Supreme Court explains why you should own a gun
With most of today's coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court devoted to its decisions on display of the Ten Commandments, you might have missed this:
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court ruled Monday that police cannot be sued for how they enforce restraining orders, ending a lawsuit by a Colorado woman who claimed police did not do enough to prevent her estranged husband from killing her three young daughters.Jessica Gonzales did not have a constitutional right to police enforcement of the court order against her husband, the court said in a 7-2 opinion.
City governments had feared that if the court ruled the other way, it would unleash a potentially devastating flood of cases that could bankrupt municipal governments.
Gonzales contended that police did not do enough to stop her estranged husband, who took the three daughters from the front yard of her home in June 1999 in violation of a restraining order.
Hours later Simon Gonzales died in a gun fight with officers outside a police station. The bodies of the three girls, ages 10, 9 and 7, were in his truck.
[...]
"The restraining orders are not worth anything unless police officers are willing to enforce them. They are just paper," said Brian Reichel, the attorney for Gonzales.
In other words, we cannot depend on the police to protect us, even if we have a court order. And when they fail to protect us or our families, we are without remedy.
Of course, the police have always been unlikely to be on hand at the moment we need them most. Today as ever, our safety is our own responsibility.
The Court's opinion in Castle Rock v. Gonzales is here.