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As Emily Miller chronicled, it’s nigh on impossible for an average citizen to receive the District of Columbia’s permission to carry a firearm. DC cops, of course, are routinely issued guns for their own and the public’s safety. As they should be. But it’s worth noting . . .

That reserving the right to keep and bear arms for government officials has a tendency to encourage corruption.

Now I’m not saying that the 15-year-old prostitute who serviced DC Cop Chukwuemeka Ekwonna — and then faced the business end of his handgun and a demand to return payment — wouldn’t have suffered the same fate if DC residents had their gun rights restored.

Officer Ekwonna is an irresponsible gun owner, cop and human being. He would not have been deterred by the notion that his victim might have been armed. Which she might have been regardless of her age and local gun laws. Perhaps justifiably.

But I am saying that gun control creates a culture of arrogance amongst big city police in those municipalities where civilians are denied their firearms freedom.

I have no scientific evidence to back up that conclusion. But as someone who’s lived in numerous pro and anti-gun rights cities, I see a link. If nothing else, common sense says that the expression “an armed society is a polite society” encompasses police – public interaction.

It’s the responsible position, yes?

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36 COMMENTS

  1. That name. He had to be a bad guy.

    And once again I argue that criminal is different from irresponsible use. Unless you’re saying that it was an accident or negligence that caused him to draw and point at the girl.

  2. Corellation not causation Big cities with restrictive gun laws tend to have significant gang problems with large areas that resemble war zones. Mutual distrust and contempt abound.

  3. If Chewinggum Kukaburra was a member of More Equal Pigs Demand Excellent Sexual Service (MEPDESS) then it might not have occured to him that it was improper to use his gun to get his money back. Plus, he might have been zipping up and making small talk when his bigly cop skills helped him deduce that the lady giving sub-standard service was only 15, and there was no way he was paying too dollar for 2nd string up and comers.

    NO > = PIGS !

  4. Well, there is no doubt that police misconduct is a good bit worse than the same act being committed by a member of the public, but, still, I’m waiting for an IGOTD for the negligent discharge which occurred at the NRA range.

  5. I don’t get the entire thing
    Was he unhappy with the services rendered?
    Did he really think he was going to get away with stealing the money back?

      • Steve,
        Anyone who has a job failure involving child sex abuse, unlawful use of a firearm, and theft should indeed do as Alan said.

        He made a statement about this situation, not a generalization about any job failure. Come on…

  6. Well, when The Stanford Prison Experiment is a how to manual, not a cautionary tale, you’re not so much in a republic as something else.

    Some animals are more equal than others … and this is what happens. (Correlation or causality; why not a bit of both?)

  7. The simple fact that police (and you in the text of the article) refer to citizens as “civilians” is a way to separate police from those the are charged to protect and serve. They are not in the military, they are CIVILIAN law enforcement. Having served in the military for 28 years, it always irritates me when when civilian police refer to non-police as civilians. Grumpy old man syndrome perhaps.

    • We’ve been over this loudly and often around here. And people still can’t seem to get it through their heads.

      Which makes your well worded post relevant all over again.

    • Military fights war on the battlefields, which includes villages and cities. Law Enforcement is fighting a war against a different enemy on the streets of America. If you don’t think it is a war, try it for yourself. That’s my observation from a career in both, and includes Vietnam. The difference is that in combat, the military expects everyone to be out to kill them. Law Enforcement does not expect their fellow Americans to be out to kill them.

      People seem to forget that a large portion of Law Enforcement is composed of veterans of military service. People who took the same oath of service twice. People who are treated differently because of their jobs. In war, the people of the nation where soldiers serve are generally resentful of the foreigners who are imposing their will upon the “civilians”. In Law Enforcement, your fellow citizens are the ones who treat you differently and with resentment. There is definitely a difference between cops/military, and civilians. for any veteran not to recognize this is insulting.

      How many times are cops confronted by people who resent them because of what they heard from some friend who said he was treated badly, yet the one now in contact has never experienced it for himself. Yet they go off on the cop and throw attitude into what might have been a very simple contact.

      In war, as I said, we expected that everyone out there old enough to use a weapon, was out to harm us. That alertness kept us alive. Cops deal with drug users who are out of control, hookers who very often possess a razor blade, straight razor, etc (far more often that a gun), yet the “civilians” expected to be treated as if they were the social elite like the Clintons. The world of law enforcement is NOT “Mayberry RFD”. There is no difference between a cop talking about making sure he/she gets home alive, than a non-cop saying the same thing. The difference is that the cop openly says it. Every one here says the same thing no matter what profession they are in. I can not believe that anyone here says it’s OK if they don’t.

      • Well, its NOT a war…Your NOT in a DMZ! Since there are quite few out p/o’s out there that have forgotten about our US Constitutional-Bill of Rights.Paramilitarizied Police and the 2nd Amendment are incompatible with each other…As well as Law enforcement community “Job Entitlements”. Such as some how attaining more “rights and civil liberties” than their fellow citizens…Or different standards of treatment when it comes to the citizenry vs The Thin Blue Line…Especially when it comes down to frequent infringements of civil rights….I believe it’s time for Full independent Civilian review boards on a national level, and a complete ban of all police unions…This will weed out the barrel of bad apples…A change in police academy training to eliminate all this “Israeli style police commando” stuff. And really bring back “Officer Friend” so their not frightening the citizenry, and the senior citizens….

    • Word challenge accepted!

      “civilian – noun
      1. a person not in the armed services or the police force.”

      That’s the google definition, but comports with several other sources.

      It’s traditional in word challenge for the other player to come back with a definition from a different source if they can.

      • From vocabulary.com

        *The most common meaning for civilian is simply someone who is not in the military.
        …”

        Note also that the wikithing definition goes on to mention the u s military code that *includes* non-military law enforcement as civilians … in the same paragraph quoted.

        Note finally that a current reference encoding a modern migration of use is exactly the point. “Civilian” police power is explicitly distinct from the military in U S. That people are ever more commonly conflating the two illustrates the problem, rather than justifying it.

        • You did a great job on word challenge. We now know more about the word civilian, and that is the whole point of the game.

          I’d say at this point, there is enough evidence on this word’s usage to legitimately disagree as to what the proper definition of civilian is. My point is that while Desertdug08 and Swarf speak as if the issue is inarguably settled, it’s not.

          Languages change over time as demonstrated by the vocabulary.com information that the term used to mean something like judge or expert in the civil law, then came to mean non-military personnel. Now it is commonly defined, by reputable sources, to mean not military, police, and sometimes even firefighters. (Not that dictionaries and such are determinative on the issue). Under the oldest definition we have, just about the only people in America that are civilians are in the Louisiana legal community because they have the civil law. Everywhere else in America, as far as I know, we operate under the common law, not the civil law.

          And if someone wants to argue that the English language doesn’t change over time, then answer me this: What does “well-regulated” mean?

          Just to be clear, I didn’t quote the wikithing paragraph. I quoted the googlething definition. I looked at the wikithing result without clicking it.

  8. Maybe the article should be re-titled…

    “COPS, CARVE-OUTs, Police and Political Corruption : The Path to Authoritarianism !!!”

  9. DC cops? Reminds me of the DC cop captain or major that once activated for infantry advisor Duty in Iraq refused to leave the fob on patrol and advisor duty because he was a coward. He was allowed to sit on his butt for a year with no repercussions. Obviously he was much more attuned to lording it over “civilians” on home turf then doing his duty in the army reserve. He was also an affirmative action placement. Is there any other in DC?

  10. I’m thinking you can find plenty of police corruption in pro-gun states. Including those with small towns and nebulous hiring practices.

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