“Anyone who values freedom should be sickened to see a U.S. citizen summarily shot by her own government on the streets of an American city,” said Kris Brown, president of the Brady Bunch. “And, in a country governed by the rule of law as the United States claims to be, citizens and noncitizens alike have the right to due process and freedom from wanton, arbitrary, and lethal violence. We can and must do more to end police and law enforcement violence that too often leads to tragedies like today and provide accountability when agents act unlawfully.”
Brown’s statement came just hours after the January 7 incident, when the investigation had barely begun. This is SOP for gun control: In the world of 21st-century sound-bite journalism, ‘fast’ beats ‘facts’ every time.
Grady Judd, the outspoken sheriff of Polk County, Florida, provided a somewhat less ‘nuanced’ but far more honest assessment of the incident in the context of a legitimate use of deadly force. Given Judd’s 53 years of law enforcement experience, including his more than two decades as the longest-serving sheriff in Polk County history, I’d be inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.
It’s worth noting that Sheriff Judd’s comments were made two days after the first shooting.
On January 24, ICE agents were involved in a confrontation with a legally armed protester. A skirmish ensued, and it appears two agents fired their weapons, killing the protester.
It’s been three weeks since the first incident; and days since the second. It’s too short a time for resolution. This is especially true for high-profile, politically charged, officer-involved shootings.
However, it’s a perfect time to examine ‘police violence’, another gun-grabber construct to crank up hype and hysteria — and generate views. Social media’s kangaroo court is in session.
According to the Brady Bunch, Dante Barry, a New Jersey-based organizer/social-justice warrior, introduced the term ‘police violence’ in response to the deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd in 2020. The Brady Bunch and their fellow travelers added police violence to their bags of bogus bogeymen in 2021.
What is ‘police violence’? Stripped down to its basics, gun control fans are playing the race card. They’re adding it to a hand of well-worn cards they’ve played again and again, such as demanding gun owners take responsibility for mass shootings simply because they own firearms. It’s all part of the gun-grabbers’ time-tested strategy of imbuing firearms with mythical powers capable of seducing compliant sheeple and transforming them into dangerous gun owners.
In the case of law, police officers, who generally support citizens’ gun rights, the real target audience is easily influenced mayors and city council members. Police chiefs are hired by those same mayors and city council members and are well aware that defiance seldom has a happy ending.
According to the Brady Bunch’s web page, “The senseless and brutal murders of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd brought millions of Americans of all backgrounds and races to the streets demanding justice and reigniting the national debate on policing, public safety, and racial justice.”
[Considering the $2 billion in economic damages and the 93% jump in the number of homicides in the second half of 2020 compared to the first six months, it’s obvious that at least some of those millions of Americans were engaged in other activities.]
Looking over their wish list, virtually unchanged since 2021, it is clear the Brady Bunch knows absolutely nothing about the realities of law enforcement. According to an article posted in January 2021 by Dr. John Lott of the Crime Prevention Research Center, the other leading gun control addicts are equally clueless.
‘Clueless’ has consequences. Seattle, Washington, is a good example.
Seattle’s Democrat-Left municipal government embraced the “police violence” meme with predictable results. Since 2020, resignations and retirements have left the Seattle Police Department with a critical shortage of officers. The loss of so many experienced officers also means the city will spend years regaining the competence and service levels residents could expect before the city government capitulated to the mob.
The equally blue cities of Chicago, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York, Philadelphia, Portland, and San Francisco followed similar paths in 2020 and 2021. All of them saw similar results.*
There’s a dirty little secret about “Police Violence,” and it highlights the gun-grabbers’ stupidity: Fewer officers on the streets means fewer officers to respond to calls, resulting in longer response times even for priority calls in life-threatening emergencies. Society is less safe.
On the other hand, it might inspire more Americans to become first-time gun owners.
*In April 2023, the Police Executive Research Forum published a summary of turnover, recruitment, and officer shortages in U.S. law enforcement agencies. It’s worth a look.
All data sourced from FBI and Bureau of Justice Statistics reports.
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About Bill Cawthon
Bill Cawthon first became a gun owner 55 years ago. He has been an active advocate for Americans’ civil liberties for more than a decade. He is the information director for the Second Amendment Society of Texas.
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