Outgoing New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly has spent his career promoting an extreme gun control agenda.
Kelly is a longtime, vocal supporter of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s anti-Second Amendment policies. Kelly appeared on the Daily Show this year, and nodded up and down every time host John Stewart spewed propaganda about gun control and punch-lines that ridiculed America’s law-abiding gun owners.
Kelly said that commonly-owned, semi-automatic rifles “should be eliminated.” He railed against handguns and blamed other cities and states for New York’s problems.
Kelly even stood side-by-side with fiercely anti-Second Amendment U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer and promoted Schumer’s backdoor gun registration scheme.
Raymond Kelly has made it clear that he believes it should be as difficult as possible, and mostly illegal, for law-abiding Americans to own a firearm for self-defense.
However, when it comes to defending his life, Kelly wants to be surrounded by firearms. Not only that, he wants other people to pay for it.
Kelly recently announced that he wants the taxpayers of New York to spend $720,000 per year for a personal, armed security detail to help him transition back to civilian life. He may or may not have a legitimate claim to this type of special, taxpayer-funded treatment. But that’s not the point at all.
The point is that Raymond Kelly, like so many other elitists and hypocrites in the gun control movement, thinks that he is one of the chosen few who are entitled to any Second Amendment freedom, and more specifically, to the fundamental right of self-defense.
But what about the Bronx cabbie who gambles with his well-being, and many times with his life, each time he picks up a fare?
What about the convenience store owner who gets robbed and beaten twice a month and has no choice but to go back to work?
What about the young woman navigating a dark parking garage? What about the elderly couple cowering in fear every night because gangs have taken over their neighborhood?
What about the mother trying to protect herself and her children from an estranged, abusive husband?
Raymond Kelly, Michael Bloomberg, and Barack Obama would tell them all to simply call the cops – even though they know that no matter how diligent, courageous, and heroic our good men and women in uniform may be, there are too many circumstances where the police simply can’t be there in time to make a difference and save a life.
It would be nice if Raymond Kelly recognized that the people he would deny the right to keep and bear arms are the same people working every day, many of them in harm’s way, to pay the taxes that will fund his armed security detail.
These folks aren’t asking for a handout. They aren’t asking for their own personal bodyguards.
They simply want their fundamental human right to defend themselves and their loved ones respected. That’s not too much to ask.
Chris W. Cox is the Executive Director of the National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA) and serves as the organization’s chief lobbyist.
