“Someone once described the joy and anxiety of parenthood as the equivalent of having your heart outside of your body all the time, walking around. With their very first cry, this most precious, vital part of ourselves, our child, is suddenly exposed to the world, to possible mishap or malice.”
Let me get this straight: The "most precious, vital part of ourselves” is not exposed at first, and then suddenly becomes exposed to the world? They didn't suddenly become precious and vital with “their very first cry"? They were already precious and vital before they were exposed to mishap and malice? Got it.
It would seem that even though infanticide has been practiced by various cultures around the world, Barack feels no need to explain how “possible mishap or malice” to a baby “violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.”
And yet, one of Barack's assorted reasons for killing the Born Alive Infant Protection Act in Illinois was that “I [would] have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.” You mean, a principle that was accessible to hard-core atheist Christopher Hitchens? Barack would not be able to explain (since it is above his “pay grade,” one assumes) that what gets “exposed to the world, to possible mishap or malice” is the “most precious, vital part of ourselves.” But wait, isn't that what he was explaining at the prayer vigil for the Newtown children when he said that essential liberty was not worth a situation where children's safety was at stake?
But he explicitly made the sacrifice of babies the price of “abortion rights” (a “right” that was interpreted as part of a Constitutional right to privacy, unlike the very explicit Constitutional right for the People to be their own deterrent against tyranny), when he decided that having medical attention be guaranteed for survivors of “live birth abortion” (forcing early labor and then leaving the preemie to die) would set a bad legal precedent (see #1 and #10), and might cause a problem for the "right” that brings in money and votes for the Democrat political machine.
Barack intentionally voted to expose the “most precious, vital part of ourselves” to certain “mishap or malice,” because, as a great Constitutional law professor, he decided that that was the price of freedom. Let freedom ring, since in the case of abandoning newborns to die, it apparently does not “violate some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths.”
Asked if he supported abortion all the way into the ninth month, Barack said blanketly, "I am pro-choice." And he balked at the idea of bringing in a second opinion if a baby shows signs of life following induced labor. It's completely unnecessary, he argued. Hey, Barack, what if it could save just one life, hmmm? I agree that at some point extra laws might not prevent terrible things, but "surely we can do better than this." Are you going to say "that the politics are too hard"? Are you going to say the painful death of babies "is somehow the price" of women's "freedom"?
Barack said of the little ones of Newtown, “God has called them all home.” And what other little ones are being called home, Barack? The ones you fought to not be saved lest Abortion-palooza not be possible?
“[As President he's] helping the country in a quasi-ministerial role, trying to bring meaning to an event that seems fundamentally meaningless.”*
Thank you, quasi-minister Obama, for helping us navigate the moral swamp in determining which children to protect, which rights are worth giving up, and which moral trade-offs are worth making. Let us kiss your ring.
When Mr. Obama said at the Newtown prayer vigil that America wasn't doing enough to prevent gun crimes, he left it open-ended as to what would be enough. While he acknowledged that there is some point at which preventive steps would prove ineffective, he went on to intone, "[i]f there is even one step we can take to save another child . . ." Mr. Biden elaborated recently on this motif that we should do something (presumably at the expense of 2nd Amendment right — don't tell me "the politics are too hard"), even if it would potentially only save one more life than would otherwise be saved.
If a family member dies from any kind of gun-related accident, you can bet that the parents will second-guess the availability of the gun. I know firsthand that parents are capable of doing this without second-guessing the need for the Second Amendment. But parents of victims are especially vulnerable to being used as props for a cause. And that is certainly true for the Gun Control Issue.
When my own parents were thinking about gun availability, I was reminded of a sort of retroactive version of Sleeping Beauty. If you recall, Aurora's royal parents decreed the destruction of all spinning wheels in order to prevent the fatal prophecy from coming true. One can imagine a version of this in which the king and queen torment themselves over whether they should have destroyed the spinning wheels instead of simply trying to guard the princess on the fatal day. As in real life, it turns out that the royal decree did not stop the sorceress Maleficent from producing her own spinning wheel, as she did not pay much attention to the law.
In the story of Sleeping Beauty you never see how the kingdom suffers, particularly the peasants, in this preemptive measure to save one life. The price of regular clothing would certainly be driven up for poor folks, making it harder to make ends meet. Not to mention the citizens who suffered for bootleg spinning, as it would take some harsh penalties to deter them from saving many, many man-hours in clothing costs. You have to make citizens into criminals in order to implement these safety regulations.
