CAN WE, AS INDIVIDUALS, RELY ON THE POLICE TO PROTECT US? A REPRISE OF OUR EARLIER ARTICLE

MULTI SERIES ARTICLE: CAN AMERICANS TRULY RELY ON THE POLICE TO PROTECT THEM?

A FURTHER LOOK AT THE QUESTION OF POLICE DUTY IN THIS PRESENT ERA OF SENSELESS, INCESSANT, REPREHENSIBLE ATTACKS ON THE POLICE AND UPON THOSE AMERICANS WHO, UNHINDERED, WISH TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THEIR OWN PHYSICAL SAFETY AND WELL-BEING THROUGH EXERCISE OF THEIR NATURAL, FUNDAMENTAL, UNALIENABLE, GOD-GIVEN RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS.

PART ONE

WHAT IS THE DUTY OF A COMMUNITY’S POLICE FORCE TOWARD A CITIZEN WHOSE LIFE IS IN IMMINENT THREAT OF ATTACK?

Do the police have a legal duty to come to the immediate assistance of an innocent American whose life is in imminent danger if the police are notified of that imminent danger? We had asked this question in a previous article, and ask it once again in light of present Leftist attacks on both the police and upon those American civilian citizens who wish to exercise their natural and fundamental right to keep and bear arms. Although the responses to the aforesaid question will be varied, as we noted, we expect that many people—perhaps most—would respond with the following: “that’s a silly question; of course, the police have a duty, and that is their job, to come to the immediate assistance of an innocent American whose life is in imminent danger.” For many people, the answer to the question may seem so obvious as to make the question itself rhetorical. But is it? For those people who are unarmed, and who choose not to possess firearms, the police, who are armed, are in the best position to secure the physical safety of unarmed civilian citizens, and such people fully expect the police to come to their assistance if they notify the police of an imminent threat to their life and safety.But take a closer look at the question. Focus on the word, ‘legal duty.’ The question posed is distinct from another question we might have asked: Would you expect the police to come to the immediate assistance of an innocent American whose life is in imminent danger if the police are notified of that imminent danger? Many Americans, certainly those who abhor firearms and who would never think of possessing a firearm, conflate the two questions. And, that is understandable, if presumptuous, as many Americans, even those who do exercise the natural right of self-defense through possession of a firearm would invariably expect the police to respond immediately to a “911” emergency.But, even if that expectation seems reasonable, is that expectation misplaced? Suppose the police don’t timely respond to an emergency, or, for one reason or another, the police do not respond at all. And, suppose the failure to protect results in injury or death to that person.Does the injured party have a cause of action in negligence against the police? And if death results, does the deceased’s estate have a cause of action for wrongful death, against the police? To answer these questions, we must pose another, but a more basic question that we had begun to deal with in our previous article. So——

WE AGAIN ASK: HAS SOCIETY PLACED THE BURDEN OF PROTECTING THE LIFE AND WELL-BEING OF EACH AMERICAN, ON THE POLICE?

