Cops and Gun Control: The REAL Story

One of the driving forces behind LEAA’s founding was to dispel the false impression that America’s police favor more gun control.

We know, and research backs us up, an overwhelming majority of America’s rank-and-file cops support private ownership of firearms.

That’s because they know, better than most, that disarming honest citizens does nothing to reduce crime, but will deprive citizens of the means of defending themselves from violent predators.

Many cops are firearms and shooting sports enthusiasts. (If you doubt this, count the number of law enforcement types you see next time you go to the range or on a hunting trip!) These officers know first hand that the kind of gun control popular among liberal activists will do nothing to reduce real crime or deter real criminals. They also know that the kind of extreme gun control measures being pushed by liberals today places an inordinate burden on law abiding shooting enthusiasts and legitimate gun dealers.

And many veteran law enforcement officers can recount episodes where the intervention of an armed private citizen has saved lives ­ often the officer’s!

So Why Do so many Americans
Believe Cops Want More Gun Control
In part because that is what gun control advocates want you to believe. In their campaign to pass legislation the Brady Bill and the 1994 gun ban, for example, pro-gun control forces routinely called on cops to help make their case. Mostly big city chiefs and political appointees, (what we at LEAA like to call “photo op cops”) these few police bureaucrats have helped create a public impression that America’s cops favor gun control. (In some outrageous cases, police officers who actually opposed the legislation were forced by their superiors to appear in staged photographs as if they were solidly behind gun control!)

Next time you see cops willingly participate in pro-gun control debate, notice how few of them are front-line street level officers.

Recently, a Florida sheriff created headlines when he called for renewal of the 1994 Clinton Gun ban. He even demonstrated on nationwide TV the “devastating effects” that so-called banned weapons would have in the hands of criminals. It turns out the fully-automatic military weapon he demonstrated was not even covered by the 1994 ban.

This “law enforcement professional" was then exposed for what he really was: a long time liberal politician who had been appointed to the office of sheriff as part of a political payoff. Nevertheless, people like this sheriff and other police bureaucrats, often appointed by liberal big city political machines, claim to speak for rank and file police.

This is how LEAA Executive Director Jim Fotis Addresses the Issue:

I'm a cop. I worked the streets. I learned how criminals act and how they think. I've used the sidearm my department issued to me. I've got the permanent physical reminders of a cop who more than once found himself in harm's way during years of active "street" law enforcement. I survived a "classic shootout" trading shots at a distance of roughly seven feet, something most cops don't survive. Believe me when I say I know viscerally the issues that most concern rank-and-file police. I'm not a political cop nor was I a fast-track desk jockey looking for my chance at a grin-and-grip color portrait autographed by the resident of the governor's mansion or the White House.

Today, as the Executive Director of the Law Enforcement Alliance of America (LEAA), I represent other cops, corrections officers, private law enforcement, crime victims, and citizens across the nation who are fed up with the futility and hypocrisy of our criminal justice system.

When I'm asked if cops support gun control, I respond with a clarification: If by gun control, you mean taking guns away from every sullen-eyed slack who pushed rock cocaine, ripped off old ladies, mugged a pensioner, murdered an equally low-life, gang banger competitor, or defined his social encounters in terms of robbery, rape or murder, the answer is a resounding yes!

Every real cop I know is all for ripping weapons away from violent, criminal street-slime.

But that is not what gun control means to the Brady’s, the Clintons, Charles Schumer and, Dianne Feinstein. Their definition of gun control means restricting the rights of, and disarming, peaceable citizens. And the answer to that idea is a loud and clear, unambiguous "NO", at least from real cops.”

Cops for Gun Control: The Big Payoff Scheme
The Clinton Administration was particularly successful at enlisting police support for gun control. They funneled millions of your tax dollars in political payoffs, disguised as "research" into the pockets of national law enforcement organizations.

This era spawned several police "type" organizations with blatant anti-gun agendas, such as the so-called Police Foundation, followed by a host of clones, including the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF). One particularly heavily endowed group was International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), which has adopted a consistent anti-gun political agenda.

Other police groups such as the National Sheriffs Association and the Fraternal Order of Police which, previous to the Clinton era, tended to be neutral or leaning toward a pro-Second Amendment stance, were influenced into taking pro-gun control stands by the river of political money flowing from the Clinton Administration and its allies.

In one year during the Clinton Administration, the Police Executive Research Forum, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the National Sheriffs Association and the Police Foundation collectively hauled in $4.4 million in Justice Department grants. Before then the Department of Justice dollars flowed just as freely. The International Association of Chiefs of Police raked in over $630,000. National Sheriffs Association cheerfully pocketed $516,943. The Police Executive Research Forum netted $447,343. The Police Foundation accepted a more modest $221,634.

Add up the totals [$1.8 million before, $4.4 million after] and you get a small peek at the economic and political clout the Clinton White House wielded in shaping public policy and buying national police groups into line. Every federal dollar dumped into law enforcement bank accounts is quite legal. Each has a perfectly "rational" explanation. It is merely coincidence that the police groups that scurried to do Clinton' bidding happen to be the same ones that were awarded the lucrative federal grants.

Even though Clinton has been out of office for several years, the liberal influence over these police groups remains strong. Though, thanks to the efforts of LEAA and others, that influence is now declining. Several well known law enforcement groups have reverted to more pro-Second Amendment or at least neutral positions.

WHAT YOU CAN DO!

The Law Enforcement Alliance of America -- the nation's largest coalition of law enforcement professionals, crime victims and concerned citizens -- gives voice to pro-gun law enforcement. We fought long and hard against the Brady Act, the Clinton Gun and Magazine Ban of 1994. We brought together officers and police organizations, representing more than 100,000 law enforcement professionals, standing shoulder-to-shoulder in defense of our Constitutionally guaranteed rights and in complete opposition to the "Clinton Crime Bill."

Today, we at LEAA constantly educate the public and take to the halls of Congress working to pass real, street-smart, anti-crime legislation that punishes criminals and protects the rights of crime victims and gun owners. When the anti-gun forces and their media allies claim that cops support gun control, we are the only group in America that is living proof that this is a lie. But the real proof of our claim is in our numbers.

We have never had the resources equal to the federal handouts dumped into anti-gun police organization's coffers. What we do have is a dedicated cadre of committed law enforcement officers and private citizens who give voice to our position on critical issues.

Every law enforcement officer, active or former, and every concerned private citizen, who shares our belief SHOULD BE A MEMBER OF LEAA.

Join or contribute to LEAA today!

GET THE FULL HISTORY ON LEAA's EFFORTS TO EDUCATE THE PUBLIC ON WHAT COPS REALLY THINK AND WHY THEY OPPOSE GUN CONTROL

"The majority of peace officers I've talked to agree that gun laws only result in armed criminals preying on defenseless citizens. Instead of useless anti-gun owner legislation, what we need and need right now are tough anti-crime measures. Anti-gun bills only cloud the real issue. And those of us who actually battle crime pay the price."

Lt. Harry Thomas: Cincinnati Police Division