“The law didn’t protect my daughter.” – Don Slutzky in Ex-cop never charged after threatening to kill former girlfriend. Then he did. [via charlotteobserver.com]
“The law didn’t protect my daughter.” – Don Slutzky in Ex-cop never charged after threatening to kill former girlfriend. Then he did. [via charlotteobserver.com]
Laws don’t protect anyone. The fear of death is what protects people.
“An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when you may have to back up your actions with your life.” – Robert A. Heinlein, “Beyond This Horizon”
Laws set guildlines for punishments after the fact. Most people fear those punishments and so don’t commit the crime. In those cases, the laws are indeed effective.
However, for anyone who don’t fear the punishment, or thinks they can get away with the crime, the law means far far less than their mark being armed.
See quote above. This is why an armed society is polite – the Bad Guys fear being summarily punished, with prejudice, by an armed victim who is not going to take their shit or wait around while they get a slick defense lawyer with no ethics to plead their case down to a misdemeanor.
The function of a law is not to protect, but rather to define behavior. Usually, laws define any given behavior being addressed as bad (unacceptable to the people). The law is usually crafted so that there is no confusion as to exactly what behavior is being addressed. Then, the law will also prescribe a punishment to be levied after convistion in a court of law. This is a paraphrase from:
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/law
Nowhere in there is there anything about protection.
It is unfortunate that the state (whether local, state or federal) can’t provide protection to the people, and indeed aren’t required to, as determined by the supreme court:
http://tribunist.com/news/supreme-court-ruling-police-have-no-duty-to-protect-the-general-public/
Protection, thus, is left to the individual.
Laws say what one may and / or may not (depending on the state) do, and then a penalty for doing / not doing whatever that was. They’re reactionary, in that they can’t preempt anything ahead of time; and they’re limited in scope to people who choose to obey them.
So, yeah, the law can’t protect you. It can only prescribe penalties for what happens to the person who injured you, after that injury has been accomplished.
I’m very sorry this gentleman had to lose his daughter in order to understand this.
It’s important to understand that the police have been protected from liability for failing, not to successfully protecting someone, but from not bothering to try in the first place.
I’m referring to two instances from Colorado. One a woman had a restraining order, the subject of which violated it and nothing was done by police. The other, Colorado passed a law requiring the police to at least look into restraining order violations was overturned by the supreme court.
Very important to understand that the law cannot protect you, and the law is not obligated to use its resources to protect you in particular, and will be protected if it hangs you out to dry.
If I’m not misaken, once he was involuntarily committed, he became a prohibited person. Could the police dept be liable for providing the firearms back to him?
If you want to increase the number of departments that never return firearms to their rightful owners without having a judge order them to do it from “too many” to “every police department in the country”, then file a “wrongful returning of personal property to its owner” suit.
It’s not just as simple as “the law not protecting” someone. I suspect most murderers, like most criminals, expect to get away with their crimes. Yet, look at the amount of homicides in Chiraq that don’t even have a suspect. There is a tipping point where criminals become emboldened by the likely possibility of never being caught and increase the frequency and heinousness of their acts.
It is not that they will never be caught. It is that the “law” won’t catch them.
Why do you think there are so many shootings, in Chicago a subset of Citizens to who. The advantages of being Citizens has been denied. For whom the law as made.without them are.making and Enforcing their own laws. And Warring amongst this separate law givers, as well.
I’m sad for this family but why is it even mentioned that the suspect was a cop 25 years ago for a few years? Are they alluding that he got to keep his guns because the on-duty cops let him? I retired from law enforcent 4 years ago and I don’t know anyone currently working for the department anymore and they certainly don’t know me. Furthermore, due to the amount of scrutiny the police receive “professional courtesy” is a thing of the past.
The failing here is again the mental health system. This guy is a lot like the ones in Aurora and at Virginia Tech in that he had been involuntarily committed and they let him out. Women especially should get CHP’s and have a handgun ready.
Regardless of what laws exist or do not exist, a determined stalker is probably going to succeed … and the determined stalker does NOT need a firearm to succeed easily.
CHEEKI BREEKI
To be clear, Don Slutzky wants more stupid laws, not fewer.
The only way you can be truly protected from someone by the state is if that person is remanded to a secure facility. Even then, the protection is not foolproof and eventually that person will likely be released at some point.
One fallacy of the anti-gun argument then is the idea that since the state has a responsibility to protect us, we have no need or responsibility to be able protect ourselves or our families.
Not to mention that it’s firmly established in law that the police have no legal obligation to help or protect any given individual. Their responsibility is collective, not singular. When it counts most, you will virtually ALWAYS be on your own.
See my earlier response.
The state has no responsibility to protect you. At all.
The fallacy isn’t that “since the state has a responsibility to protect us, we have no need or responsibility to be able protect ourselves or our families,” it’s that the state has such a responsibility in the first place.
I use Facebook, and I’ve brought this up several times, and I get the response that “I believe my police will protect me.” When I point out that the police obviously don’t protect others from crime, and then ask, what makes them so special, there’s no response. It’s something such people simply can’t comprehend.
Everyone needs to carry a gun. This is why I open carry. I want people to know that I’m not an easy target.