The answer is “unequivocally, and demonstrably no.” The police do not have a legal duty to come to the assistance of any American even if notified of an imminent threat to the life and well-being of that individual. And that legal position is true today, as it was true decades—even centuries—ago, at the birth of our Nation. Yet the mainstream media and Leftist politicians routinely keep the public in the dark about this. That is bad. But worse, they lie to the public about this. That is despicable. Here and there, however, the truth does come out but only if the American people pay close attention. Unfortunately, most Americans do not pay attention to the import and purport of our laws, and the public must dig deep to learn the truth. So——Thirty years ago, Stephen L. D’Andrilli, co-founder of the Arbalest Quarrel, and David B. Kopel, writer, attorney, and Constitutional law expert provided an answer to this question. They laid out the unblemished truth. They co-authored an article, titled, “Personal Safety: Individual Responsibility.” The article appeared in the May 1989 issue of “Women and Guns.” In the article the authors made clear both the state of the law and the dire consequences of the law, notably where the lives of women are endangered and the police do nothing to protect them. What Messrs. Kopel and D'Andrilli said in 1989 is as true today, as it was then. The law pertaining to the matter of police duty remains the same. Nothing at all has changed.Two seminal Court cases on the matter of police duty stand out as mentioned in the Kopel and D’Andrilli article. Both cases, curiously enough, come out of jurisdictions that frown on civilian possession of firearms for self-defense and both cases establish the essence of the issue of “duty” as it relates to the police in communities around the Country. One is a New York case; the other comes out of California. The state of the law, today, as set forth in those two cases, remains unchanged; and the law in jurisdictions around the Country mirrors the law of California and New York.The 1989 Kopel and D’Andrilli magazine article discusses both cases, and the Arbalest Quarrel provides additional commentary in our follow-up article.From the two Court cases that the Kopel and D'Andrilli magazine article mention, we learn that the onus of protection of one's life and well-being rests upon one's self. That duty does not and cannot reasonably, rationally be relegated to the Government, even as Radical Left Marxists, Socialists, and Communists, and those so-called New Progressive Leftists proclaim vociferously, hypocritically, disingenuously, and erroneously that the health, safety, and continued well-being of Americans do rest safely, securely, and firmly in the hands of Government. They don't and never did.   ______________________________

PART TWO

TWO DECADES OLD COURT CASES LAY BARE THE SAD TRUTH: POLICE HAVE NO DUTY TO SECURE THE LIFE OF AMERICANS FROM THREAT OF PHYSICAL HARM EVEN UPON NOTICE OF IMMINENT HARM

In the New York case, the police responded to the imminent threat posed to a young woman, but did so too late. In the California case, the police did not respond to the call for immediate protection at all; blatantly shrugging it off.Consider, first, the facts of the 1968 case, as laid out in detail by the dissenting judge, in Riss vs. New York: “Linda Riss, an attractive young woman, was for more than six months terrorized by a rejected suitor well known to the courts of this State, one Burton Pugach. This miscreant, masquerading as a respectable attorney, repeatedly threatened to have Linda killed or maimed if she did not yield to him: ‘If I can't have you, no one else will have you, and when I get through with you, no one else will want you’. In fear for her life, she went to those charged by law with the duty of preserving and safeguarding the lives of the citizens and residents of this State. Linda's repeated and almost pathetic pleas for aid were received with little more than indifference. Whatever help she was given was not commensurate with the identifiable danger. On June 14, 1959 Linda became engaged to another man. At a party held to celebrate the event, she received a phone call warning her that it was her ‘last chance’. Completely distraught, she called the police, begging for help, but was refused. The next day Pugach carried out his dire threats in the very manner he had foretold by