Detroit Police Chief James Craig; good guys with guns is a good thing
The Detroit Police Chief, James Craig, took a stance generally unpopular among the nation’s other police chiefs last week when he told a radio audience that good guys with guns make society safer. He also said that his conversion to this position took some time and experience, according to the Detroit News;
Craig said he started believing that legal gun owners can deter crime when he became police chief in Portland, Maine, in 2009.
“Coming from California (Craig was on the Los Angeles police force for 28 years), where it takes an act of Congress to get a concealed weapon permit, I got to Maine, where they give out lots of CCWs (carrying concealed weapon permits), and I had a stack of CCW permits I was denying; that was my orientation.
“I changed my orientation real quick. Maine is one of the safest places in America. Clearly, suspects knew that good Americans were armed.”
Of course, gun grabbers weren’t happy with the chief’s revelation;
Robyn Thomas, director of the the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence in San Francisco, disagreed.
“I think at its core, his position is an emotional one, based on the idea that people feel safer when they have guns. But studies have shown more guns don’t deter crime,” Thomas said. “There’s no research that shows guns make anyone safer, and it does show that, the more guns in any situation, the higher the likelihood of them harming either the owner, or people who have access to them.”
Yeah, well, if there’s an emotional position, it’s the unsupported theory that fewer guns make society safer. In fact, gun ownership has been on the rise in the last decade and violent crime rates have plunged. Here at TAH, we see stories nearly every day, from nearly every state, in regards to good guys with guns saving themselves and their families from criminals armed with everything from guns to shovels. So, who is really being emotional here? Just because the gun grabbers don’t bother to read those stories that doesn’t make them right.
Thanks to Andy for the link.
Category: Guns
“There’s no research that shows guns make anyone safer…
Such a brazen lie refutes itself. There are myriad academic, peer-reviewed studies that show exactly that more guns equate to a safer environment. Of course, these filthy leftists express woe for the deaths of criminals and thugs…but normal, rational folks know that society is a better place without such people. Democrat voters are trash.
Little miss–I pull stuff out of my ass instead of research peer reviewed studies– is entitled to her own dumbassery but not her own facts.
if anyone wants to drink in some delicious liberal tears, go read the comments on the article.
@1. It is personally refreshing to see someone use myriad properly. And your point is on the money.
When Barry’s own Alma Mater (Harvard Liberal School, I mean, “Law” school) publishes a study indicating gun control is actually counterproductive to violent crime and suicide, I’m happy to reference it every chance I get.
My liberal friends never seem to have a response when I discuss that. So powerful it is.
http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol30_No2_KatesMauseronline.pdf
Before Detroit, Craig was police chief in Cincinnati. He refused to take the courses required to become a certified peace officer, felt it was beneath him and tried to sue the peace officers certification process. But Ohio is a “home rule” state and carry conceal permits are “shall issue” and issued by the county Sheriff, an elected official, not some figurehead who spouts the political party line and shows up on stage with 0bama. Also, Detroit has the highest rate of justifiable homocides in that state up north. He went to Detroit because that is where he is from.
Finally, reality intrudes…
Nice to hear a big-city police chief from a longtime Dem stronghold spit out the koolaid for a change. Detroit is bankrupt from decades of mismanagement by well-entrenched democrats, can’t afford to pay the few cops and firemen they haven’t laid off yet, and has eclipsed DC and Chicago for most violent city in America. And don’t they have some pretty strict municipal anti-gun laws? Chief Craig seems to have taken a long, hard look at the half-abandoned carcass of his once-great city and recognized that his Jackass Party masters are as wrong about guns and crime as they are about everything else. The only shocking part of this is that it took him this long, given the state of EVERYTHING in Detroit.
One of those cases where truth can be told because the guy holds a job nobody wants so good luck trying to replace him for speaking out.