"Among the many misdeeds of British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest." — Mahatma Mohandas K. Gandhi*
This is an understatement, but kudos to Ben Shapiro for publicly exposing the Left's morbid opportunism over the Sandy Hook tragedy, and using these deaths to characterize their political opponents as uncaring, heartless creeps that are so in love with their guns (gently oiling and cleaning them at night) that they are willing to sacrifice little children to this awful 2nd Amendment idol (a baffling irony in light of the Left's conception of "reproductive rights").
MORGAN: That's what I call bullying.
SHAPIRO: This is astonishing.
MORGAN: What's astonishing?
SHAPIRO: What's astonishing about it is for weeks now, you have been saying that anybody who disagrees with your position is absurd, idiotic, and doesn't care about the dead kids in Sandy Hook. And then when I say that it's a bullying tactic, you turn around and say I'm bullying you for saying that. It's absurd. It's ridiculous.
Of course, it's easier than pointing out that Obama made a nice soapbox out of little caskets. You could expect TIME and Newsweek to call that blatant racism. But this guy... With the combination of the accent with the snootiness, this guy is a lieutenant on the Death Star. The irony of a British citizen criticizing, not a mere American policy, but a fundamental right of a free people to keep the means of securing their freedoms, the recognition of which right was borne out of a British imperialism that the American Left nominally loathes!
SHAPIRO: Well, we can talk about Britain in a second. I think that the reason it's about left and right here is because fundamentally the right believes the basis for the second amendment, and they believe in the second amendment. The basis of the second amendment is not really about self defense and it's not about hunting. It's about resistance to government tyranny. That's what the founders said and that's what the right believe in this country.
MORGAN: Which tyranny are you fearing, yourself?
SHAPIRO: I fear the possibility of a tyranny rising in the country in the next 50 to 100 years. Let me tell you something, Piers. The fact that my grandparents and great-grandparents in Europe didn't fear that is why they're now ashes in Europe. This kind of leftist revisionist history where there's no fear of democracy going userpatious or tyrannical, is just that. It's fictitious.
Shapiro is making a reference to the gun registration and confiscation measures imposed by collectivist governments in Europe in order to effect totalitarian control. Trust us. We're your government and we're only here to keep you safe.
Now, Thomas Sowell in his book Intellectuals and Society writes of the many absurdities of the gun control mania of English socialism (or Ingsoc, as George Orwell called it). A man who lives our in the countryside (where police weren't likely to arrive quickly) arrested for stopping two burglars with a gun. A man arrested for running off street thug assailants with a fake gun. As well as the rise in gun crime since the disarmament of the British citizenry. Piers Morgan might be right that neither political party in Britain appreciates the right to own a gun, but that doesn't say much for the sensibility of the country.
From Farewell to the King (quoted at imdb.com):
Capt. Fairbourne: What do you want? Learoyd: Freedom, to be like we are. Capt. Fairbourne: Anything else? Learoyd: Guns. So they can't take the freedom away. Capt. Fairbourne: Well, I'll see what I can do. Learoyd: And grenades, mortars and mines, so they can't take the guns away
“Are we prepared to say that such violence visited on our children year after year after year is somehow the price of our freedom?”
~ Obama at Newtown vigil
Do you suppose that thousands of people's lives might be spared if we had less traffic? Exactly how many people couldn't do work from home at least once or twice a week? Maybe you haven't thought about it much because you just don't care who gets killed. We could have a lot fewer youths dying (and others dying in the accidents to which they are prone) if we restricted their driving and made it harder for them to get licenses. Are you going to make their deaths the price of the freedom to put-put-put around as one pleases?
Baseball bats are a weapon of choice for physical assaults. some say the weapon of choice. True, you are much more likely to die if your assailant uses a gun, but Americans have a guaranteed right to a gun, not to a baseball bat. Think of all the people that would have not been assaulted (especially those who did not survive the attack) if the assailant had not had that bat handy. He might have had to resort to his fists instead. Or maybe he would not have attacked at all. Are you going to make those deaths the price of playing America's favorite pastime? Well, then you're sick my friend. Bitterly clinging to your weird baseball religion.