having a hired thug throw lye in Linda's face. Linda was blinded in one eye, lost a good portion of her vision in the other, and her face was permanently scarred. After the assault the authorities concluded that there was some basis for Linda's fears, and for the next three and one-half years, she was given around-the-clock protection.”A little late in the day for police protection, no? Linda’s life was forever ruined.Two members of the Court of Appeals, the Majority, sided with the police, affirming the decision of the trial court, against Riss even though the Court acknowledged that New York had removed application of the doctrine of sovereign immunity through which the government is immune from liability to individual members of a community. No matter. The Court inferred the State was still immune from liability under straightforward tort principles because, as the Court majority opined, the duty to protect the New York public does not extend to protection of individual members of the public, in the absence of an exception, carved out by the Legislature. And the Court’s Majority found none.The Dissenting Judge took strong exception to the Court Majority’s ruling, saying the ruling was nothing more than a “question-begging conclusion,” grounded on mere policy matters. “It is not a distortion to summarize the essence of the city's case here in the following language: ‘Because we owe a duty to everybody, we owe it to nobody’ [emphasis my own]. Were it not for the fact that this position has been hallowed by much ancient and revered precedent, we would surely dismiss it as preposterous. To say that there is no duty is, of course, to start with the conclusion. The question is whether or not there should be liability for the negligent failure to provide adequate police protection.”The Dissenting Judge said the case should have been remanded to the trial Court. He opined that, since the police had “actual notice of danger and ample opportunity to confirm and take reasonable remedial steps, a jury could find that the persons involved acted unreasonably and negligently. . . . Linda Riss is entitled to have a jury determine the issue of the city's liability.” But Riss never received that opportunity.The second seminal case, a 1975 California case, Hartzler vs. City of San Jose, involved a wrongful death action. These are the facts of the case, as set forth verbatim by the Court:“In a wrongful death action against a city, it was alleged that decedent telephoned the main office of the city police department and reported that her estranged husband had called her, saying that he was coming to her residence to kill her. Decedent requested immediate police aid, but the department refused to come to her aid at that time, and asked that she call the department again when her husband had arrived. Approximately 45 minutes later, the husband arrived at decedent's home and stabbed her to death. Some time later, the police arrived in response to the call of a neighbor. The trial court entered a judgment of dismissal, following the sustaining of the city's demurrer without leave to amend. The police told the decedent to call the police when her husband arrived? What good would that have done? The blasé attitude of the San Jose police borders on reckless disregard for the life and well-being of an innocent American  the police could have secured, but didn't. Nonetheless, the Court ruled in favor of the City against the decedent’s estate. Why did the Court of Appeals find against the decedent’s estate?In the California Official Reports Summary, we learn that “the claim was barred by the provisions of the California Tort Claims Act, particularly Gov. Code, § 845, providing that neither a public entity nor public employee is liable for failure to provide police protection service or for failure to provide sufficient police protection service, and concluded that the police department enjoyed absolute, not merely discretionary, immunity.”The California Court of Appeals held that, in the absence of a “special relationship” owing between the police, as a governmental entity, and an individual, the State enjoys “absolute immunity” from liability. The Court, having found no special relationship existing between the deceased woman and the police, affirmed the dismissal of the suit for wrongful death. So, where does that leave us, average, law-abiding, responsible, rational Americans?

