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John Farnham [via Ammoland.com] writes:

Last weekend, a patrol rifle (type/caliber unknown) was stolen from a private vehicle owned by a Calgary (Canada) municipal police officer. Calgary’s Police Superintendent said this in his immediate response: “There is no reason, in my mind, why an officer would take this firearm home (apparently referring to the rifle)… We do not want our officers taking their firearms home… There’s nothing good that can come of that.” The foregoing is a typical articulation of . . .

the same malignant “reasoning” that keeps our “unarmed forces” perpetually unarmed.

They want us armed, but only when we’re protecting them, as, of course, they will never assume personal responsibility for protecting themselves. To liberals, personal responsibility, on the part of anyone, is unthinkable!

When not protecting them, we, and our families, are insignificant and expendable, as the Superintendent clearly indicated. To these liberal politicians, the rest of us are little more than livestock, always distrusted and thus undeserving of personal options.

“Personal initiative” and thus “personal responsibility” are not part of their vocabulary! It represents a pestilent, civilization-destroying character flaw!

“Strength of character does not consist solely in having powerful feelings, but in maintaining one’s balance in spite of them. Even with violence of emotion- judgment and principle must still function like a ship’s compass… however rough the sea.” ~ Carl von Clausewitz

About John Farnam & Defense Training International, Inc
As a defensive weapons and tactics instructor John Farnam will urge you, based on your own beliefs, to make up your mind in advance as to what you would do when faced with an imminent and unlawful lethal threat. You should, of course, also decide what preparations you should make in advance, if any. Defense Training International wants to make sure that their students fully understand the physical, legal, psychological, and societal consequences of their actions or inactions.

It is our duty to make you aware of certain unpleasant physical realities intrinsic to the Planet Earth. Mr Farnam is happy to be your counselor and advisor. Visit: www.defense-training.com

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40 COMMENTS

      • The first responsibility of having a weapon is accountability. If a weapon is not on your body or in the armory, it is unaccounted for. This is the kind of stuff military personnel are taught since day 1 of boot camp. While the thief is still a thief and should be punishes, the cop is negligent and also responsible for the theft.

        • A good friend of mine is a cop in Vancouver. She is allowed to take her weapon home at the end of the shift as long as she locks it up just like any other Canadian is required to do with a Restricted Weapon (which all handguns are in Canada). She is absolutely not allowed to carry it off duty. For a while she and her husband were living in a pretty rough part of town – lots of student loans to pay. So she would end up running into the folks she had previously arrested while at the grocery store, the has station, etc. Nothing bad ever happened, but it was not a comfortable experience, and they pretty quickly moved to a suburb outside the city.

          I don’t think there is a real fix for this in Canada – the Canadian government (and a majority of the people) will never embrace the widespread carrying of firearms for personal protection. And if law-abiding citizens are barred from protecting themselves, then logically off-duty cops should be treated the same.

  1. If cops in Canada are attacked when off duty, they should call and wait for help from cops who are on duty.

  2. According to local news, it was a C8 (semi-auto only), with full-capacity mags (28 rounds in each). What I want to know is how the criminals figured out his car had something like that in it when he went into the bar (I’m familiar with the area, they must have been pretty brazen to pull this caper).

    But I’m not sure I totally agree with your position. As long as regular Canadian gun owners have to obey various strict safe storage and transport rules, I think that off-duty police officers should obey those rules as well. If there is a change, it should positively affect all of us.

    If nothing else, he can always purchase a nice NR semi-automatic rifle of his own, and store it in a locked case (or with a trigger lock or with the bolt out and not within easy access). The Vz.58 is affordable, and shoots cheap ammo.

    • In which way are long guns stored in Canadian police cars? Here in the Czech Republic it is a safe in the trunk. You can’t get to the gun without keys in any other way than stealing the car and taking an hour or two in the garage cutting the safe open. Which is the time you don’t have since the car has GPS tracking.