Remember the so-called gun rights truce earlier in 2012? When I read about that I thought, I'm sure Obama will evolve and have "more flexibility" on that issue after November. He got up at the vigil for the dead children, and after expressing sympathy for the parents there, turned it into a simple choice between essential liberty and children's lives. Talk about stacking little coffins into a soapbox. Give me more money, of grandma might not get her social security check. Give up your gun rights, or the blood of innocent children will be on your hands.
How much Fort Hood blood is on Bill Clinton's hands for turning Fort Hood into a gun-free zone? A military base, and no one was adequately armed to stop the crazed fanatic that brought his gun into the gun-free zone. Honestly, it's as though criminals just don't obey the law any more.
Maybe fewer children would have been burned to death in Waco if little boys at the ATF weren't given tanks to play with. Just a thought.
Speaking of blood on an administration's hands, one commentator recently put Eric Holder's little gunwalking stunt to churn up support for gun control into perspective:
It would be as if the Bush administration had implemented a covert operation to dump a dangerous abortifacient in Planned Parenthood clinics, resulting in hundreds of women dying — just to give pro-lifers an argument about how dangerous abortion clinics are.
Well, it would be except that CNN would still be covering that now until there was a federal amendment guaranteeing the right to 4th-trimester abortions. (Sorry, folks, but CNN made quite an impression on me this last October.)
You gun control enthusiasts really want to make America safe? Maybe Eric Holder can locate likely troublemakers (there are enough provisions in the revise Patriot Act--and there is plenty of information from the FBI) that take prescription meds and have a history of trouble (as the Columbine killers did), in states where all school employees are likely to be unarmed, so that no annoying Pearl High School interventions occur. He can equip the crazies, via a man in a trenchcoat pretending to be someone from the NRA. Several massacres of schoolchildren could occur within a very short time frame. Instant public outrage.
Sure, innocent lives will be lost, but any liberal who beamed as Chris Matthews rejoiced in the calamity of Hurricane Sandy can appreciate that it is all outweighed by all the good it would do! And Holder has already demonstrated that if it all blows up and somehow leads back to him, he will simply deny Congress access to the documents through executive privilege. (I wouldn't be surprised if the main reason for the Fast & Furious inquiry lockout is to hide the fact that the documentation for Fast and Furious is lost, disappeared in a late night shredding party.) And we know that the major news outlets will downplay the story as some conspiratorial obsession.
And now for some more pics (too many to choose from) . . .
And just in case Michael Moore thinks I've forgotten his darling animation where he completely rewrites history by saying that the NRA was sympathetic to the KKK... Here is one he'll dearly hate. Please don't let Michael Moore pump you full of his ignorance. This picture is much more historically... on target. :-)
In the movie Bowling for Columbine, Michael Moore features an interview with Charlton Heston, and interview that seems climactic for Moore's argument that violence in America and America's enthusiasm for its 2nd Amendment rights are based in racism. (Moore seems adept at "Critical Race Theory.")
My #1 Question: If you have seen this movie, what did you think Heston meant when he said, "We had enough problems with civil rights in the beginning." Did you think that Heston was talking about the civil rights movement as a problem? I know I did when I first saw the film. I thought the interview made it seem that Heston keeps guns to make himself feel protected and safe from minorities.
Of course, this was before I learned that Charlton Heston was one of a small group of Hollywood players that really stepped to the forefront to advocate for civil rights in its true heyday in the 60s (watch video below).
Also, his role in the 1963 March on Washington. Now, this is easily confirmed historical fact. Was Michael Moore simply unaware of all this when he put his movie together? Maybe this experienced documentarian just doesn't do his homework. In the 23 minute interview with Heston (which was pared down to 7 minutes for the movie) did Heston shed more light on what he meant about America's "mixed heritage" but was edited out? Did Moore deliberately mislead us about what Heston thought about race? Read here for some other interesting facts about Heston's NRA speech featured in the film and some historical oddities about Moore's alleged racist history of the historically anti-Klan NRA, another pivotal part of Moore's gun-rights-are-racist argument. Also, an interesting link between the NRA and anti-KKK defense.
Incidently, I'd like to thank Michael Moore for helping me realize more quickly just how little Progressivism has to offer and to help me reconnect with conservative thinking. His blatent disregard for the truth and his utter reliance on non-fact to prove his point made a big impact on me at a critical time in my life. Thank you, Michael Moore for being such an obvious propagandist.
