When political knee jerk reaction meets the void where common sense has been sucked out you apparently get Sanford Florida.
In the city where Neighborhood Watch member George Zimmerman saved his own life by stopping a man who was beating him to death, Sanford will release new parameters at a community meeting on November 5, stating explicitly that residents acting under the “authority” of the neighborhood watch may not carry a firearm or pursue someone they deem suspicious.
I can understand the second part of this directive. Members of the neighborhood watch may not be trained in surveillance and their pursuit might put them in a dangerous position, such as when George Zimmerman was attacked and almost murdered by the suspicious person he was following who doubled back and tried to beat him to death.
The problem with Sanford’s new guidelines is that you are now mandating that people put their lives at risk and explicitly telling them that they are not allowed to have the means to defend themselves.
Even without following a suspicious person there are still neighborhood watch patrols, regular citizens out there taking back the night as it were.
Shannon Cordingly, spokeswoman for the Sanford Police Department defines the role of the neighborhood watch:
“Neighborhood watch was always intended to be a program where you observe what is going on and report it to police”
Well guess what, if they come across a criminal doing something, said criminal might take umbrage with it and decide he doesn’t like his crime to be witnessed.
Now, Sanford has created a situation where a Neighborhood Watch Volunteer can be beaten and murdered, be it by the bare hands of the criminal, or a crowbar, hammer, knife or whatever else they may be carrying.
Once again, gun control is disarming law abiding people for political correctness and the only people it will hurt are those who were willing to try and make their neighborhood safer.
The politicians in Sanford would do better just to eliminate the Neighborhood Watch programs completely so that the blood of innocent volunteers won’t be on their hands.
The only thing criminals dislike more than witnesses is being shot. Sanford has taken care of the latter issue so that criminals are free to eliminate the former.
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