BELLEVUE, WA – President Barack Obama may have a receptive audience with the traditionally anti-gun-rights International Association of Chiefs of Police in Chicago, but to get a better grasp on how rank-and-file law enforcement feels about his gun grabbing policies, he should talk to elected sheriffs and street cops, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today.
“The Associated Press indicated yesterday that pushing longer sentences for armed criminals has given way to supporting gun control measures ignored by criminals,” noted CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “But studies have repeatedly indicated that most criminals don’t get their firearms from gun shops, gun shows or even over the Internet, so background checks and other measures offer no deterrent at all to illicit firearms transactions.
“This comes as no real surprise,” he observed, “because the IACP has traditionally backed restrictive gun laws. Their membership is heavily weighted with appointed chiefs from metropolitan areas with liberal, anti-gun mayors and councils.
“The president should try his luck with elected sheriffs, who answer to the public rather than police chiefs beholden to the anti-gun liberals who hire them,” Gottlieb added. “He should also try that gun control message out on rural deputies and street cops, who have overwhelmingly supported the individual right to keep and bear arms and know very well how criminals get guns.
“It is troubling that some American law enforcement officials seem so eager to embrace what amounts to a mirage when it comes to addressing crime and dealing with criminals,” Gottlieb stated. “Ultimately, the task of enforcing unpopular and perhaps even unconstitutional gun laws will fall on their shoulders, and the dedicated rank-and-file officers they are supposed to lead. For them to entertain the president’s notion that eroding the gun rights and privacy of honest citizens will somehow stop the criminal element simply defies common sense.
“You cannot create a solid foundation for public safety and trust by advocating measures that penalize honest citizens while criminals simply ignore new laws as well as old ones,” he concluded.