Gun rights legal expert and activist David Hardy reported Friday that 250 law enforcement officers in Connecticut have signed an open letter stating that they will not enforce the new anti-gun and magazine laws, which they consider to be a violation of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Edit: Just located this: At least one Branford, CT, cop is itching to try to enforce Connecticut’s blatantly unconstitutional gun ban, and has told Cinque that he “cannot wait to get the order to kick your door in.”
Hardy told TheBlaze he is “probably 90 percent sure the story is false, because there doesn’t appear to be a Connecticut Peace Officer association … and the person who sent me the article did not address my question when I asked him if it was a hoax.”
I don’t really like the idea of this. Cops should enforce every law that is on the books without personal prejudice.
There are many exceptions, such as letting the guy with a roach go to get to the big dealer, but I don’t like a world where LEOs pick and choose laws they want to enforce.
Even if those laws are leading to an utter violation of the 4th and 2nd Amendments?
No, I’d much rather have LEOs out there that actually think about what they are doing as well as upholding the Constitution rather than a bunch of automatons that just follow orders that violate the rights of the people they are supposed to protect.
Here’s a good dialogue & to think that he was threatened by another brother in blue (Firefighter / LEO) who said “I can’t wait to kick your door in & confiscate your guns” says it all for me. Yes, I absolutely 100% believe him too.
It has a good message:
What the hell do we have laws for if LEOs get to pick and choose which ones they will enforce? What if the headline read: “250 LEOs refuse to give speeding tickets to registered Democrats” or “250 LEOs refuse to arrest blacks robbing whites for reparation money.”
I get what you’re saying, and “just following orders” while committing heinous acts doesn’t fly with me. But I’d much rather not have the laws be passed in the first place…
There is being on the wrong side of history, and I sincerely HOPE that ours will be the right one… “I was just following orders,” has proven to be an insufficient defense in the case of war. If this is anything less than a war on our rights, I don’t know what is.
What kills me is that many of the people who will blatantly use drugs (particularly marijuana) because they feel the laws are antiquated and unjust, are the ones screaming for these bans…
You’re getting a tad ridiculous there with the examples. So you are saying it’s better they follow what could be a clear violation of the Constitution rather than stand up for what’s right?
Yes, you damn skippy they should be picking and choosing what laws they want to enforce. Because a tyrant won’t care about the Rights or the Constitution if the ones enforcing the law don’t question the motives.
I’m not… There is no constitutional protection for the freedom to drive whatever speed you feel like. There is a constitutional protection against being deprived of property without due process (which robbery lacks). Both of those examples are terrible, and I rarely disagree with Euro, but here we are miles apart,
ETA: P.S. Don’t let the bolded parts fool you into thinking I’m taking anything personal. Just trying to have a discussion with intelligent folks (That even includes you, Magic Salad).
ok Eurodriver, if your state decides to pass a law making it a felony to openly criticize government officials and that law gets enforced when you write on facebook that your state elected official is an asshole. Do you support your police when they drag your ass to jail?
Our Constitution clearly states we have freedom of speech does it not?
I am a police officer and believe the laws passed by Connecticut are a violation of our second amendment rights. I would not enforce those laws. We have enough gun laws on the books that can be enforced. This is agenda driven and an attempt by the left to disarm Americans.
I can agree with the Constitutional implications, but the fact the CT or even CO laws haven’t seen the courtroom yet means the laws are extremely questionable right now. And until a hearing is completed, the laws might be “law” but are they legal?
The FOPA forbids government agencies from keeping a database of firearms registrations. And the verbiage includes “States” in 18 USC SS 926. So in effect, CT enacting any type of registration of any particular kind firearms is illegal.
ETA: I wasn’t attempting to make this personal either. The CT laws have been annoying me since they got passed even though I don’t live there. They do nothing more than embolden those that can’t wait to strip more basic civil rights from the people for their own gain.
Of course I wouldn’t be cool with the police carting me off to jail, and I hope I’ve made it clear that I believe the laws in CT to be a violation of our rights.
I just feel the people should work to elect representatives that will change the law, rather than LEOs picking and choosing what they get to enforce based on what they “believe” is a violation of the Constitution.
LEOs can pick and choose already. It’s already left up to their discretion to give a citation at a traffic stop, or just a written warning, or even just a verbal warning. You can do that with a lot of crimes. An example that I was given once was if, say, you stop a guy for a traffic violation. You find out that he has an outstanding warrant for an unpaid fine years ago. You inform him and he says that he thought he had already paid it and everything was taken care of. You also find out that he’s a recovered drug addict who has been clean for a year and has been working a steady job. However, due to his history, if he gets arrested for anything, he’s fired. So, what should you do? Do you say the law is the law and it leaves no room for mercy, and arrest him? Or, do you give him a summons, tell him to be in court at eight tomorrow morning to clear this up, or he’ll have a failure to appear warrant, but for now, here’s a warning for the traffic violation, have a good night? Perhaps you could, and maybe, by the letter of the law, should arrest him, but if you do, he loses his job, maybe he gets depressed, goes back to old “friends” and falls back into using again. Now he goes from being a productive member of society to a drain on the system.
In the same way, what does a police officer do to help society by taking law abiding citizens who were not causing any unrest or violence in the community, raiding their homes, throwing them into prison, breaking up their family, and taking away all ability to do just about anything above minimum wage work ever again?
Also, this isn’t an issue of whether or not a cop arrests a guy for pot because he doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with it, or decides not to ticket his favorite group of people as a whole, but cites everyone else. This is an issue of LEOs refusing to do what they believe is illegal and, to my knowledge, there is no mandatory arrest statute for this law (yet), so they have the right to say that they won’t choose to arrest people who they find to be in violation of this law.
I don’t know what to say other than that’s the craziest position I have ever heard.
I will say that I took an oath to Defend The Constitution and if my state decides to make a law that violates said Constitution because it is filled with a bunch of ass hats, then I will choose to stand by the oath I made.
