you when you call for help? Do we throw out the first aid kits and fire extinguishers on the wishful thinking that fires and injuries won't happen or that the people paid to come help us when those things occur will be there the moment we need them. All in spite of the facts that we all know that we don't expect them to show up instantly. If so then why do we think a police officer will appear in enough time to prevent a criminal from injuring or killing us or our loved ones? Why would we expect a police officer to be there the instant the neighbor's vicious dog attacks a neighborhood/your child?

Danger doesn't schedule appointments. If it did we'd get an appointment notice on our computer/pda/phone telling us it's time to put on your seat belt for the scheduled auto accident.
 
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