Two incidents involving law enforcement over the last couple weeks have made it painfully obvious to a great many of us that the ranks of gun rights activists have been filled with people who hate cops. They appear to hate cops even more than they love the Second Amendment. Their blatant desire to see cops shot is glaringly overt, and they are attempting to use the second amendment as their justification.
There has always been a segment of the pro-gun crowd that hated law enforcement, but they used to be a small group on the fringe. I remember nearly seven years ago when I first started writing gun content for public consumption. I was writing at The Bang Switch, which was the blog for the Military Arms Channel. I was really surprised by some of the cop hating comments from readers, when here I was, a cop, trying to argue on their behalf. Not only was their hatred directed at me, but Tim, the owner of the Military Arms Channel, was called a “bootlicker” because he dared to bring on a cop to talk about guns and gun rights.
I mean here I was arguing on their behalf, and as payment for my efforts I was attacked. It really confounded me.
Jump forward seven years to the present, and holy hell, things have gotten exponentially worse.
Precipitating Factors
Left leaning politicians have made everyone’s nerves raw with the gun control laws they have been writing and enacting. Laws that very clearly violate not just the 2nd amendment, but several other amendments as well; laws requiring citizens to surrender legally owned items, pay fees and jump through hoops to do such simple things as purchase ammo. Worse are the red flag laws that both take a person’s lawful property and violate multiple rights, all without the person having committed a crime.
As a career cop, I hate all of that. I have voted against these politicians my whole life. I have voted against these laws, and I have written extensively in opposition of those laws. I have even called out a former co-worker turned politician for his hand in passing some of those laws in California.
I absolutely understand the general public’s concerns. I understand being fearful that the cops might start showing up to enforce those laws. Hell, there are a couple noteworthy incidents where that has happened, even one in which it unfortunately, and exactly as predicted, turned deadly.
I am here to tell you that I am not remotely the only cop who feels this way. All of us here at 2A Cops feel that way, and several of us are from gun hating California. In fact, the overwhelming majority of cops across the country feel the same way. Survey after survey says so. In fact, we are currently running our own survey of cops from across the country which will be discussed in an upcoming article. Thus far, the results show even stronger support than previous surveys did.
But still, there is a segment of the gun community that refuses to believe any of that. That segment has become increasingly vocal over the last several weeks.
Strike One
The first incident occurred nearly three weeks ago, and involved some moderately well-known guy on Instagram who goes by the name of whiskey_warrior_556. He is a military vet who has lots of stuff going on in his personal life. He threw on his camo and a plate carrier, and began sending out calls for “help” via Instagram, calling the cops who were there “read coats” (sic). According to him, it was all because the cops were there to enforce a red flag order.
Turns out, all of that was a lie, but that did not matter. Hundreds, possibly thousands, of people on social media began attacking the local law enforcement agencies, albeit not physically.
They swamped the local emergency phone numbers for the agencies, crashing their systems, literally making it impossible for those agencies to help their citizens in actual need of help. They attacked the agencies on their social media accounts, up to and including death threats. Pictures of the local cops got turned into fake wanted fliers, on which they were called tyrants, “red coats” and “blue Isis.”
Thankfully, that situation ended with no one injured, but the cop hatred that used to be limited to the fringe sovereign citizen types was not only visible, but it was seemingly being embraced by some of the more mainstream gun rights folks.
Strike Two
Last week in Florida, there was an armed robbery of a jewelry store. During the robbery, the two armed suspects shot an innocent woman in the head before fleeing in a vehicle. At some point, the robbers ditched that vehicle and carjacked a UPS truck, taking the UPS driver hostage. They led the police on a pursuit, while keeping the driver hostage.
At some point, the UPS truck caught up to stopped traffic and became trapped. A gunfight ensued between the suspects and the cops. I will not remotely pretend that what I saw in some of the videos of that scene is not extremely disturbing, both as a retired cop and as a citizen. As a result of that gunfight, the two suspects were killed, as was the UPS driver and an innocent woman who was in a car in the stopped traffic.
I am not going to defend some of the actions I saw there, but I am also not willing to outright condemn every cop who was on the scene as so many began doing. In fact, the hate grew to encompass not just the cops who were there, but to all of law enforcement. The “red coats” and “blue Isis” memes once again started showing up.
