Recall Scummy Joe!

Our brother over at Nevada 2A (NV2A) has started a petition to recall Scummy Joe in his position as Clark County Sheriff in response to his un-American, anti-gun statements to the Las Vegas Sun supporting a standard capacity magazine ban. As of press time, a little over a thousand people have signed it. The goal is 1,500.

We'd start a petition to return all cops to six-shot revolvers and five-shot pump shotguns, but that would be stupid. Wonder if Black Lives Matter might be interested...

Lombardo’s department has been shockingly ineffective at keeping homicides and violent crime at bay. Homicides were up 80% in March of 2016. In October, homicides evened out to a 25% increase over 2015 and a case of dubious self-defense caused a 20 year high for murders. Lombardo says 50% of the homicides are related to gang activity, but some of his changes have been criticized. 

Gang expert Wes McBride, a retired gang detective, said that Lombardo's decision to break up the gang unit helped increase street crime. Metro blames California for exporting it’s gang members (true to a degree), but Metro can’t admit that Las Vegas simply has a gang problem because of the endemic poverty in some neighborhoods. “If they admit to having a local gang problem, they’re seen as being a weak administrator,” said McBride.

Sign the petition at Change.org

 Metro police officers, via their unions, blame the decentralization of the gang unit for making sharing intelligence harder and diverting gang detectives to other types of investigations. Don’t forget the plan to pull detectives into black and whites for a few weeks of patrol to help out on the manpower shortage. Seems no one wants to be a cop anymore and the “more cops” tax just isn’t enough.

Scummy Joe also blames “the increase in firearms.” The increase in the use of firearms? The increase of illegal possession of firearms? Or does he mean “more guns=bad?” That kind of statement is like blaming an increase in car sales for an increase in traffic deaths and DUIs, but logic is not exactly the ken of anti-gunners.

Of course, there are remarkably few prosecutions and convictions for illegal gun possession. Why not create a task force dedicated to targeting crooked FFLs, street gun dealers, and felons in possession of firearms? The DA’s firearm task force is a couple of ADA’s who work on violent crime cases that involve guns, not getting guns out of the hands of bad guys. Sadly, gun laws are seldom enforced.

In the mind of a gun grabber, of which Scummy Joe certainly is one, passing a law, like Question 1, is easier than actually catching criminals and prosecuting them. Banning standard capacity magazines is part of an incremental strategy to ban guns. Police administrations (not your beat cop) don’t like armed citizens because they tend to compete with police’s monopoly of power as the only gun-toters on the street.

Another reason is civilian disarmament is a favorite of governments and police because all gun possession is illegal, and therefore anyone who has a gun is a criminal. For this reason, top cops like disarmament. Anyone with a gun is a bad guy. Patrol cops don’t need to think about it and can’t really wink at grandma who has a magnum in the glove box. It makes their job a lot easier if they can arrest anyone who has a gun in public.

Imagine a patrol officer stops a car full of young black men in a Hispanic neighborhood known for a gang problem. The officer believes the men are ready to do a drive-by, but the gun is legally owned and possessed in the vehicle. The driver, who has the gun, has no known gang ties and is not a prohibited person. Unless the officer actually has probable cause to arrest the driver for conspiracy to commit murder, etc., he cannot arrest the driver for having a gun. Damn you, US Constitution and racial profiling prohibitions! This was a huge problem to California cops—except when the cops just said “screw it” and decided to just arrest everyone and take the guns anyway.

Rather than deal with the gang at its roots, more and more gun control laws were passed. So if an officer found a loaded gun in car, then an unloaded gun, then a unloaded handgun not in a locked container, he could make an arrest. Criminals evolved with the law or simply ran the risk of being caught, so the law had to change until the point that basically thinking about a gun in public became a felony. Instead of treating the underlying disease, gun control only treats the symptoms.

Nevermind that a perfectly law-abiding person just wants to be safe; sorry, thems the breaks. Carry a gun because you drive a truck through George Soros funded riots in Oakland and don’t want to be the next Reginald Denny? Sorry, that’s illegal. All guns are bad you see.

These points are lost on Scummy Joe. In his defense, he actually seems to give a shit about violence, but is unwilling or unable to actually confront the problem which causes gangs. Prosecutors plea bargain things down and criminals don’t do the time they deserve. Our criminal justice system is hopelessly broken precisely because the men who are able to effect change, Lombardo and DA Wolfson, don’t do it. Calling for the prompt execution of murderers, three-strikes, long prison sentences, etc. is politically inconvenient and too much trouble.

Where does the mag ban come in again? Civilian disarmament is unlikely in the United States and would undoubtedly start a civil war, so steps must be taken incrementally. Public opinion has swung well in favor of firearms and continues to rise. What anti-gunners want to do is slowly erode rights and change gun culture. By making guns harder to own, use, and carry, it becomes too difficult for gun owners to keep up and comply with the laws. Eventually, they give in an surrender to the inevitable. Once guns become uncommon and people aren’t interested anymore, there is no public outcry when a ban is called for. Question 1 and this magazine ban is part of that whole plan.

It’s not guns that are the problem and Scummy Joe knows that. The violence in the valley is likely a cause of California criminals coming to Nevada for a cheaper cost of living, to escape California warrants and rap sheets, and also the release of California criminals due to prison overcrowding (known as Jerry’s Kids, after Gov. Jerry Brown). Las Vegas is also where a lot of people move to when they run out of options. Nevada has been the place to run away to for a new start for a long time, the sun and heat, and no state income tax is really appealing. With the amount of poverty in the valley, you’re going to see crime and gangs right along with it. Until society confronts problems that create gangs—a weak criminal justice system, poverty, and ghetto culture—gang violence will be a problem.

If Lombardo had simply been a crappy sheriff, it wouldn’t matter. Street cops and detectives are the heart of law enforcement; the brass could elope to Mexico and no one would probably notice. Instead of just sucking at his job, Lombardo doubled down and jumped on the disarmament train, thinking that Nevada’s slide to a Democrat voting blue state and Democrat dominated legislature was the perfect cover. Nope, sorry. Gun owners and people who actually care about their safety and liberty are fighting back.

-G. C.