Who is going to protect you?

The gun-control crowd argues that the Second
Amendment has become an anachronism in the
modern age because we have the government to
protect us from enemies and the police force to
protect us from criminals.

As someone who trusts government about as
much as I trust criminals, I never had much use
for that argument. And while I generally think
most local policemen are good people, the truth
is, they just can't be relied upon to protect you.

If you doubt what I'm saying, check out the case
law in our nation's capital.

In 1981, the court there held in Warren v. District
of Columbia, 444 A.2d 1 (D.C. Dec. 21, 1981) that
neither the city nor police officials could be held
liable for failure of police to respond properly
to a request from victims for protection from
attackers.

Listen to the facts of this incredible case: A call
came in to the police on the 911 emergency
hotline reporting a burglary in progress. The
police department employee who received the
call assured the caller that assistance would be
dispatched promptly. However, the dispatcher
delayed assigning the call and gave it a lower
priority than "crime in progress" calls were
supposed to receive.

That was bad enough. But it gets worse. When
police officers finally arrived at the scene of the
burglary, they failed to make a thorough check
of the building and left without discovering the
two burglars, who by this time had raped a
4-year-old girl and forced her mother to commit
sodomy.

The victims' neighbors, two women who lived
upstairs, made a second 911 call, again
receiving assurance that help was on the way.
No help ever arrived. For the next 14 hours, the
intruders held all the occupants of the building
captive, including the two women who lived
upstairs; they were all raped, robbed, beaten
and subjected to numerous sexual indignities.

Despite all this abuse and ineptitude, the court
held that neither the assurance of assistance nor
the fact that the police had begun to act gave
rise to a special relationship between the police
and the victims. "[T]he desire for condemnation
cannot satisfy the need for a special relationship
out of which a duty to specific persons arises."
Because the complaint did not allege a
relationship "beyond that found in general
police responses to crimes," this court affirmed
the dismissal of the complaint for failure to state
a claim.

In other words, the police aren't there to protect
average citizens. It happens sometimes. There
are brave police officers who put their lives on
the line for strangers. They are to be applauded.
But that is not the everyday occurrence you
might imagine. Most police work occurs after
the fact. Most responses are post-victimization.
And, frankly, most of my contact with police
these days occurs after I see red lights flashing
in my rearview mirror.

I suspect that's true for most people.

None of that matters to the gun-control crowd.

In their view, only important people like
politicians, celebrities and the rich deserve
armed protection. But as Robert Heinlein put it,
"When only cops have guns, it's called a 'police
state.'"

Do we really believe we are wiser than the great
men who founded this country? Do we really
believe they enshrined in the Second
Amendment the right to bear arms because they
wanted to protect the rights of hunters, as Al
Gore suggests? Are we ready, in spite of all we
know about the basic nature and character of
government, to entrust our basic freedoms to
the state and its armed agents?

For those who are, let me make a suggestion.
Why don't you set an example for the rest of us
and print up signs for your homes that say:
"This is a firearm-free zone." This would
represent a real service to the country. We can
experiment to see if their thesis is correct. Does
a reduction in firearms translate to a reduction
in violence? This will be the test case.

I say, go for it. After all, what do you have to
worry about? You've got the police and the
government to protect you.

Joseph Farah is editor and chief executive officer
of WorldNetDaily.com and writes a daily
column.