Anti-Gunners Don’t Realize Stuff Happens, Even to Cops
March 1, 2005

by Joseph P. Tartaro
Executive Editor

With the exception of the most extreme anti-gunners, most of the gun-grabbers who want to disarm the public will allow that there is a need for the police to be armed. Some might even admit that the military could be armed.

The “only the police should have guns” mentality is just one aspect of their fuzzy thinking, but it has become so commonplace, even among much of the media, that Gun Week’s Weekly Bullet section frequently has a number of stories that ridicule that absurd notion. It’s not that we are anti-police as a few folks have suggested over the years. It’s just that by showing that stuff happens, even to the police, we believe we can demonstrate by actual examples the inability of the anti-gunners to think logically. It’s our form of “reality” show.

And our editorial approach is not formed because we believe that all police are anti-gun. Certainly, the results of the National Association of Chiefs of Police survey reported on Page 1 of Gun Week’s Feb. 10 issue prove otherwise. But there are some police administrators who see their career prospects advanced by supporting anti-gun policies and politicians, especially when invited to the White House to pose with the president in the Rose Garden, as they so often did during Bill Clinton’s terms in office.

As with most events, there seems to be an ebb and flow to the tide of cops and guns stories, and in February, there seemed to be a remarkable flood tide. As I said before, stuff happens, and sometimes with greater frequency.

Early in February, it was revealed that Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowski had his pistol stolen from a department car where he had left it when we went shopping. Now, Kerlikowski is someone of special interest to the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF). That’s because as chief in Buffalo, NY, where one SAF office is located, before he became chief in Seattle, next door to Bellevue, WA, where another SAF office is located, he has always been an advocate of new gun control proposals. He has been for bans on semi-automatic military look-alike long guns—cozying up to Clinton in the early 1990s, gun locks and safe storage, etc., etc.

The report on Kerlikowski’s safe gun storage habits and how the story was treated by his department, his superiors and the media is wrapped up in the space below this column.

Second Chief’s Sidearm
But the ink was barely dry on the story of one chief’s lost gun, when another surfaced in a smaller Midwestern town.

On Feb. 14, Ohio News Now reported that Police Chief Jeanne Miller had been studying at the Reynoldsburg, OH, Library on Jan. 3, but shortly after she drove away from the library she remembered that she left something “very important behind—her gun.”

“She has a very fine reputation in law enforcement and I think the city is blessed to have her,” Safety Director Sharon Reichard said defending the police chief.

Miller admits she left her loaded gun inside the Reynoldsburg Library and Reichard, who headed an investigation, is convinced no one touched the bag, when the chief left the library.

“She left; she forgot to take the bag with her. She got in her car as soon as she hit Main Street, she darted back,” Reichard said.

Reichard said Miller was only gone five minutes before she drove back to get her purse.

However, Mayor Robert McPherson decided Miller should serve a 40-hour suspension for forgetting her sidearm unattended in a public place.

While Reichard had recommended a two-day suspension after her investigation, the mayor says he chose a longer punishment period because this was not the first time Chief Miller had left her gun in a public place. A police lieutenant will take her place during her suspension.

From what we’ve heard over the years, the two chiefs were not the first cops to leave their guns behind somewhere inappropriate.

You might think that two stories about two police chiefs’ safe gun storage practices in one month would cover the “stuff happens” issue pretty well, but you’d be wrong. Here are just a few of the other stories related to less than perfect police activities that made the wire services in the first two weeks of February.

32 Guns Taken
On Feb. 3, The San Francisco Chronicle reported that “As the store’s alarm rang, thieves made off with 32 rifles and handguns from a Fremont, CA, gun shop less than two weeks after police announced they will soon ignore burglar alarms unless there was a confirmed crime.

According to The Chronicle, Irvington Arms owner Martin MacDonald was livid over the break-in at his shop, where burglars used an aluminum baseball bat to break the front door and smashed display cases with a crowbar before making off with $20,000 in guns.

MacDonald blamed the break-in on the Police Department’s policy—announced in January but not effective until Feb. 18—that officers won’t respond to burglar alarms unless they are told there is evidence of a break-in or security breach.

“I think they basically invited crime into the neighborhood,” said MacDonald, according to The Chronicle. “It’s on every channel and in the newspaper. They might as well have said, in bold print, ‘Commit robbery in Fremont,’ because the PD won’t respond. This was unacceptable.”

Fremont Police Chief Craig Steckler said he adopted the new policy to save $600,000 a year in staff time and equipment costs. More than 98% of the city’s 7,000 alarm calls last year were false, diverting officers from actual crimes, the chief said.

MacDonald said he was not upset at Steckler personally but added, “I think the bean counters have lost their minds. I think he actually has good intentions, but at what cost?”

FBI Loses Rifles
Next, News4Jax television reported that while they were supposed to help beef-up security for Super Bowl XXXIX on Feb. 6, the FBI lost four sniper rifles, scopes and ammunition which were stolen from an FBI SWAT van parked outside a hotel in Jacksonville, FL, before dawn the day of the big football game.

The FBI said the guns belonged to a team from Atlanta which was in Jacksonville to provide extra security for the Super Bowl. Four high-powered rifles with scopes and 80 rounds of .308 ammunition were taken from the unmarked, locked van parked outside the Holiday Inn off Interstate 95. An agent parked the van at 3:45 a.m. and discovered a few hours later the padlock cut and van burglarized.

Then, on Feb. 9, in a story that has Weekly Bullet overtones, Associated Press reported that Shannon Hills, AR, police on a drug raid burst into a home during a toddler’s birthday party with guns drawn, startling children who were getting ready to eat cake when the officers crashed the party.

Amid wails from children and a few parents—and a phone ringing incessantly with prospective drug buyers—officers arrested a pregnant woman and accused her of selling marijuana from the house.

Shannon Hills Police Chief Richard Friend, who led the raid, said, “The kids were up in high-chairs eating pizza, and the cake was just about to be lit and cut when we kicked the party off a little early,” Friend said, according to AP.

Police did not know a birthday party was going on when they decided to make the bust.

Elizabeth Leah Sauls, 21, was hosting her niece’s second birthday party at the time of the raid. She was allegedly smoking marijuana in a bedroom and continuing to sell pot out of the house as the police moved in. Friend said she received 35 calls requesting the drug in the short time police were there.

Sauls was arrested on drug charges but was released without bond because the jail was full, Friend said.
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