Many people who are defenders of gun rights suddenly began to publicly villainize law enforcement. Many with military service backgrounds claimed that they would never injure innocent bystanders in combat. While we all like to think that, the fact is innocent people have been killed in firefights with the military involved. I do not remotely mean that as an attack on the military, but we all know that in military engagements, sometimes innocent people get unintentionally injured.
Other people with no actual tactical experience at all, other than playing video games in their mom’s basement, began spewing their vast knowledge about how the situation should have been handled. People began screaming for cop blood, because cops are just out to kill civilians and they are above the law, or so they seemed to think.
The reality is, in hindsight, some changes to their tactics might have helped prevent this ending. But that is only MIGHT.
None of us knows what would have happened if the pursuing cars had backed off and just let the helicopter follow. Hell, the robbers had already shot a woman in the head and were holding another innocent person hostage. Who is to say they would not have murdered the hostage as soon as the cops were out of sight? Who is to say that once stuck in traffic, they would not have exited the UPS truck and carjacked someone else, perhaps a family with kids in the car? Who is to say that if the cops had not been there in that traffic jam engaging the suspects that the suspects might not have just started shooting at random cars and drivers to get them to clear a path?
The fact is, we only know what did happen – two innocent people were killed in the horrendously ugly crossfire. None of us can possibly know what might have happened – good, bad or worse.
Fallout
However, the fact the no one knew exactly what transpired did not stop people from openly declaring all of law enforcement the enemy. It got so bad, that even a company that makes body armor and markets that armor to law enforcement, went on a several day long tirade in which they spewed anti-cop statements and sicked their Facebook followers not only on law enforcement related pages, but even sent them after individual officers who dared to say such crazy things as “let’s wait and see what happens with the investigation.”
The anti-cop rhetoric got so heated, people were showing up on both the 2A Cops website and Facebook page. despite the fact that we had not commented on the incident in Florida or any of the pages attacking cops. We just happened to have “Cops” in our name, so we were automatically the enemy. They began calling us names, spewing hatred directed at all of law enforcement, and some demanded that we spell out our every thought about the second amendment, as if they were owed the explanation. Then, if we did not agree with their opinion completely, we were then classified as the enemy.
To one person who demanded my thoughts, the fact that I dared think that a convicted drug dealer should not be able to legally own a full-auto weapon was enough to classify me as someone who was not pro-2A. No, I’m not kidding. A screen grab of the conversation can be found below.
Familiar Tactics
The tactics being employed by the cop hating fringe dwellers who are infecting the mainstream pro-gun crowd feel all too familiar. In fact, they are strikingly similar to the tactics employed by the cop hating former fringe dwellers who are widely known now as Black Lives Matter. While there are many “normal” people who support BLM, the fact that many of their members have actively called for and carried out assassinations of cops solely because of their profession cannot be ignored.
BLM supporters have ambushed and killed a number of cops over the last 10 years. Several incidents happened in much the same way, where the assassin came up to the cops who were seated in a vehicle and executed the officers without warning.
The tactics used by BLM are the same as those employed by these right wing extremists. (Before anyone asks, no, being right wing does not make you an extremist. I am very right wing myself.) In fact, just last week a cop in Fayetteville, Arkansas was ambushed and executed in his patrol car in the parking log of the police station by a guy who participated in anti-law enforcement groups on social media.
These are the same tactics employed by the anti-government extremists who walked up to two cops in a pizza parlor eating lunch and executed them. These are not remotely the only instances where anti-government extremists have ambushed and shot cops.
The problem is, these whack jobs used to be seen by all of us as fringe extremists. Now, because of the extreme tensions created by the passage of all these unconstitutional laws, those extremists are feeling welcomed by people who previously would have shunned them.
Further compounding the problem is when anyone dares to speak up in the pro-gun community saying what could even slightly be seen as defending law enforcement, they are immediately labeled “bootlickers” and attacked. This again is the same tactic employed by BLM, except in that case you were also labeled as a racist and a “pig lover.”
