Midwest Chick's Place

(A.K.A. Non-Original Rants)

–Co-opting good stuff from all over the ‘Net and maybe some original thoughts—ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Perceptions….

I was talking with a friend at work yesterday about the 4th Amendment and my conversation with Sen. Charbonneau.  She is a dyed in the wool, former hippie, Democrat all the way but at the very least she is willing to listen.  The conversation turned to random searches and the violations of police doing no-knock raids at the wrong houses and such and she said “they can do it because they have guns.”  I immediately said, “no, they do it because it’s a power thing.”  She agreed that it was the officers in question, but it started me thinking about power and the perceptions of power. 

A gun is a symbol of power.  Regardless of the capabilities of a particular tool, and make no mistake that a gun is a powerful tool, in many ways it’s the perception about that tool that increases its power over the populace.  Merely putting your hand on a firearm can be considered to be a threat, even if it’s holstered.  That’s why the government would prefer to have the people disarmed.  They cannot assert their power over the citizens of the United States if the people also have that power.  This is one of the reasons that we have the Second Amendment–to make sure that the people have the same capabilities as the police and military–to prevent the oppression of the citizenry.

Midwest Chick's avatar

Posted by:

Midwest Chick

4 responses to “Perceptions….”

  1. Avatar
    Anonymous

    There is some truth to that–at least with some cops and politicians. It's analogous to the emergency lights that volunteer firefighters can put on their vehicles. Use it on the way to the fire, fine, but not for anything else — as our chief said, “The cops really don't like it that we have them at all.”

    Like

    Reply
  2. Avatar
    Anonymous

    Local municipalities have been creating SWAT teams, even in very small towns of less than 10,000 people. These are paid for by DHS funding, are trained in paramilitary tactics, and are then sent to serve search warrants or other duties in which their training is inappropriate (kind of like firefighters using the lights when there's no fire). Anecdotally, it seems that abuses of power have been growing with this trend. Part of it is probably the idea that 'if you have it, you have to use it for something' in order to justify its existence.

    Like

    Reply
  3. Avatar
    Anonymous

    There is some truth to that–at least with some cops and politicians. It's analogous to the emergency lights that volunteer firefighters can put on their vehicles. Use it on the way to the fire, fine, but not for anything else — as our chief said, “The cops really don't like it that we have them at all.”

    Like

    Reply
  4. Avatar
    Anonymous

    Local municipalities have been creating SWAT teams, even in very small towns of less than 10,000 people. These are paid for by DHS funding, are trained in paramilitary tactics, and are then sent to serve search warrants or other duties in which their training is inappropriate (kind of like firefighters using the lights when there's no fire). Anecdotally, it seems that abuses of power have been growing with this trend. Part of it is probably the idea that 'if you have it, you have to use it for something' in order to justify its existence.

    Like

    Reply

Leave a Reply to Anonymous Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *