Exemptions

I see that Senator Feinstein's bill has a number of exemptions, the kind you'd most expect to see in a bill of this sort.  According to The Weekly Standard:

"Mrs. Feinstein's measure would exempt more than 2,200 types of hunting and sporting rifles; guns manually operated by bolt, pump, lever or slide action; and weapons used by government officials, law enforcement and retired law enforcement personnel," the Washington Times reports.

Hogwash and Balderdash. I've been a cop for a long time, and I subscribe to the principles first set forth by Sir Robert Peel, the founder of the Metropolitan Police Department, and considered by many to the founder of the modern police force. Peel said, in part:

the police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent upon every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.

The police are only members of the public. In my humble opinion, the police should be accountable to, and follow the laws that the public has to follow. We should have no exemptions for the police in the public law.  We should also have no exemptions for "government officials" in the public law.  If the police are servants of the public then the government officials are also servants.  That is our tradition and our guiding principle.  We have no nobility in this country, except the common nobility of the citizen.  All laws should apply equally, and exemptions in the law are abhorrent to the citizens of a Republic.

Or, as Instapundit says: THE GENTRY ALWAYS ENJOYED THE RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS IN WAYS THE COMMON PEOPLE DID NOT.  Feinstein wants to be Gentry.   She should instead aspire to become a peasant.