      And what are the rules for the civilians? Here leaving a gun in a car would be against the safe keeping rules.

      Just for comparison. A cop took some equipment for a presentation to a kindergarten last year. Some junkie stole the vz.61 Scorpion from the car while he was loading the things. Many facepalms were given that day, but nothing even close to that.

      • It’s events such as these that raise another argument against gun-free zones. If there were no GFZ then my handgun would be either in my pocket or in my safe at home. But, there are GFZ. So, when I go out I decide whether to carry or leave my gun behind according to the stops on my agenda.
        If I leave my gun behind I don’t always put it in my gun safe; so, it’s vulnerable to being stolen if my home is burglarized while I’m gone.
        If I take my gun with me then I have to disarm when stopping at a GFZ. The gun is vulnerable to being stolen from my car while at the stop in the GFZ. The movements associated with locking the gun in the glove compartment – or worse, in the trunk – are a dead giveaway to anyone observing that I’ve left a gun in the car.
        I understand the Czech system of installing robust safes in cars. However, this strikes me as a solution in response to a problem created by the GFZ idea which is a bad idea to begin with. Moreover, it’s just one more “tax” on the gun owning public to discourage exercise of the RKBA.

  3. Yep nothing good comes with an armed off-duty cop…one on trial in Chicago right now(but NOT charged with homicide or manslaughter) for shooting to death a 22year old woman in Douglas Park(westside). He also shot a man holding a cell phone(“I thought he had a gun!”). Very rare for cops in the city to be charged with ANYTHING…

    • “Nothing good comes from an armed off-duty cop.” Tell you what, I won’t deny your 2nd Amendment rights, so don’t try to deny mine.

      • THAT was a JOKE guys…sorry you 2 are so touchy. i never use a sarc tag. BTW I can only go by what you 2 write. I’m not one of the troll cop haters or Christian haters either.

      • You are a civilian, you work for the citizens. We have every right to set the conditions of your employment. If we decide to disarm you, then you can accept it or find honest work.

        Every government employee should be disarmed as a condition of employment. If you want to live off the sweat of the tax payer’s brow, then you should face a loss of most off your civil rights, including voting, the right to assembly and bearing arms.

        If you want power over other people, then you should face some fairly stiff repercussions.

        • @ Chris Mallory:

          Honest work?

          What’s more honest than risking one’s health and life to stand the line between controlled chaos and lawlessness that can easily degrade to anarchy? One accepts those risks upon taking The Job, often without truly realizing that the risk can be formidable. Ameliorating that risk includes being equipped with the proper tools to perform the tasked duties successfully and safely.

          Further, should officers be armed on and off duty? Absolutely; on duty because it is necessary for safety and survival; off duty because cops, like the rest of us, should ALL be afforded the choice to keep and bear arms at our discretion as it is a Bill of Rights protection – at least here in the states. Cops in particular must also be alert as to what or who might want…retribution.

          There is no one best protocol; each jurisdiction must operate within the context of its law enforcement responsibilities and the environmental and political conditions under which its employees function. But for a jurisdiction and/or one of its appointed administrators – here the Calgary Police Superintendent – to leave officers ill equipped and vulnerable to harm because one of the *human* coppers used poor judgment and screwed up is just plain stupid. Sounds like a demand the antis would make.

          There may be a few beneficial perks that come with being a copper, just like there is in one form or another with EVERY occupation for which people receive special training to be “professionals”. That comes with the territory.

          Honest work; absolutely!

      • Except in Canada and NJ, where there are no 2A rights for non LEOs…if I can’t CC, why should they?
        “DOVER TOWNSHIP, N.J. (AP) – A veteran police officer went on a rampage in two New Jersey towns, killing five of his neighbors and wounding two people, police said. Authorities were searching early Wednesday for Edward Lutes, a Seaside Heights police officer for 15 years. Lutes, a weapons expert and SWAT team member, was carrying his service-issue MP5 automatic assault weapon when he walked across the street…Sometime later, he shot himself in the head with a .40-caliber pistol.”