Is there a connection between crazed attacks and pharmaceuticals? A side worth hearing:
Some thoughts to ponder. If there is a causal relationship between these mass killings and the unfortunate side effects of psychopharmaceuticals, would it be better to mostly give up the massive availability of these prescription drugs for the populace. Assuming for the moment that more suicides are prevented by these drugs than caused by these drugs (and many are caused by them), is it better for there to be more adults and teens taking their life (and trying to address this problem through other means) than to have kids turning psychotic and possibly harming several pre-adolescent children?
Let's set the gun issue aside for the moment and try to answer that question honestly. There are many other causal policies that impact so many other childrens' lives; so many potential laws (concerning medical practice or automobile use or toxic chemical use, etc.) that could mean so many more parents not having to spend a sad Christmas wondering why fate singled them out for this ultimate tragedy. Of course, it is apparently not sheer numbers of children harmed that seem to foment a demand for action, but the idea of several small children meeting a linked tragic ending all in one foul swoop. That supposedly must be prevented at all costs, even if it means suppressing serious discussion of 2nd Amendments rights as the "price of our freedom," the availability of arms as our ultimate guarantee against totalitarianism. Preventing similar tragedies that result from terrorist attacks is however not considered so essential that we need to give up our Constitutional rights of privacy (which Amendment is that?), or at least that is what most progressives and liberals expressed prior to Obama's presidency.
What if the Columbine killers had successfully carried out Plan A, which was to blow up the school and kill every kid inside, instead of the few that they settled for? Would that have been worth a Patriot Act or more intrusive invasion of privacy to prevent the accumulation of materials that might possibly be used to make a bomb? What rights of privacy should we give up to prevent sex trafficking in the U.S.? Would a kind of Patriot Act be worth having fewer women chained surreptitiously in the basements of private residences? Is leaving these women in hell the "price of our freedom" (as President Obama would phrase it)?
I don't think there is a single issue like this that can't be demagogued and essentially reduced to an emotional argument. What amount of safety and security is worth giving up essential liberty?
People willing to trade their freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both." (Benjamin Franklin)
Eight years ago, you would have thought that liberals worshiped Patrick Henry. I wrote back in October about how left-leaning citizens seemed to love the above quote by Franklin back then. You know, even if I was skeptical of the various Bush-is-evil conspiracy theories, I at least agreed on this point: It's not unpatriotic to question the motives of your President and your Congressmen. In America, it's unpatriotic to try to stifle (instead of merely controvert) dissent and questioning. (Now, it may be unpatriotic to undermine national interests over certain concerns, but that is an argument for another time).
I heard left-leaning friends and acquaintances railing back then against the Patriot Act: Why, the European nations live with terrorism in their borders; why can't we? Oh, because we're afraaaaaid, that's why! We'll give up our freedoms for a little security in a heartbeat, us scaredy-cats. I can't believe Americans would give up their liberty out of fear.
Better to live with a terrorist attack now and then in our borders than grant the federal government power that they might be tempted to abuse. That's what many, many liberals were loudly voicing. But that was before 2008. Now we have a liberal President, and there is the tendency of most left-leaning citizens to not believe that the 2nd Amendment does anything to help preserve our rights from despots (let alone be useful in preventing more mundane crimes).
Before 2008, it might have had a more sobering effect on right-leaning citizens if they had thought "How might a liberal President use this power;" whereas left-leaning citizens should similarly fear Executive power if only because a Republican might eventually have those powers at his disposal. Both would do well to realize that it's not simply a man gaining power, but an Office.
And now that very little time has been wasted since the deaths of many Connecticut children for President Obama to advocate for policy change with regard to the Bill of Rights, I ask, "Where did all the liberal patriots go?"
Here's one liberal who isn't caught in the "Only Federal-Level Gun Ban Can Save Us" haze:
I was not, and am not, under the illusion that a handgun would have necessarily provided a definitive solution to the problem posed by Colin Ferguson. But my instinct was that if someone is shooting at you, it is generally better to shoot back than to cower and pray. Would a civilian firing back at Ferguson have wounded or killed innocent people? Quite possibly yes. Is that a risk potential victims quaking under train seats or classroom desks might accept? Quite possibly yes. Especially when you consider the massacres that have been prevented or interrupted by armed civilians before the police arrived. ~ Jeffrey Goldberg, article in The Atlantic
Here's another:
In no other country, at no other time, has such a right existed. It is not the right to hunt. It is not the right to shoot at soda cans in an empty field. It is not even the right to shoot at a home invader in the middle of the night. It is the right of revolution. Let me say that again: It is the right of revolution. ~ Kaili Joy Gray, article in The Daily Kos
Gray gets it. The 2nd Amendment was meant to guarantee a balance of power with "the people," to give them a fighting chance to "alter or abolish" (in the words of The Declaration) a government that no longer protected their freedoms and had its own standing army to resist being "altered." A disarmed public can't even be a militia (oh, how feared is that word!). They would be sitting ducks for despotism.
