Quote:
Originally posted by Drdogface
Pat,
Relax...I'm not attacking you. To answer your question,though, Yes...they do have to abide by the set policy..like it or not and most don't.
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I rarely take any response out here as a personal attack, not to worry.
I had a long discussion about this very subject with an officer in the North Bay, a lieutenant on his force now and just short of retirement, and he agreed with me philosophically. A good officer only enforces mala pro se laws, things that are against the law in and of themselves. Those are crimes of violence, theft, and the like. Most of us inherrantly understand what these laws are, and well over 95% of the population wants those that break those laws removed from society until they stop breaking them. In fact, we (the officer and I) agreed that when very little less than 90% of a population supports a law, it's difficult to enforce a law, and when a little less than 80-85% of the population support a law it's almost impossible to enforce the law. He and I agreed on the fact that the duty of the police is to have a generally orderly society, but not to provide any type of personal security (body guard) force.
The upshot of this is that the police do not have to enforce laws that should not be (mala prohibitum laws), and no gun control law is legitimate, unless they wish to do so. That is the inherrant danger of laws prohibiting a "thing", such as guns, automatic knives, drugs, and a whole lot of other "things"; they allow a judgement on enforcement among individual officers based on what they wish to do in any circumstance. That's a bad idea.