Coincidence Is Not A Kosher Word

          Is it a coincidence that less than a week after the Arkansas Senate approved Governor Beebe’s new prison reform bill to potentially release “non-violent” criminals from prison and to not incarcerate them in the future, that the Little Rock Police Department is authorizing their patrol officers to be equipped with semi-automatic weapons?

            In truth the article does point out that other state and local law enforcement officers have had these weapons for years and that the Little Rock SWAT team has them. Perhaps it’s just the Little Rock Force catching up with the need of the time. Or perhaps it’s the Little Rock Force looking ahead to the time when Governor Beebe will dump an additional 6,880 (per The Pew Study) “non-violent” criminals onto the streets and byways of Arkansas over the next ten years.

            IF an officer wishes to carry such a weapon in his patrol car, he must do the following. First take some type of unspecified training “to qualify to wield them”. Now that makes perfectly sound logical sense to me.

But then it takes a perverse twist, “would have to radio in for authorization to use them. (Police spokesman) Hastings said”. Assuming that the officer is receiving fire from some miscreant using an AK-47, he’s to find his radio, call in and hopefully locate someone with the authority to authorize the weapon’s use? Can the dispatcher authorize it? What if the Captain or Lieutenant is on the potty, what does the dispatcher do, burst in and seek permission in the Men’s Room? Who better than the poor cop on the ground taking fire to determine IF he should use it? But wait; is the logic of this restriction that a cop is more dangerous firing a rifle than a 40 mm Glock? Quite frankly, I personally can hit a target at greater distance and with more accuracy with a rifle then a handgun; would bet that the typical patrol car officer can too. Wait, I’ve just had a great idea. Why not include marksmanship as part of the training “to qualify to wield them!”

But then the strangest perversion is that the police officer desiring to carry one in his patrol car must purchase it with his own funds at $900.00 a copy. With all the money we waste in the Convention Bureau, you would think that someone could find forty or fifty grand to arm our officers. Heck, I’d be willing to donate some bucks myself to help insure that the cop can match firepower with the miscreant when and if a patrol officer ever has to respond to a call at my house.

“Coincidence is not a Kosher word; it removes the hand of God.”

                                    Rabbinical Saying.