Two weeks ago I submitted an amicus brief in the United States District Court of Colorado, Gates vs. Polis, a case challenging the Colorado legislature’s 2013 ban on magazines larger than 15 rounds. The brief was written on behalf of sheriffs and law enforcement training organizations: the International Law Enforcement Educators and Trainers Association, the Colorado Law Enforcement Firearms Instructors Association, the Western States Sheriffs Association, 10 elected county sheriffs Colorado and the Independence Institute (where I work). ).
Part of the brief explains the practical mechanics of armed self-defense and why bans on standard magazines do not harm mass shooters, but endanger ordinary citizens, especially when attacked by multiple criminals. Another part of the brief shows that key data created by some of the Colorado Attorney General’s expert witnesses is demonstrably false.
But in this article, I will focus on a more fundamental argument of the memoir. Friends of law enforcement reject the assertion that weapons universally recognized as appropriate for law enforcement officers should be prohibited for ordinary citizens. This assertion relies on the pernicious idea that law enforcement officers are above the people rather than part of the people. Here are some excerpts from the memoir:
The magazine ban attempts to separate today’s common weapons of law-abiding citizens from today’s common weapons of law enforcement officers, including sheriffs and their deputies. Divorce, contrary to the wishes of both parties, endangers citizens and officers.
The weapons of ordinary law enforcement officers are carefully selected for one purpose: the legal defense of the innocent in civil society. Throughout American history, many citizens have turned to law enforcement for advice on choosing weapons for the same purpose. Denying these weapons to citizens and retired law enforcement officers puts them in danger for the same reasons that denying these weapons to active law enforcement officers would put them in danger. The most important reason is the need for reserve capacity, as detailed in Part II.
More fundamentally, the magazine ban violates the principles of our Constitution and the application of American law. Policing by consent is the American value, not militarized occupation from above.
The magazine ban is based on the sponsors’ repeated assertion that the “sole purpose” of 15-round magazines is to “kill large numbers of people quickly.” This false characterization was never challenged by any of the legislators who voted for the bill. The pernicious idea that Colorado law enforcement officers routinely carry weapons for the “sole purpose” of massacring creates a false division between officers and the citizens they serve. This notion reduces citizens’ cooperation with officers and also puts officers in danger. . . .
Under the magazine ban, weapons most commonly carried by ordinary law enforcement officers are banned from the community. It’s backwards. As the Connecticut Supreme Court unanimously ruled, “the widespread acceptance… within the law enforcement community also supports the conclusion that they (police batons) are not so dangerous or unusual that they do not fall within the scope of the Second Amendment.” State v. DeCiccio, 105 A.3d 165, 200 (Conn. 2014). . . .
Amici rejects the implicit slander according to which the ordinary weapons of American peace officers are weapons of massacres. Consider the following descriptions:
- “Agent
- “Agent
The first statement is correct. The second fuels anger and hatred against law-abiding law enforcement.
If the defendant prevails because standard magazines are “particularly dangerous,” then the weapons most typical of average deputies and officers are called into question because they are supposedly excessive.
The magazine ban envisions policing from above, using weapons of war. This is contrary to policing by consent. Law enforcement officers, including elected sheriffs, are part of their community. Colorado Const., art. XIV, §8. They apply civil law, not martial law.
In 1828, the United Kingdom’s Home Secretary, Robert Peel (later Prime Minister), headed a committee to study policing. The resulting Metropolitan Police Act of 1829 created the first disciplined police force for the Greater London area. Peel’s “Nine Principles” defined a policing system based on public support. Because the police act with public approval, the public and the police cooperate to tip the scales in favor of criminals. The Peel Principles were designed so that there would be no abuse of the power given to government to maintain order. According to Peelian principles of law enforcement, “(T)he police are the public and the public are the police, the police being merely members of the public who are paid to pay full-time attention to the duties incumbent upon them.” to each citizen in the interests of the well-being and existence of the community.
In contrast, banning magazines treats police like soldiers in an occupying army. Ordinary handgun and rifle magazines that deputies and other LEOs routinely carry for reasonable defense are declared as weapons of mass murder. It would seem that the possession of weapons intended for massacres by the police is considered normal. What a perverse vision of police-community relations! Law enforcement officers are the servants of the people, not their masters.
The idea that a simple sheriff’s deputy on bike patrol carries weapons made “only” for militarized mass shooters poisons community relations. The divisive attitudes fostered by the magazine ban make the public less willing to cooperate with law enforcement. Sometimes such attitudes result in attacks on officers.
In truth, the law enforcement exemption refutes defendant’s contention that standard magazines are not necessary for a legal defense. . . .
The defendant could argue that the law enforcement exemption is reasonable because law enforcement officers have more training and stricter controls than the average citizen. It’s true. But the magazine ban is not a law providing for additional training or more thorough background checks. The ban on magazines is a ban on every citizen, no matter how impeccable in character and no matter how competent.
Because the ban does not even allow inheritance, Colorado is poised to become a state where typical law enforcement officers must appear among the population while carrying weapons prohibited to the population. Such a repressive scenario contradicts our consensual Constitution. The Second Amendment protects “the security of a free state.” A free The state – a state of consent – is the opposite of law enforcement officers being above “the people.”
