Recently, the City of Boulder in Colorado passed a law telling all residents that if they owned certain guns, they had to get them certified by the police, or face confiscation of these guns and criminal prosecution.
Last month, I contacted the Boulder Police Department and spoke to the officer listed on their web page as being the point of contact for certifying these firearms. No need to mention his name here, it’s on their web page. The question I had to ask him was simple: I wanted to know if all Boulder police officers to whom this new law applies had brought their weapons in to be certified?
His answer was stunning. He replied “that is a leading question and I am not going to answer it.”
So merely asking if the police officers who enforce the law are also obeying the law is a leading question, and does not have to be answered? I don’t want to get into any other larger questions of the fairness of this law, or the fact that it turns honest citizens into criminals with the stroke of a pen, or that it is blatantly un-Constitutional, etc. I just want to know if the people who enforce the law are obeying the law?
According to this law, here are the people who are exempt:
“Nothing in the ordinance shall be construed to forbid the following persons from having in their possession, displaying, concealing or discharging such weapons as are necessary in the authorized and proper performance of their official duties:
- United States Marshals, any sheriffs, constables and their deputies,
- any regular or ex-officio police officer,
- any other peace officers, or
- members of the United States Armed Forces, Colorado National Guard or
- Reserve Officer Training Corps.”
Think about this. If a member of the United States Army lives in Boulder and has been issued a AR-15 to perform his duties, then he is exempt. We will ignore that fact that the US Army DOES NOT issue AR-15’s to their personnel to take home with them. However, if a member of the US Army lives in Boulder and owns an AR-15 that he has privately purchased for his own use, then he is not exempt and must certify the weapon.
I then spoke to the Deputy Chief of Police for Boulder, and asked him the same question. His response was “the police are exempt from this law.” I immediately replied that no, they are not. I referred him to the relevant portion of the law, which stated in effect that the law does apply to weapons that the police use IN THE PERFORMANCE OF THEIR DUTIES, which means the weapons that they have been issued by the police department to carry out said duties. There is NOTHING in the fine print of this law that exempts PRIVATELY OWNED weapons that a police officer purchases for his own use. I pointed this out to him, and then repeated my question. There was a pause, and he replied that it was incumbent upon all police officers to whom this law applied to obey the law. I said fine, but being incumbent to obey the law and actually obeying it are not the same thing, and had the police department issued a directive to their officers (who will be enforcing this law) to bring their weapons in to be certified? He didn’t have an answer.
I then contacted the office of the Boulder Chief of Police in order to speak to him, and was told by the person who answered the phone that the Chief had been briefed by the two individuals that I had already spoken with (apparently they felt the question I was raising was serious enough to bring it to his attention) and that he had nothing to say to me.
Saying the police are not going to keep records is BS. Any document you print off a computer is easily retrievable, even if you delete it. The record is there.
As an ex-cop, I can attest that many police officers own lots of guns. Many more than what they are issued to perform their duties. These are privately owned weapons that are subject to the same laws that apply to all other citizens.
When these anti-gun and un-Constitutional laws are passed, the police are usually working in lockstep with the politicians to make certain they are exempt. This law, being poorly written in regards to the Boulder Police Department, shows that they either weren’t paying attention or did not think anyone would raise the question.
The first step towards tyranny and totalitarianism is a disarmed population controlled by an elitist, isolated ruling class that lives in gated communities, works in buildings with armed guards to keep out the people, and has an armed police force at their control to put down any hint of rebellion or discontent.
The 2nd Amendment is not about hunting. It is about an armed population being able to protect themselves from oppression.
I close with this line from the movie Billy Jack: “When the people who enforce the law break the law, then these is no law. Just a struggle for survival.”
The View From The Trenches 