  4. Wow, two different attitudes.
    For our neighbor to the north, one rifle lost by theft and the whole country watches a news conference.
    We lose a bunch of rifles (F&F) to our other neighbor to the south… Meh.

    • This week’s NCIS had some very unkind things to say about F&F. I know — not exactly what we have come to expect from Hollywood, but there it was.

    • It’s hard to call it theft when you give something away.

      Sort of like filing an insurance claim on your cigar collection for being lost in a fire … because you smoked them.

  5. This article can be reduced to three sentences:
    1. Citizens should not be armed. Nothing good can come of them being armed.
    2. When off duty, cops are citizens.
    3. Therefore, cops should not be armed when off duty. Nothing good can come of them being armed.

    • 4. If cops shouldn’t be armed while off duty, they shouldn’t be armed while on duty.
      5. If we’re going to disarm on duty cops, we need to disarm everybody else.
      6. If we want to disarm everybody, we just need to pass a law because we’re stupid liberals who don’t realize that the criminals won’t care and will simply do what they want when they want.

      Obviously all except 2 is pure bs. 2 is only half true; cops are citizens all the time. Unfortunately more and more people actually think like that nowadays and too many have gone into politics.

  6. “What kind of damage can this rifle do? It looks like it’s,..it’s pretty impressive looking.”

    Q: Who asks a question like that? A: An adolescent. Arrested development, stand up and take a bow.
    What kind of damage? Is that perspective all these reporters see,….the damage? Well, if it’s damage they want, do they think we should get rid of all guns, and do it the way we did before guns? Now there’s damage.
    Damage done by criminals, is bad. Damage done to criminals, is,….also bad, you know, because it causes………damage. Good stopping evil is never seriously addressed.

  7. “What kind of damage can this rifle do? It looks like it’s,..it’s pretty impressive looking.”

    Dungeon Master, “Well that depends on the Armor Class of the target and the THACO of the Black razAR used… Oh screw it…just roll a D20…”

  8. Slaves are issued weapons while free people own them.
    Sure, you can borrow a scythe in the field as long as an overseer is watching you.
    Once your day is done if you don’t return it that’s 50 lashings.

    The “special” people mindset I see too often among proponents of permitting and licensing and among cops in areas where they are the “only ones” is more of a cage to them than they realize.
    Massa gives you a little trinket and you feel so proud. So proud. Almost like you’re just as good as he his. Almost. But at the end of the day you’re the same piece of shit in his eyes as the rest of us. Doesnt matter if you work in the clean house, make the food, drive a truck or hold a rifle pointed at your fellow man you’re still shit to massa. Worse even because he tricked you into thinking you’re better than shit. That makes you dumb shit.

    • The cop is being paid for his job. In this case, it is just a case of contractual expectations separate from the cop’s rights off duty