Well, those are two. Where are all the other liberal patriots?
If the liberal patriots were still around, some might receive Obama's "give up your rights for the children's" speech with a measure of suspicion and skepticism. Even though, unlike Alan Gopnik, Obama alludes to the actual purpose of the Second Amendment (rather than the "satisfaction gun owners take from their guns"): "Are we prepared to say that such violence visited on our children, year after year after year, is somehow the price of our freedom?" Here is the antiquated (or so it seems to liberals) worry about despotism (so 18th century) weighed against the very real danger to our children. Are you willing to sacrifice your children for some outdated concept? Is this old trope of Progressivism what is meant by "the politics are too hard"?
If the liberal patriots were still around, some might be suspicious when the President says that "keeping our children safe . . . is something we can only do together, with . . . the help of a nation." It requires national (read: federal) gun policy to prevent/lessen massacres? Why? ("What does God need with a starship?")
If the liberal patriots were still around, they might be getting suspicious when religion is invoked to bring about radical policy change: "That is how as a society we will be judged." While the New Testament records some harsh words about those who harm children, the New Testament doesn't specifically link it to judgments on societies. If Obama is going to wax Biblical, he could make a better argument that a society will be judged by repentance and its acceptance of Jesus' message of salvation. I wonder why he's making a theological argument at all. Weren't our liberal patriots super-skeptical of theological arguments once upon a time?
Like the freedom to never go hungry or sick or jobless as long as the federal government has the key to your neighbor's pantry (and bank vault), the freedom from attacks by maniacs awaits you. All it takes is giving up essential liberty even when "the politics are too hard." Then you will be "free" to be safe.
(*Note: I have since been informed that Jeffrey Goldberg may not be an example of a leftist, even though the article citing this quote described him as such. So, my count actually falls from two to one liberal patriot.)
Having had a gun-related death in my family, I have experienced the grief and witnessed firsthand the shattering, paralyzing grief of parents. It's horrific. And, in that context, I can say that I don't appreciate the ambulance-chasing Michael Moores that are waiting in the wings to turn the grief of family members into political fodder. I sure wouldn't have appreciated Bob Costas throwing in his 2¢ (even if someone had 1½¢ to give him back in change) on our personal tragedy.
Now, when Obama declared (or suggested, rather) a very reluctant truce on his attacks on gun rights, I was sure that Nov. 6th was the expiration date for that truce. He has a history of saying whatever will get him elected. Whether you knew he never meant what he said about marriage, individual mandates, CSPAN, debt ceilings, etc. or simply have a media-induced case of Obamnesia, that history is there.
It's been less than two months. Obama is tearing up on television and talking about renewing the gun "discussion": “seeing if we can get an assault weapons ban reintroduced, but part of it is also looking at other sources of the violence, because frankly, in my hometown of Chicago, there’s an awful lot of violence, and they’re not using AK-47s, they’re using cheap handguns.” Yes, in spite of Chicago practically being a liberal's ideal gun-free zone, criminals still manage to get weapons and kill unarmed citizens before the police can answer the 911 call. And wait, the killings were accomplished with 9mm pistols, so is Obama's segue into cheap handguns mean that ordinary citizens should not be allowed to own cheap handguns for fear that they will walk into a school?
Remember that at Columbine Harris and Klebold were trying to outdo the Bath School Disaster of 1927. With bombs. Fortunately, they were not as good at terrorism as Andrew Kehoe, so they resorted to shooting several when what they really wanted a truly enormous death toll. A bit more practice with their home bombs and they might have pulled off what J.D. failed to do in Heathers. Most rampagers probably have less narcissism involved in their killing, but remember that Andrew Kehoe seemed to be making a statement that society was to blame for his troubles: "Criminals are made." Was Kehoe made a criminal by the school he blew up?
