Apologies for the long posting, but I am not exactly sure what was the point of that phone call. If it was to persuade Lt Vance or any of the sworn officers in CT to refuse an order to confiscate Unregistered ("illegal") firearms, then I am pretty sure the caller did not accomplish it.
I was interested in their conversation through almost the 7 minute mark and - in that duration - I thought Lt Vance handled the conversation pretty well. I would have loved to have him say he would not cooperate with an order to go door to door and confiscate "illegal" weapons - but that's a very unrealistic hope. Imagine the ramifications he would have faced had that statement been captured on the tape ! Folks here may not care - but Lt Vance does and I'm sure it affects what he says. Even if he were intending to refuse or ignore such an order - it would be very unwise for him to make that declaration as part of this sort of phone call.
Until about the 7:00 minute mark, I think much of Lt. Vance's response was pretty much on target:
The decision to go door to door confiscating weapons has not been made as yet - There is lots of saber rattling and it looks as though CT.Gov is on that path. So, someday he and all CT sworn officers may need to make a decision about executing an order to confiscate "illegal" weapons, but today is not that day. Prematurely making a unilateral declaration about not executing that order would be devastating to the officer and we would have lost a well placed ally if indeed he were of the mind to refuse/ignore it.
Until the Courts declare the law unconstitutional, then it is the Law of the Land and the oath of sworn officers is to uphold the law - All of the laws. Law Enforcement Officers do just that, enforce laws, not enact them. They have some discretion, but this topic is well beyond individual officer discretion, at least not without significant repercussions.
LEO's don't give individualized legal advice. That's why we have independent, practicing lawyers. I can't count how many threads on NES attest to the problems of seeking legal advice from LEO's.
Unless and until an order to confiscate weapons is issued, the right and best place to have this fight is with the Legislative & Executive Branches and in the Courts. That's how the system works. Unfortunately, the caller's point about the legislature not listening is all too true, but that is why we have courts and hold elections every couple of years. I understand and agree that the 'system' isn't working very well right now, especially on this topic and never seems to work very quickly. But it is the best system I know and there aren't many viable alternatives between working the system and 'Go Time'.
The people aligned against us are well organized and have strong allies. Including, it would seem the media. We have raw numbers but need to similarly band together and align our best methods and arguments against them. Activities like this phone call can help rally the faithful, but i don't think they do much else beyond annoying the person answering the call. Especially when we let our passion and conviction overwhelm our ability to be logically persuasive. Let's work to make allies of guys like Lt Vance. I'll admit that it's hard or not possible to do this in many cases, but I get concerned that 1-off efforts can only make the road more difficult.
#Flame_Suit_On