IF THE POLICE DON’T HAVE THE LEGAL DUTY TO PROTECT INNOCENT, LAW-ABIDING AMERICANS, IT IS IRRATIONAL TO ARGUE AMERICANS OUGHT NOT HAVE FIREARMS FOR THEIR OWN DEFENSE.

It is mind-boggling that jurisdictions like New York and California would frown on civilian ownership of firearms for self-defense and yet find, as a matter of law, that the police have essentially no duty to provide that protection to innocent members of a community even when the police are on notice of a real and imminent threat to human life and well-being and fail to provide that protection.Leftist Antigun governments and antigun proponents hide from the public that police have essentially no legal duty to protect individual members of a community even when placed on notice of imminent threat to human life.Instead Leftists perpetrate a myth that police do provide a community with all the safety the members of a community need and, so, the individual members of a community don’t need guns for self-defense.When Leftists argue they wish to rid the Nation of civilian ownership and possession of firearms, they claim they only wish to do so for the sake of public safety and public order. And the compliant, seditious Press consistently, incessantly, repetitively, and nauseatingly drums this nonsense into the ears of the public.That, then, is what Leftists and their friendly travelers in the Press say, but what do they really mean? Simply this: they are referring to the public as a Collective, a Hive. Leftists don’t give a damn about the life, safety, and well-being of individuals who comprise the public.If Leftists did give a damn, they would either encourage civilian ownership of firearms for self-defense, as the police have no duty to safeguard the life of individual Americans, or these Leftists would amend the laws of their jurisdiction, concerning police duty, making clear that police do owe a duty of care to the individual members of a community, to protect the life, safety, and well-being of those members of a community. Leftists, if they truly gave a damn about the life and welfare of the American citizenry, would make clear that police and other Government officials are wholly accountable to the individuals of a community—that is to say, they will be held legally liable—for such injury or death resulting from the breach of that duty. But we see no such thing happening on either account.* So, who are these Leftist scoundrels kidding?________________________________________*Recent Bail reform measures in Leftist jurisdictions, like New York and California, together with the election or appointment of Soros financed activist Leftist prosecutors who refuse to prosecute crime, further complicate efforts by police to provide even a modicum of protection for the welfare of the public, the Collective. And, since the police do not have, and never did have, a legal duty to protect any individual member of a community, even when on notice of imminent threat to the life and well-being of that individual, means that the onus of personal protection, now more than in the previous century, rests upon each American. Yet, Leftists still bizarrely argue for constraining average, law-abiding, responsible, rational Americans from possessing firearms for their own defense and for the defense of their families.So where does this leave Americans since police have absolutely no duty, except in extraordinarily few, extremely rare instances, to provide personal protection to individual Americans—apart from the personal protection they routinely provide to certain Government officials, like Mayors and Governors—and where average, law-abiding, innocent American citizens who cannot afford the services of a licensed and armed personal bodyguard are discouraged by Radical Left Marxists, Socialists, and Communists, and by the New Progressive Left, from providing for their own armed defense?________________________________________Copyright © 2018 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