As one might imagine, China doesn't like its ordinary citizens to have guns. (They might have had a revolution long ago.) So their rampages are mostly accomplished with "melee weapons."
On a related note: Remember how CNN showed Obama tromping around the Hurricane Sandy devastation (and buried the disturbing follow-up), while interviewing a member of the E Street Band for political commentary on why Romney's nod to the 10th Amendment was all wrong? (Message: After Romney throws your grandma off a cliff and counts his money as your wife dies of cancer, he'll make sure that your city gets no adequate help after a disaster, because he's rich and doesn't care.) That sure wasn't politicizing a tragedy to plug a candidate, nope.
What if this school shooting had happened the week before November 6th, and CNN had shown Obama tearing up over the senselessness and then had George Clooney being interviewed as body bags are shown being wheeled off the campus:
"Mr. Clooney, what do you think of gun control legislation in light of recent events?"
"Well, I have to say that anyone that isn't willing to rethink the 2nd Amendment must not be as sick of these senseless tragedies as I am, Bob..."
And then, we could have had Chris Matthews say after the subsequent Obama win, "I'm so glad we had that shooting last week..." Yes, what are a few lives considering the fabulous opportunity they afford to politicize the event and gain a political victory?
Think of all the lives that could be saved by restricting vehicle ownership and vehicle operation. Especially in the 18 to 25 age group. Why don't we do something about that? The 2nd Amendment at least is about guaranteeing our right to democratic government. Isn't vehicle operation just a luxury entitlement compared to that?
You would think from this article in the online Irish Voice that when the Irish Gardai show up to protect a civilian from an armed assailant they use harsh language and possibly throw their batons if the thug doesn't turn himself in good faith. John Spain writes, "It’s one thing when the drug gangs shoot each other[,] . . . [b]ut it is a different matter when one of these young thugs
so casually tries to murder a Garda simply because he does not want to be
followed. If that is what it has come to here, then should the Gardai be armed?"
Will you tell me what kind of a world we live in, where an armed thug would rather shoot a cop than be caught and sent to prison? Has it really come to that? Spain further points out that in spite of the Irish Republic's strict gun control laws (the anti-colonial Irish ironically have no guarantee like our Second Amendment) "[l]ow level young thugs here frequently carry guns." It would seem that, unless young thugs don't mind going to prison, that the only thing keeping Gardai from getting shot more often is not getting into many confrontations with thugs. (Or there are somehow enough armed citizens that there aren't many sutuations being called in--the thugs have truly heretofore been content to kill each other, which I doubt.)
Spain even conjectures a case-and-effect that "in most countries where police routinely carry arms, gun crime is much higher than it is in Ireland because criminals feel they have to carry weapons," such that in spite of their gun control laws criminals will somehow get their hands on better weapons. Yes, somehow, criminals do get their hands on them in spite of gun control, but they don't have to wait for cops to be better armed, just as these young thugs routinely carry guns when officers of the law do not. With Spain's logic though, cops should be walking around in nothing but swimming trunks and Nerf swords, since that will induce thugs to not have to carry around anything better than knives. This is the sort of cause-and-effect that people decide on having been "informed" solely by Michael Moore statistics.
He further writes, "I see from the American nightly news that in some parts of the U.S., for
example, officers who are unhappy that all they have is handguns have now
started to buy heavy duty machine guns out of their own pockets to give them
firepower to match that of the bad guys." Well, all we had to do to prevent that was to shut down those machine gun drive-thrus where any ex-con or gang member could pick one up!
Of course, criminals don't always have to import them if they can be stolen from civilians or non-civilians. But just as criminals seem to always get their hands on illegal substance, they always seem to get their hands on illegal arms.
One point that Spain raises that I can sympathize with is that of the sense that police are just deputized citizens: "In Ireland there is still a huge level of support, appreciation, and even
affection for the Gardai from 98% of the population. The fact that the Gardai
are unarmed is part of that relationship . . ."
From my own experience, I'll make this observation: If an officer of the law pulls me over for an alleged misdemeanor and approaches me with his hand resting on the butt of his gun, he should not talk to me like I'm the scum of society unless he truly has reason that I've committed some felony. Policemen who obviously had no reason to fear me have chosen to intimidate me, and this attitude isn't simply a result of carrying a gun.
