Via GamePolitics comes this anti-freedom two-for-one piece from Time Magazine. Like clockwork, they’ve got a gaggle of statists seeking to blame inanimate objects for the recent “surge” in cop killings. Naturally video games and scary looking guns are the main target. First, the statistics:
As of September 18, the [National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund] showed shooting deaths up nearly 60% over last year, from 34 in 2006 to 54 this year (the worst year for such killings was 1975, when there were 99 deaths in the same period).
While the death of any police officer in the line of duty is tragic, that 60% increase doesn’t sound so bad when viewed in statistical context. According to the FBI, the average number of officers murdered per year from 1996 to 2005 was 57.5. In 2005, the year before the low cited in the article, the number was 55. If anything, 2006 was the deviant from the norm, not this year.
So with the fear-inspiring statistics out of the way, let’s get on with the finger pointing!
South Florida, along with the rest of the Southern U.S., where guns are easier to come by, has been particularly hard hit. In the past six weeks, two officers have been killed, and one recently got off life support after a gunman on a motorcycle shot him in the head. On Sept. 13, Miami-Dade police Sgt. Jose Somohano died and three other officers were injured by an assailant armed with an AK-47, three years to the day after the expiration of the Federal Assault Weapons ban.
Ah, yes, of course, things like this only happen in Southern States. This couldn’t happen in beautiful gun-free NYC, right? Oh, wait.. And it’s been three years since the so-called “assault weapon” ban expired, but just now we’re seeing an increase of, what, one or two shootings? I thought the streets were supposed to “run red with blood” when the ban expired..
Next up, we have Miami Police Chief John Timoney, who some of you may remember as a poster boy for the Brady Bunch, weighing in with this:
Timoney’s answer to the emboldened attacks on his colleagues is to give them matching firepower. Although it had been in the works prior to officer Somohano’s death, the day after the fatal shooting Timoney signed a new police directive authorizing Miami patrol officers to carry AR 15s, a military-grade assault weapon. “Cops understandably feel they are outgunned,” Timoney says.
Outgunned you say? That’s funny, because on the news footage of the search for the suspect, I saw no less than half a dozen officers carrying AR-15s.
Are we to believe that all of these officers were “outgunned” by a single man with an AK-47 lookalike? And did our eyes lie to us when we saw officers carrying the carbines before you claim to have authorized it?
But then, I suppose the anti-gun crowd has never been known for telling the truth..
Last but not least, we have retired Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, who, while generally quite pro-gun, sides with anti-gun politicians like Hillary!â„¢ when it comes to removing the First Amendment.
Grossman relates how officers raiding methamphetamine labs and gang hangouts often find violent video games left behind. “Every time they take down a gang house, there’s always one thing that will always be there,” Grossman says. “It’s a video game. The video games are their newspaper, their television, their all-consuming narrative. And their video games are all cop-killer, criminal simulators.”
Because we all know that there were no violent, drug-dealing gangs before video games. Or violence for that matter. Never mind the fact violent crime went into a near free-fall since Mortal Kombat and Doom were released in late 1992 and 1993, they obviously caused the non-existent rise in crime, right? So, if we just skip that whole pesky First Amendment thing and ban all virtual guns, crime will go away? I guess it makes almost as much sense as banning safety features on rifles.
Now that you mention it though, it seems that all the gang houses have another thing in common: They’re all houses. Quick, let’s ban all homes! Especially the dreaded “assault houses” which can hold ten or more occupants. Think of the children!