Cops Are Overwhelmingly Pro-Gun
I have mentioned this already, but just to reiterate, survey after survey shows working cops are very ardent supporters of the second amendment. Our survey on the topic, which will be discussed here soon, not only confirms this, but shows the support is even stronger than before.
The public is not always aware of this because the mainstream media loves to give an open mic to top cops who want to spew support for gun control. A perfect example of that is Houston PD Chief Art Acevedo and his recent use of one of his murdered cops as a prop to push gun control. Police chiefs are politically appointed in most cases, and as such, they either are quiet on the topic of gun control, or they parrot the sentiments of their mayors and city councils.
On the other hand, Sheriffs are elected officials themselves and as such, they are not at will employees who can be fired if they piss off the mayor, which gives them the ability to speak their mind on topics such as gun control. You may have noticed what is currently happening in the state of Virginia – Sheriffs are speaking up and refusing to enforce the unconstitutional gun laws the democrat super-majority is pushing. Local governments are also stepping up and passing local ordinances declaring their counties second amendment sanctuaries.
People often forget that even out here in gun hating California, we have a growing number of sheriffs who are outspoken supporters of the second amendment. My former boss Sacramento County Sheriff Scott Jones and the sheriff of El Dorado County, Sheriff John D’Agostini are but two of them.
Who Is Benefiting?
Stop and think about this for a moment. Who benefits from this situation? Who is constantly attacking both gun owners and cops? Who is writing the laws putting cops between themselves and the gun owners? Who continues to push the narrative that cops are racists, that the system is racist, and that violent felons who get shot by the cops are somehow the victim? Who is currently suggesting using the military against local law enforcement over gun confiscation?
Who would most benefit by having the cops alienated from not only the political left, but also from one of the most active groups on the political right, the gun rights advocates?
The answer to all of those questions is the same: the political left.
What Can We Do?
First thing is we have to stop jumping the gun (pun intended) on this stuff. The whiskey_warrior incident stemmed from claims that were no more truthful than “hands up, don’t shoot” was with Mike Brown. WAY too many people got way too fired up over a couple statements made by some random guy on social media. It is vital to wait and let the facts come out before making up one’s mind, and definitely before taking action.
Next, when cops screw up, and we do in fact screw up on occasion, it is important to realize that one screw up by one cop, or even an entire agency, does not represent all 800,000 cops in the united states. Yes, some of those cops are going to be okay with illegally confiscating guns from people who have done nothing, but they are the minority. Extrapolating using the percentages from the cop gun control surveys, about 680,000 of those 800,000 cops are 2A supporters. Why would you intentionally alienate 680,000+/- people who are on the same side as you?
If you want to discuss law enforcement screw ups, which is absolutely understandable and reasonable, please realize that unless you have the same training and experience, everything you think you know might not be based on accurate information.
If a heart surgeon tells you that you should do something, you aren’t going to disregard his opinion because you watched a lot of ER on television. Same should go for law enforcement. Watching COPS or Live PD does not make one an expert, anymore than having served in the military does. Try to discuss things with an open mind. You might find not only are people more willing to share information, but it is possible you might end up with some better insight as to why things get done in a particular manner.
Try to remember that what you know and may have experienced with your local cops is not going to be true for cops in other places. Each agency has its own culture, and own identity. I have never experienced an agency that is corrupt, but I also know that in some places, that does happen. While your experience may by mostly negative or positive, not everyone will share your experience.
When you see cops standing up for all of our rights, especially department heads publicly stating they will not enforce the unconstitutional gun laws like is happening in Virginia right now, don’t be afraid to support them publicly. Yet some people hate the cops so much, they will attack the cops who are fighting to preserve and defend the very same rights that person claims to love. I have seen it countless times. Hell, I have been the recipient of it.
Allies, Not Enemies
The biggest thing I would ask is that you try and remember that cops are just people, just like everyone else. We more often than not live in the community in which we work. The people we serve are our friends, family and neighbors. Cops have no interest in turning law abiding folks into felons. That is the leftist politicians who are trying to do that.
We (the gun rights community and cops as a whole) are both on the same side of this fight. Even if you view law enforcement as not entirely trustworthy, we should be allies, even if it is with trepidation. We need to act like it, because a unified front is much stronger than one that is split.
