Wisconsin Sheriff Asks Citizens To Help With Their Own Safety

In Wisconsin recently, Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke Jr., took out a controversial 30 second radio ad telling the citizens of Milwaukee County that "Your safety is no longer a spectator sport. I need you in the game."

His advice: Take a gun course and buy a gun. And be ready to use it.

"With officers laid off and furloughed, simply calling 911 and waiting is no longer your best option.  You can beg for mercy from a violent criminal, hide under the bed, or you can fight back. But are you prepared?  Consider taking a certified safety course in handling a firearm so you can defend yourself until we get there.  You have a duty to protect yourself and your family.  We're partners now.  Can I count on you?"

How interesting - a government worker actually telling people they should buy guns and be ready to use them.  Apparently Sheriff Clark lives by the adage that "When seconds count the police are only minutes away."  Once the bad guy has broken into your home and is coming toward you down the hallway, or once he has put  a gun in your face on a public street, is not the right time to call 911 and hope the police get there.

It's also interesting how Delaware's Attorney General Beau Biden, Vice President Joe Biden's son, just stripped all Delaware County Sherrifs of their arrest authority.  Apparently they cannot interfere with federal agents if they (the feds) want to take guns from citizens.

Our federal government and some states (including New York and Vermont) have or are passing legislation banning "assault rifles".  The term assault rifle is misleading at the very least, since it is merely a semi-automatic rifle that fires a .223 round.  The only difference between a .223 hunting rifle and a so called "assault rifle" is what is on the outside of the weapon.  "Assault rifles" or personal protection rifles as they are rightly called by the manufacturer, are styled to look like a military AR-15.  They do not function like a military weapon however, as in they do not fire fully automatic or even a multiple round burst.  One round, and only one round, is fired each time you pull the trigger.  Like a semi-automatic pistol, you can fire single rounds as fast as you can pull the trigger but only one round will fire.

Some may say you don't need a semi-automatic weapon to protect your home.  Ummm - why do you think all law enforcement agencies now carry semi-automatic weapons?  In a gunfight you don't know how many rounds you need until it's over and you walk away.  Never having been in a gunfight myself (fortunately) I can't speak from experience but from the stories of people I know well who have experienced it - the magazine can empty very quickly.  You should always have enough ammunition to stop your opponent.  And it should not be up to some nutcase elected official to decide how many rounds that needs to be.  Period.

I have taken several law enforcement combat shooting courses in my lifetime, including some with simunitions where it feels like the bad guy is shooting you (because he is.)  Even in a situation that you know is not deadly it's easy to get carried away and empty a magazine.  As I said - you shoot until your opponent stops his attack.  And if you empty a magazine you have another one fully loaded to take its place.  The greater capacity the magazine the greater chances you have of stopping the attack.

The focus in Washington still seems to be on the weapon instead of the person behind it.  Car accidents kill hundreds of thousands of people a year in this country.  Yet there is no focus on the car being the problem.  It's always blamed on the operator.  In like fashion - no gun has ever killed anyone without a person using or misusing it.  So why do we blame the gun for those deaths instead of the operator?  That seems to make anti-gun activists look a little silly...