CAN WE, AS INDIVIDUALS, RELY ON THE POLICE TO PROTECT US?

WHAT IS THE PRINCIPAL DUTY OF A COMMUNITY'S POLICE FORCE?

PART ONE

Do the police have a duty to protect American citizens if their life is in danger? If you were to ask the average American this question, you would likely obtain one of four basic responses: one, “of course they do;” or, two, “no they don’t;” or, three, “it depends on the circumstance;” or, four, “I don’t know.”The disparity in responses is disconcerting as one would think the answer to this question would be straightforward and beyond dispute, given the enormity of it.After all, when it comes to one’s life and safety from threats posed by a psychopathic criminal, or from a psychotic killer, or, when the threat to one’s life and safety arises from a domestic spat or from some other dispute among two or more people, that escalates to the level of a life and death situation, one should know whether a community’s police department does have a duty to protect the life, safety, and well-being of each American citizen whose life is threatened. The idea implicit in the statement is that an armed police officer, or, in the alternative, an armed and licensed personal bodyguard, serves as the most effective deterrent to a dangerous threat posed to an innocent person’s life, safety, and well-being, precisely because the defender of life is armed. No one can seriously doubt that.And if, assuming a community’s police department does have a duty to come to the assistance of an innocent member of a community whose life is threatened by a would-be assailant, the question then becomes whether the police can and do provide a prompt response to that threat. Obviously, response time is a critical factor when an imminent threat to loss of life exists.Now, public officials, such as mayors of cities and governors of States, do not have to concern themselves with police response time because they have armed police officers assigned to them. And, for the very wealthy, who can afford private armed security, police response time to a dangerous threat posed by a would-be assailant is not an issue either.But, what about the average, law-abiding citizen—in other words, everyone else—who does not have access to a police security detail and who cannot afford the protection of an armed bodyguard? For common folk the issue of police response time is not an insignificant matter.Of course, a police department’s response time is, understandably, subject to many factors. Still, where a few minutes or seconds may mean the difference between life and death, police response time should be immediate and not subject to doubt. Police response time, where an innocent person’s life is in the balance, must be quick and immediate. Americans should not have misgivings or any false belief about this. Reliance on prompt police response time is critical if the average American is to place his or her faith, alone, in the presence of armed police, to deter the threat to one’s life or to one’s family.For those average, innocent, law-abiding persons who do place an abundance of faith in the ability and wherewithal of police to respond immediately to a 911 life and death emergency, there is the presumption—referring to the salient question posed at the beginning of this article—that “of course” a community’s police department has a legal duty, not merely an ethical or moral duty, to protect the life and safety of each innocent American whose life is threatened by a dangerous aggressor. But, is that true? If it isn’t, then those Americans who choose to place their faith alone in armed police to secure their life and safety and that of their family when faced with a life and death situation posed by an aggressor are sorely mistaken in their belief.Placing misguided faith in a community’s police department to protect one’s life and that of one’s family when faced with a direct threat posed by an assailant can have catastrophic results when the need arises to rely on the police, and the police do not timely respond to that threat. In whom does blame, then, truly reside? And, apart from a moral or ethical imperative, if no legal duty exists, on the part of the police to come to the aid of any American when that American is confronted by an imminent threat to life, then where did a presumption of legal duty arise in the first place? Likely, the presumption derives from a common shibboleth, true enough, that the primary purpose of a police department is to preserve and protect the well-being of a community. But, does that purpose to preserve and protect the well-being of a community extend, legally and logically, to protection of the life, safety, and well-being of each individual resident of a community? The shibboleth undoubtedly was reinforced through a slogan that once appeared—but apparently no longer—on the side of many community police cruisers around the Country: “to preserve and protect.” But, preserve and protect who? The meaning of the slogan is vague and ambiguous. Yet, many Americans still accept as self-evident true, even if the notion is only wishful thinking, the idea that a community’s police force does have a legal duty to come to the aid of each individual American resident whose life is endangered by a common criminal or crazed assailant. Well, let’s suppose, for purpose of argument, this to be true. What does that really mean? It means that an innocent, law-abiding resident of a community has good reason to expect that the police will do their level best to come to the immediate assistance of an innocent law-abiding resident of a community whose life, safety, and well-being is imminently threatened, say, by an aggressive intruder; and, further, that a community’s police must come to the immediate assistance of an innocent law-abiding resident of a community whose life, safety, and well-being is in imminent threat.Now, suppose the police do not respond in time to a threat to one’s life. Suppose that, through reckless indifference to a threat posed to a resident’s life and safety, or through simple or gross negligence, or even through an intentional, willful failure to respond to an immediate threat to a resident’s life and safety, a resident suffers serious injury or even death as a result of that imminent threat to a person’s life.Does that resident have a legal cause of action against the police department for injury suffered, or, in the event of death, does the deceased person’s estate have a cause of action against the police department for wrongful death? Well, if the police in fact owe a duty to protect the life and safety of the individual residents of a community and fail for one reason or another to do so, then the issue before a Court of competent jurisdiction goes not to the issue of a legal duty of care which is presumed to exist, but goes at once to the issue of damages to be assessed to the Governmental entity through a police department’s negligence toward or willful disregard for the life, safety, and well-being of the affected resident. It is certainly problematic if the police do owe a duty to individual members of a community but fail to do so. But that doesn’t seem to be problematic to people who abhor guns and who do not countenance law-abiding civilians owning and possessing them.It is disconcerting to those of us who choose to exercise our God-given, natural, fundamental, unalienable, and immutable right of the people to keep and bear arms for self-defense, and as a check against tyranny, to truly comprehend the position of those Americans who are vehemently, even virulently, opposed to an armed citizenry. For, while we can agree that antigun fanatics, who, being true to their convictions would choose, for themselves, not to possess a firearm, it is wholly unacceptable, legally and ethically, for those people to thrust their belief system onto everyone else who does wish to exercise the sacred right to possess firearms. Yet, time and time again, we see antigun zealots audaciously attempting to compel those of us who do not agree with them to forsake our firearms as well. Americans should keep this fact in mind when they go to the polls in November 2020.____________________________

ANTIGUN PROPONENTS PROMOTE “SOCIETAL” WELL-BEING AT THE COST OF THE WELL-BEING OF AMERICAN CITIZENS WHO COMPRISE THAT SOCIETY

