USA –-(Ammoland.com)- “Summit County Sheriff Drew Alexander plans to announce today that the county jail no longer will accept violent mentally ill and mentally disabled people arrested by area police,” Rick Armon of the Akron Beacon Journal reports.
“The issue erupted publicly” we are informed, “after… the death of an inmate [in] a violent struggle with deputies.”
“The policy,” we are told, is “designed to improve safety for other inmates and staff.”
And what about for the rest of us, as those contracted to protect “society” against violent offenders decline to take on the task of keeping the deranged ones isolated from those of us forced to pay for “public safety”?
The issue is huge, as the “violent mentally ill” left unsegregated pose a real threat to the general populace. And while our keeping and bearing arms won’t solve the issue of how we can effectively treat those “who can’t be trusted without a custodian,” one thing is clear: Not taking personal measures to defend ourselves against aggressors, whether deranged or just immoral, is no solution.
Not that Sheriff Alexander has been traditionally sympathetic to that argument: when “shall issue” concealed carry in Ohio was being debated, his was a voice using the “road rage” canard to discourage it. When the recognized right to carry was extended to include establishments that serve adult beverages, his was a voice claiming:
The idea of putting alcohol and guns together just doesn’t make any sense to me. It’s like leaning into a left hook. It’s dumb.
This historic hostility toward an armed citizenry is reflected in the National Sheriffs’ Association, a group we’re told Alexander is active in. Law Enforcement Alliance of America recounts how “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.”
And while NSA appears to have publicly toned down anti-gun activism in their current legislative priorities, acknowledgment of armed citizens being safer is conspicuously absent from their crime prevention resources. Indeed, even while Sheriff Alexander has admitted his blood-in-the-streets scenario never materialized with the passage of “shall issue,” he still discredits guns in private hands as a crime deterrent, claiming “I haven’t seen that, either.”
The sheriff’s innate “professional” distrust of those who pay his salary continues to prove itself unfounded, and ought to be considered when assessing the validity of his opinion. And while solutions for dealing with the violent mentally ill are debatable, one thing is not:
The idea of putting violent and disarmed peaceable people together just doesn’t make any sense to me. It’s like leaning into a meat hook. It’s dumb.
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Another Ohio peace officer’s view
The pop culture pacifist, the man or woman who prides themselves in telling others that they would do no harm to another ‘human being’ is a coward. Yes, a coward. Would they truly rather submit to a predator and be murdered than fight back?
Read this. If you’re rational, you’ll be glad you did. If you’re not, well, go ahead and entertain us with your rage.
About David Codrea
David Codrea is a long-time gun rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He is a field editor for GUNS Magazine, and a blogger at The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance. Read more at www.DavidCodrea.com.
