Miami Police Tell Citizens To “Get Yourself Some Firearms”
Brian Anderson Brian Anderson, July 12, 2014
It looks like somebody forgot to tell Miami-Dade County that the recession is over. The county is facing a huge budget shortfall and as a result may have to fire hundreds of police officers. In response, the police union is telling residents to arm themselves and prepare for a situation where they would have to be their own first responders.
WSVN reports that Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez unveiled a $64 million budget cut to address the issue. Wait, counties have mayors? Whatever. And this belt-tightening will cut the county workforce by 650 jobs including a significant reduction in the police force.
This, however, seems more like a bargaining technique than an actual budget cut. The Mayor is looking for the police union to cave on certain issues.
“If we get no concessions whatsoever, then you’re looking at about 250 police officers,” said Gimenez.
As you know, unions generally don’t take kindly to threats and police unions definitely don’t like being bullied. The Miami-Dade Police Benevolent Association called the Mayor’s bluff the best way they know how: by scaring the hell out of county residents.
“If the mayor’s not going to provide security, then my recommendation, as an experienced law enforcement officer for nearly 40 years, is either buy yourself an attack dog, put bars on your windows and doors and get yourself some firearms because you’re going to have to protect yourselves. We won’t be able to,” said John Rivera, Association President.
I find this statement particularly funny because it implies that the police actually protect the people. Nothing could be further from the truth. They show up after a crime has been committed and occasionally bring the perpetrator to justice. When a rape, robbery, or murder is in progress, police are miles away. I’m not saying cops are lazy; it’s just a logistic impossibility for them to be everywhere at all times.
So it’s humorous that the police union is suggesting that they can be everyone’s personal bodyguard, but the comedy gets better in this budget fight. The concession that the Mayor wants the police to give is over health care costs.
“This is the amount of money that we have, and if I have to pay more for the employees at the end, we are probably going to have to have fewer employees, unless I continue these concessions and get a 15 percent reduction in our healthcare costs. Then we can maintain most of the employees,” said Gimenez.
WTF? I thought ObamaCare was going to bring down health insurance costs, making it affordable for everyone. Yet, here we have a major metropolitan area having to fire 250 police officers because they can’t afford to pay for medical insurance. I’m starting to think the Affordable Care Act is anything but.
Have you ever noticed how when there is a budget crunch, the first things politicians want to cut are police, fire and rescue, and education? This is because if they cut silly social and environmental programs nobody would care. It’s a clever trick that scares the citizenry into accepting a “modest” tax increase. People don’t give a crap about midnight basketball or free shopping carts for the homeless, but when you threaten to take away emergency services, they will pony up.
So the cops aren’t really telling people to arm themselves, this is just a chess move in a bigger union contract fight. However sarcastic union president Rivera was, he actually delivered some good advice. People are their own best first responders and Florida has great self-defense laws and a reasonable concealed carry permitting process. It’s time to tool up Florida.
http://downtrend.com/71superb/miami-police-tell-citizens-to-get-yourself-some-firearms/
