🚀 go-pugleaf

Hello Jeff.

>> You write: "Why?  Ordinary cops can keep their jobs regardless of
political views.  Police chiefs can't, as they serve at the pleasure of
their mayors.  Now, if you could show a large group of anti-gun police
chiefs working under pro-gun mayors (or
pro-gun police chiefs working under anti-gun mayors, for that matter), that
would be quite interesting, but the smart money says you can't.  Either they
kiss up to the boss, or the boss hand-picks the ones who happen to agree
with the boss already."

Absolutely. The Chief of Police is no longer a working law enforcement
officer in the classical sense; he is very much a politician and a
bureaucrat. You will very rarely see a police chief of a major city involved
at any particular crime scene just as you will almost never see the fire
chief at a working incident. They only become involve at such scenes when
public relations and/or politics makes it expedient. Instead of being
directly involved in law enforcement, the chief of police is involved with
policy making which is invariably the policies dictated to him by the mayor,
safety services director, commissioner, or all three. The chief of police
has two major sources of great influence as to what he will claim in public
as to his views on CCW. The first is the mayor's office (and/or city
council) and the second is any union affiliation he belongs to. Unions are
invariably part of the Democratic Party establishment, and thus beholden to
them. It necessarily follows that as union members, they march in lockstep
with the Democratic Party views concerning CCW. For this reason the
International Association of Chiefs of Police and the Fraternal Order of
Police (FOP) are invariably in agreement when it comes to public
pronouncements concerning CCW; they are completely against it.

Please keep in mind that union and association public pronouncements are
always orchastrated and do not at all reflect true opinion of the
membership. Thus, when the International or FOP decry CCW, it doesn't mean a
thing - except to the media and politicians. In essence, quoting the opinion
of the International or FOP is but deception.

What *is* refreshing is when a pro-gun Chief of Police is quoted by the
media, whereas the media was not expecting the response. I was delighted to
see such a news broadcast when a suburban police chief was interviewed after
a recent shooting. He plainly stated that CCW would have very likely put an
end to the incident while it was in progress and stated that citizens should
carry so as to protect themselves and their community. Totally refreshing!

My state does not have CCW and the recently elected Republican governor
vetoed a passed CCW bill. It was a very odd debate. The spokesman for the
FOP presented all of the expected duplicitous and erroneous rhetoric on a
radio news program while a state law enforcement policy lobbyist easily
refuted it. However, the FOP and International has considerably more
political clout than a mere lobbyist, so the governor sided with those who
better keep him in office. The people did not matter. The "fun" will begin
in a few months because the state capital police department faces a federal
consent decree, whereas if enforced, police officers will take a "hands-off"
stance with respect to arresting suspects (less they face departmental
discipline because of complaints issued by arrested suspects). The crooks
will have carte blanche. What a cluster ...

Cordially,

George T. Kramer

"Don't Tread On Me!"