      • This is a fruitful line of inquiry to explore; i.e.: Why do off-duty and retired LEOs have any special carry-privlidge? I would approach it much differently. I would NOT simply assert that off-duty/retired LEOs deserve no-such-privlidge; rather, I would ask: Why LEOs are allowed to carry as a privilege vs. as a right? For 8-hours a day an active duty LEO is literally on-the-clock; he carries under the POWER of the state. There is neither a privilege nor a right at stake. For another 8-hours he is awake and on personal-time; admittedly, he might be in some intermediary state where he has a duty to respond to an emergency (qualified by a duty to care for his family who might depend on his custody at the moment). For 8-hours of sleep he can NOT be said to have a DUTY to arrest a home-invader; he has a right of self-defense. The retired LEO has NO duty whatsoever.
        The off-duty/retired LEO is, admittedly, different from the rest of us in that he lives in a world surrounded by previous unsatisfied “customers”. But this is a pretty fuzzy argument. So a Seattle cop retires to Florida. Is his risk of assault by an unsatisfied customer (from Washington State) really any higher than that of any other Floridian? How about the LEO who worked 5 years on a beat; 5 years as a sergeant, and 20 years as a desk-jocky. How many dissatisfied customers are looking for him? How about a guard in a minimum-security jail/prison; how dissatisfied were his customers?
        When the LEO-class is viewed across such a spectrum it’s clear that the LEO’s need for self-defense is – in great part – indistinguishable from that of the ordinary citizen. If self-defense is a “RIGHT” then it deserves to be honored EQUALLY between citizens and off-duty/retired LEOs. Conversely, if self-defense is a “PRIVILEGE” then it should be withheld from LEOs where the rationale do NOT apply. E.g., members of our “armed” forces are dis-armed while on-base. LEOs are ought not be privileged to be armed while at home.
        At this juncture, we are left only with the question of training. The off-duty and retired LEO have the training and are periodically qualified. Is that “IT!”; is training and qualification the great criteria that justify separating LEOs from mere citizens? Very well, then, anyone who has taken the equivalent of the State LEO training and qualifies periodically ought to be eligible for a CWP in: NJ; NYC; NYS; DC; MD; CA; HI; . . . (Keep your pants on everyone; this is a rhetorical position.) Now, what is the Antis’ response to this position? Let’s draft a Congressional bill requiring Shall-Issue in EVERY State with a qualification NO-MORE RESTRICTIVE than that applicable to the LEO’s in that State. (Naturally, every State can set it’s criteria to any lower standard including Constitutional-Carry).
        The strident Anti won’t care about the logic in such a line of reasoning. The politician won’t care either; he’s only interested in how his vote will affect his re-election prospects. The target for such a line of reasoning is the uncommitted voter or the Anti-sympathizer. Once he wraps his mind around the reasoning he will have to take a fresh look at his instinctive support of May-Issue.

  9. Weapons are a tool for doing police work. When you finish your carpentry, you put your hammer in the toolbox. When a cop finishes his job, he puts his weapon in the armory.

    • That’s how some countries operate. Cops have to check their weapons out at start of shift and turn them in at end of shift.

    • That’s understandable to a degree. However it does nothing to explain this statement:

      “There is no reason, in my mind, why an officer would take this firearm home. We do not want our officers taking their firearms home… There’s nothing good that can come of that.”

      He didn’t say “we require our officers to put their state issued firearms back in the state issued armory.” Instead he implied that the officer couldn’t be trusted with the responsibility of a firearm off duty.

  10. Apparently they couldn’t exercise their ability to reason. A chronic ailment they tend to continually suffer.

    Why is it the officer in question can be trusted with his rifle while on duty but cannot when off duty? Does his character and trustworthiness change when his shift is over???

    This is what happens when policy is implemented without fully being scrutinized or even rationally contemplated.

  11. I think there is an snob factor class-ist thing going on with the former colonies of England, that is historically similar to the EuroSocialist model today, that is a reflection of the real world evolution of what happens when the revolutionary become the elite, no matter how civilized the left/progressives want to believe they are… its ultimately totalitarian rule by the Elite.

    No matter how you lie to the citoyen, the comrades, the People, the proles, from as far back as the French revolution, to the Soviet Union, and corruptocracies today in Africa, and failing leftist thug rule in South …

    there is a class thing that happens, an inversion after taking power, be they former race-baiting community organizers and progressives, or the cultured EuroSocialists- its all the same-

    Once you get the power, the class divisions come back- its The Elite Who Know Whats Best for the Little People…Apparatchiki, Party Cadre, the bureaucrats in Brussels and the UN…

    Labour Party in England, and is echoed in Canda and Australia, who are really still in some ways subjects to the Queen.

    The US truly is exceptional, but we are human and as subject to human frailty as the rest.

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