“Boston Mayor Marty Walsh says he disagrees with city police unions that officers need long guns,” boston.com reports, “and he was taken aback by the unions’ demands for new equipment.” Wait. What? I thought one of the main reasons Massachusetts instituted an “assault weapons” ban — and widened it via the Attorney General’s lightning-like fiat — was to make sure cops weren’t out-gunned. I guess Mr. Walsh didn’t get the civilian disarmament memo.
Not according to this . . .
Walsh said on Friday that “there’s absolutely no need” for officers to have long guns . . .
Leaders of community groups including the Boston NAACP say officers need to be safe, but they worry that having long military-style guns would harm community policing efforts and increase tensions.
Surely they mean that officers shouldn’t carry long guns, right? Right!
“There is absolutely no need for a long gun to be walked around the streets of Boston,” Walsh said on Friday. “But you need to have it available in the case of a sniper situation or hostage situation or something like that where they are effective.”
While I oppose police militarization, I reckon there are times and places where cops need to be carrying rifles, to protect themselves and the public. And if We the People have a right to keep and bear arms without regard to weapon type — which we do — don’t cops have that same right?
It’s a question of appropriate availability and guidelines for the rifles’ use. Besides, an officer or two carrying a slinged rifle/braced AR-style pistol isn’t the same as a SWAT team in full-on combat gear, is it?