One of the fundamental problems with the idea of gun control is the assumption about who will protect us if we aren’t able to arm ourselves against aggressors.
The usual assumption is that law enforcement is who will protect us.
Of course, that assumes that law enforcement can be everywhere, and it also assumes that law enforcement, by virtue of being law enforcement, is somehow safer than the law abiding private citizen.
Neither of those assumptions are necessarily true, and there is a third assumption that gun control advocates implicitly assume, even if they never say it out loud:
Law enforcement officers are people of better character than the average private citizen, so they are safer to have firearms.
That’s simply not a true idea either, and a recent story out of New York City makes that point clearly. Jill McLaughlin writes,
Former New York Police Department (NYPD) officer Andrew Nguyen was sentenced to 7.5 years in federal prison for taking bribes, helping to operate a narcotics trafficking group, and using an off-duty firearm while transporting drugs, the U.S. Department of Justice in New York announced June 22.
Nguyen, 41, of Harriman, New York, pleaded guilty to the charges on Jan. 29. In addition to the prison term, he was sentenced to three years of supervised release.
The former officer was accused of using his position with the NYPD to solicit and accept tens of thousands of dollars in bribes in exchange for helping another person operate a drug trafficking ring, according to federal prosecutors.
Now, I am not saying that most law enforcement officers are criminals under the badge. That has not been my experience, and I don’t believe that.
What I am saying, though, is that police officers are human beings just like the rest of us, and, therefore, they aren’t, on average, morally superior to the rest of the country.
So, why should we be disarmed and dependent on people who aren’t really that different from the rest of the average people in the country?
The answer? In a sane world, we wouldn’t be disarmed and dependent on anyone. Period.