Police don’t stop crimes in progress, they bring criminals to justice afterwards!

Student Gun Laws — and Liberal Critics at The Weekly Standard:

The Texas legislature is likely to approve a measure that would allow students with pistol permits to carry guns on college campus.  Although the proposed law would do nothing to change the requirements for getting a permit—one would still have to be over 21, have no criminal record, no record of mental illness, etc.—critics are outraged.

An editorial in the Los Angeles Times admits that gun advocates may be right that an armed student could have stopped the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre, “but they're ignoring the other risks posed by gun proliferation.” What risks are those? According to the Times, if students returned fire during a school shooting, it would “create confusion” when the police arrive. But the police don’t arrive – at least, not in time to do any good. That’s why college shootings usually end either when courageous but unarmed students tackle the shooter or, more often, when the shooter decides he’s had enough and kills himself.

A Texas student interviewed by Fox News echoed the Times’s sentiment: “I think we have police on campus, and that’s their job.”   

But it isn’t their job. Police don’t stop crimes in progress, they bring criminals to justice afterwards.  Legal precedent confirms this – viz. Warren v. District of Columbia. In 1975, three women where held captive, raped and beaten for fourteen hours. The police were called repeatedly but never showed up. One of the women subsequently sued the D.C. police for its failure to respond. The D.C. Superior Court, in a decision upheld by the D.C. Court of Appeals, ruled in favor of the police because the government is “under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any particular individual citizen.” Read the rest…

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