Legislation introduced in New York in January, and being considered in Pennsylvania now, would restrict sales of body armor.
Shooting rampages in Pennsylvania and New York could become a rallying point for state lawmakers to restrict sales of body armor.Granted, a psychopath who is armored, and thus more difficult to stop quickly, can potentially wreak more carnage than an unarmored one. Still, the actions of violent, evil people provide no justification for imposing restrictions on peaceable people.
In both cases, the April 3 shooting rampage that claimed 13 lives in a Binghamton immigration center and the April 4 slayings of three Pittsburgh police officers answering a domestic call ? [the article's punctuation--not mine] heavily armed men braced themselves for gunfights with bullet-resistant vests.
It never came to that in Binghamton. Jiverly Wong, 41, a Vietnamese immigrant, took his own life after killing 13 unarmed civilians, authorities said.
But in Pittsburgh, police Chief Nate Harper said alleged gunman Richard Poplawski, 22, wore body armor that deflected at least two shots to his chest during a deadly assault on officers that lasted nearly four hours.
In New York, Assemblyman David Koon of Rochester introduced legislation in January to restrict the sale of body armor to law enforcement officers. Koon said the shootings in Pittsburgh and Binghamton illustrate the dangers posed to law enforcement officers when body armor gets into the hands of those bent on violence.A lot of "drug dealers, gang members and professional criminals are purchasing and utilizing" cars, too--perhaps we should restrict those, as well?
"Evidence suggests that more and more drug dealers, gang members and professional criminals are purchasing and utilizing body armor," he said.
Rep. Tom Caltigirone, D-Reading, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said recent events appear to illustrate weakness in the law regarding the sale of body armor."What purpose"? Are police officers the only people who should have a good chance of surviving a shooting, Tom?
"What purpose does body armor serve outside of law enforcement? There may be a bill," Caltigirone said.
As much as I despise restrictive gun laws, barring people from buying purely defensive gear has to be even more evil--saying, in essence, that you have a legal obligation to be perforated by any bullet that comes your way. Lawmakers who push such legislation leave no room for doubt about how much they value the lives of the citizens (the very people those lawmakers ostensibly work for).
Stumble it!
1 comments:
Somebody please remind me again of the courageous sacrifice law enforcement personnel are prepared to make on our behalf.
Please, tell me again why there are always laws in place or planning to be sure they have armament and armor more effective than that allowed for others. Tell me again how brave these over-gunned, over-protected, under-brained, under-supervised people are again. I keep forgetting.
Especially since I spent more than fifty years working in occupations far more dangerous than being a cop. We didn't get to whine and cry on camera when some of us died, nor did we take off work and travel across the country to show "solidarity", while wearing a black arm band. We continued to do the work. We knew the dangers when we took the job. We were men enough to act like men.
We didn't get one damn law passed that put us at an advantage over the average law-abiding citizen. That was just exactly as it should be.
Send these girly men home. I would rather have no police at all, as to have police with Special Advantages over their fellow citizens. In fact, we shouldn't need to send them home. They should get in touch with their inner sensitivity and quit on their own. They know they need special consideration, and we know that a free society shouldn't grant it.
Anti-cop, nope! Anti-crybaby and anti-criminal, unfortunately that seems to be the two categories of people who mostly fill the ranks of law enforcement today. And of course their enablers, who elect people willing to play the game to gain more control over the peaceful. That's right, the only people they control are the peaceful non-criminal. They rest they must cage when they aren't too busy controlling the peaceful non-criminal.
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