PART TWO

These antigun zealots exhibit a cavalier attitude when asked how they propose to deal with predators who, at any given point in time, might pose a direct and very serious threat to their own life and safety. They may claim, as many in fact do, that the police will protect them. And, in making the claim, these antigun zealots attempt to avoid the issue of whether the police have a legal duty to do so at all, or these antigun zealots may simply perfunctorily and presumptively assume the police do in fact have such legal duty to come to the aid of Americans who face imminent threat to life and well-being, when the police really do not have such a duty to act.Even so, what might one gain from the presumption of a legal duty on the part of police to deter a threat to the life of innocent Americans, if the police are unable to thwart an imminent threat to one’s life and well-being, in time, anyway? For one to dismiss concern on the ground, before the fact, that such attacks on an innocent person are rare would, in retrospect, provide a person little solace, indeed, when, in that rare instance, after the fact, one does come face-to-face with just such a threat to his or her life.Curiously, these same people who oppose civilian possession of firearms argue for mass confiscation of semiautomatic weapons from law-abiding citizens—tens of millions of us who possess them—on the ground that a few lunatics might go off on a killing spree, when such instances of “mass killings” are few and far between, even as mainstream media accounts create the illusion that such events happen with great frequency, when, in fact, they do not.Yet, for adherents of the tenets of Individualism, upon which the U.S. Constitution is grounded, the question of police responsibility for failure to respond to an imminent threat to one’s life, safety, and well-being may well be irrelevant, whether a legal duty exists or does not.Americans who ascribe to the tenets of Individualism do not rely on the police, in the first instance, to protect them and their families against imminent threats posed by dangerous individuals. Proponents of the tenets of Individualism recognize their sacred, fundamental, natural, immutable, and unalienable right of self-defense—a primordial right codified in the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and as reiterated in the U.S. Supreme Court 2008 Heller decision. Yet, the idea that a firearm offers the best means to protect one’s life and safety, should not come as a surprise to any rational person, even among those who adamantly oppose civilian ownership and possession of firearms.For, among those people who are antithetical to civilian ownership and possession of firearms and do not and would not think of possessing a firearm for self-defense for themselves—who choose to place their life, safety, and well-being in the hands of the police exclusively—have chosen to place their life, safety, and well-being in the hands of the police precisely because the police carry firearms; suggesting, then, that because the police have firearms, no one else needs them. So, even those people who abhor guns and fervently, even virulently, oppose civilian ownership and possession of firearms, and would never think of wielding a firearm themselves—leaving that responsibility to the police—know full well that armed protection against aggressive, dangerous assailants provides extremely effective protection against such threats. But, is it sensical or is it foolhardy to believe that the police will be at one’s disposal when one is in serious need of the police? The answer should be obvious. Such belief is foolhardy, and in the extreme whether the police have a legal duty to protect the life of an innocent American from a direct threat posed by an assailant, or not. That being so, the attempt of antigun zealots to constrain all of us who wish to exercise our right to keep and bear arms is indefensible, and that should and does rightly anger us.If antigun zealots eschew possession of a firearm for self-defense themselves, that is certainly their prerogative. But, what is deeply disturbing and mystifying is that many of these same people presumptuously and audaciously dare to thrust their personal feelings about guns and gun ownership on everyone else—namely those Americans—tens of millions—who do wish to exercise their fundamental, natural, unalienable, immutable, and sacred right to keep and bear arms for self-defense.It is strange, indeed, that in a free Republic, grounded on a Constitution that incorporates certain sacred, fundamental, natural, unalienable, and immutable rights codified in the Nation’s Bill of Rights, there would be many Americans who, abhorring guns and the exercise of the right to possess them, would seek to thrust their own value judgments and morality on the rest of us; those—the vast majority of us—who have chosen to exercise the right of the people to keep and bear arms.For those members of society who abhor the very notion of firearms in the hands of the average, law-abiding civilian citizen, they take as self-evident true the idea that a community’s police department will in fact secure the life and safety of the average citizen. Such is the belief of Marxists, Socialists, Communists, and others who ascribe to the tenets of Collectivism: the idea that one need only place, and should be content to place, one’s faith in Government, rather than in one’s self, to provide for one’s basic needs, including defense of life; eschewing the very notion of an indisputable, fundamental, immutable, unalienable, absolute right of self-defense at all; and eschewing, especially, a sacred right to wield a firearm for self-defense.________________________________

