Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Freedom Expanded

It looks like the Connecticut Supreme Court, in a blaze of supreme common sense, has struck down the prohibitions on carrying police batons and dirk knives.  They reasoned it on Second Amendment grounds, but they could just as easily ruled on any number of other grounds, not related to weapons.
This widespread acceptance of batons within the law enforcement community also supports the conclusion that they are not so dangerous or unusual as to fall outside the purview of the second amendment. To this end, the fact that police batons are inherently less lethal, and therefore less dangerous and less intrinsically harmful, than handguns, which clearly constitute “arms” within the meaning of the second amendment, provides further reason to conclude that they are entitled to constitutional protection. Cf. People v. Yanna, supra, 297 Mich. App. 145
As they say, go read the whole thing, but in all my career in law enforcement, I've never understood those jurisdictions that try to ban things based on appearance.  A police baton is nothing more than a fancy stick, not at all different from the kid's baseball bat, or the trucker's tire thumper, or for that matter, any limb that you might cut from a convenient tree.  

I use the same reasoning on knives.  Knives are perhaps man's oldest manufactured tool.  Surgeon's use them, farmers use them, everybody uses a knife.  Trying to ban knives is a fools errand.  So, it looks like Connecticut got it right and freedom has expanded a little bit.  You can now possess a knife and a stick in that state.

Let Freedom Ring.

1 comment:

Old NFO said...

Yep, that was quite surprising... And refreshing too!