Under orders from government officials, many local jails and state prisons across America are sending bad guys — allegedly non-violent offenders — out into the community and not arresting some criminals. And all too often, so-called “progressive” politicians are working to simultaneously stop firearm and ammo sales to good guys amid the Chinese coronavirus emergency.
What could possibly go wrong with this soft-on-crime scheme?
Take Los Angeles, for example. The LA County Sheriff, someone who never misses a chance to appear in front of TV cameras, has done just this in recent days. The NRA-ILA has the story.
Los Angeles Sheriff Works to Empty Jails While Disparaging Second Amendment Rights
Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva has an unorthodox plan for ensuring public safety during the COVID-19 pandemic: free imprisoned inmates, look the other way on crime, and try to suppress law-abiding citizens from exercising their Second Amendment rights.
We all know we are supposed to vigorously wash our hands to prevent the spread of coronavirus. We didn’t know, however, that lawmen were supposed to wash their hands of vigorously enforcing the law.
Nevertheless, the U.K. Daily Mail reports that with the urging of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California (not known for its public health expertise), Villanueva has released over 600 inmates, including those with less than 30 days left to serve on their sentences. The article also states that the daily number of arrests across Los Angeles County has in the same period dropped some 80%.
While arrests may have declined 80%, you can bet that California’s politicians haven’t reformed the state’s criminals. Far from it.
Even worse, from the Daily Mail story, the Legal Aid Society in New York City urges police to stop making arrests altogether.
Legal Aid Society’s Tina Luongo said: ‘City Hall must place an immediate moratorium on arrests, and for the hundreds of clients we have languishing in DOC custody pretrial or because of a parole violation, we call for their immediate release.’
Maybe if Tina’s clients behaved themselves, they wouldn’t “languish” in jail.
Meanwhile, back in the Golden State, the LA County Sheriff counsels against buying a gun for self-defense. Especially with people suffering from cabin fever.
You might think that with the department’s reduced enforcement efforts, Sheriff Villanueva would understand and support the public’s desire to provide for its own safety during the extraordinary emergency posed by COVID-19. Indeed, other media reports indicate that scores of Californians are buying firearms for the first time as a safeguard against the fast-developing crisis, with lines outside one Los Angeles County gun store having recently stretched down the block.
You would, however, be wrong.
During the same press conference in which he announced the steps to reduce his jail population, Villanueva told the assembled media, “Buying guns is a bad idea.” Incredibly, his rationale for this statement was that “you have a lot of people now that are at home” because of efforts to combat the pandemic, which supposedly makes them susceptible to “cabin fever.”
If a little cabin fever makes Sheriff Villaneuva want to shoot his family members, maybe someone should file for one of California’s Red Flag orders against him. Or maybe the Sheriff should hang out with different family members.
Plenty of Americans in free states have ignored the anti-self-defense messaging from gun-hating politicians and civilian disarmament advocates. Instead, they have voted with their wallets to secure guns and ammunition to defend their homes and families in these uncertain times.