NEW YORK’S GOVERNOR CUOMO AND MAYOR DE BLASIO FORCE AVERAGE CITIZENS TO RELY ON THE POLICE FOR ARMED PROTECTION, RATHER THAN UPON THEMSELVES

PART THREE

Among antigun proponents and zealots, apart from the hoi polloi of antigun zealots, there are the wealthy and powerful “elite” of American society. These people can ably afford to retain, and many of them do retain, private, licensed, armed bodyguards to provide for their protection and for that of their families.The “elite” in American society don’t have any illusion about the inability of a community’s police department to provide adequate protection to an imminent threat to life, whether the police have a duty to provide such protection to individual members of a community, or not. Among those "elite" are Government officials, mayors and Governors who do have police security details assigned to them. Yet, these same “elite” of society disdain the idea that average Americans who do not have access to a personal police security detail and who can ill afford a private armed and licensed bodyguard should nonetheless be denied the right to purchase a firearm for their own protection.Worse yet are those upper social strata antigun proponents, who, with their powerful political connections, carry a handgun for their personal protection and may have personal bodyguard protection as well, but are dismissive of average, law-abiding, responsible individuals possessing a firearm for their own protection.Consider the position of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, whose infamous New York Safe Act does nothing to protect the safety of innocent New York residents but, instead, places innocent life in jeopardy by making it extremely difficult for the average law-abiding New York resident to exercise his or her Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms for self-defense. And, consider the remarks of the Mayor of New York City, Bill de Blasio—the failed candidate for the Democratic Party nomination for U.S. President—who, with a smirk, refused, when repeatedly asked, to answer the critical question of Fox News host, Sean Hannity, not long ago, whether residents of New York City have the right to possess firearms for self-defense. Instead Bill de Blasio proffered that the police provide safety to New York residents, implying, then, that the average, law-abiding New York resident does not need a firearm.Well, the police certainly do provide protection for de Blasio and for Governor Cuomo. No doubt about that! But, do New York’s police provide—can they in fact provide—protection for millions of law-abiding New York residents—who, at any given moment in time can, and often do, face serious threat to life and safety. De Blasio perfunctorily, matter-of-factly claims police do provide all the safety that New York residents need. The remark isn’t even remotely plausible in a City comprising millions of souls, and small finite number of police officers.And, as the proponent of one of the Nation’s most restrictive gun laws, it’s clear that Governor Cuomo, for his part, isn’t at all concerned for the safety of innocent New York residents from very real and very dire threats posed by hardened criminals and by more than a few lunatics roaming the streets.As with all proponents of the tenets of Collectivism, the concern isn’t for the health, safety, and well-being of individuals who comprise society, but for the Collective, for the Hive. Collectivists, such as Marxists, Socialists, and Communists, individuals are dispensable, like ants in an ant colony or bees in a beehive. So, it is all in vein that these people would eschew an armed citizenry and promote a well-armed Government.We see this view on constant display in the spurious, simplistic, disingenuous, and condescending remarks of antigun politicians, like Governor Cuomo, Mayor de Blasio, and in the remarks of the sordid group of Democratic Party Candidates for U.S. President. They know full well that armed police cannot possibly come to the aid of every individual, in every instance, who happens to face imminent threat to life and well-being from dangerous predators.Yet, it is a common and tiresome refrain of antigun politicians, and of their friends in the mainstream media, and of the pretentious, sanctimonious, and ill-informed, members and hangers-on of antigun groups, that would dare deny to average, law-abiding, responsible American citizens the natural, fundamental, unalienable, and immutable right to defend themselves with a firearm, claiming that the police are, after all, around to protect the life, safety, and well-being of all Americans. Such is the naïve belief, engendered in equal parts self-delusion and deception.But, is such faith that antigun proponents place in the notion that a community’s police department does in fact owe a duty of care not merely to the