The Liberty Papers

I’ll let this article answer that one:

Four months into his job, a police officer in Mississippi holds a gun to the head of an unarmed teenager and puts him in a chokehold. A rookie officer in Illinois gets into a car chase that kills a driver. And a new campus policeman in Indiana shoots an unarmed student to death.

Some are blaming these harrowing episodes on what an Associated Press survey found is a common practice across the country: At least 30 states let some newly hired local law enforcement officers hit the streets with a gun, a badge and little or no training.

These states allow a certain grace period — six months or a year in most cases, two years in Mississippi and Wisconsin — before rookies must be sent to a police academy. In many cases, these recruits are supposed to be supervised by a full-fledged officer, but that does not always happen.

This is disturbing on so many different levels. It’s a bad thing for everyone involved: giving untrained personnel the weapons to implement deadly force is as much a disservice to them as it is to the citizenry they are supposed to be protecting and serving. I honestly can’t say I am surprised, though. This very laissez-faire attitude towards regulation of police officers has become pervasive in American society. What does it say about our society where we give any Joe Schmo who wants to be a cop a badge and a gun?

The bottom line is that if you haven’t been properly trained, you shouldn’t come within 10 feet of a firearm. This is as true for police officers as it is for civilians. Government seems to understand one part of that deal; it’s a shame it can’t seem to abide by the second.