community as a whole, but to each member of it, legally sound, whether or not one might at least expect the police to have a moral duty to secure the life, safety and well-being of each member of a community? For, if, legal liability of a police department does not accrue for failure to secure the life, safety, and well-being of each member of a community, then the idea that the average, law-abiding American citizen should nonetheless be denied the right to keep and bear arms for self-defense loses any rational efficacy and is reduced to a bankrupt, empty policy position of the antigun movement on that ground alone. But we need not guess. There is an answer.To answer the question of whether the police have a duty to protect each member of a community, we must consider the ramifications of the Eleventh Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and the application of the legal concepts of ‘sovereign immunity,’ ‘qualified immunity,’ and of the ‘public and special duty doctrines.’ If a community’s police department does have a duty to secure the life, safety, and well-being of each member of a community, then it is necessary to explore the legal aspects of such duty if such duty exists at all. This issue cannot be reduced to simplistic and dismissive political, rhetorical soundbites and antigun messaging, asserted by arrogant, deceitful, condescending blowhards like Governor Andrew Cuomo, Mayor Bill de Blasio, and many other politicians who adamantly oppose guns in the hands of the average law-abiding, responsible American citizen. But no American should fall for those ploys. Andrew Cuomo, Bill de Blasio and other politicians like him, weave wild fables. They oversimplify, obfuscate and deceive.Unfortunately, it is a common and tiresome refrain of antigun politicians, and of the mainstream media, and of pretentious, sanctimonious antigun groups, that would deny to average, law-abiding, responsible, rational American citizens the absolute right to defend themselves with a firearm, as these politicians claim that the police are, after all, there to protect the life, safety, and well-being of each American; so, then, a person doesn’t need a firearm for self-defense. Really? Are we to take that bald assertion on faith?What, really, is the truth behind the presumption espoused by many politicians and the media and which many Americans have come to believe, namely that the police have a duty to protect and preserve a community? What does that even mean?Does the duty of the police to protect a community from imminent threat to life, safety, and well-being actually extend to all of the individuals in it, or is that a deliberately deceptive conflation of police function that antigun proponents of all stripes have have sought to convey to the American public to obscure the fact that the police really don’t have such a duty of care at all; and that they have created a myth and have promoted it to make confiscation of firearms among civilians more palatable, suggesting, then, that civilian ownership and possession of firearms for self-defense is unnecessary and therefore, seemingly, unreasonable.Is this, then, the reason behind the idea of a police duty that is owed, not only to the community, but to the individuals in it? Is this grounded in fact or is this mere myth: myth that has been deliberately promulgated, propagated, and perpetuated? And, if this idea is myth, what is the real reason for it? Can it be that powerful, ruthless forces both inside this Nation and outside it consciously wish to deceive Americans? Do these powerful, ruthless forces seek to hide the fact that the police have no duty to ensure the life and safety of each member of a community so that Americans will be amenable to forsaking firearms’ ownership and possession, notwithstanding our heritage?Do these powerful, ruthless forces know that the average, rational, law-abiding, responsible, American can truly protect his or her life, and that of one’s family from dangerous assailants only by wielding a firearm but that, because these ruthless forces fear an armed citizenry and because they seek to undermine the sovereignty of the American people, and because they seek to dismantle our Constitution and to disassemble our free Republic, that they would prefer to leave the average law-abiding American citizen defenseless, open to predators? Is it, then, for these reasons that extraordinarily powerful, inordinately wealthy, highly resourceful, abjectly ruthless, and innately secretive forces both in this Country and outside it, have concocted and disseminated a fairy tale of police protection for the American citizenry?We will explore the truth and do our best to answer all these questions in forthcoming articles.________________________________________Copyright © 2018 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.