Written by Michel Palomba
It feels like I’m writing about some awful legislation being forwarded by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez every week. From economy crushing Assembly Bill 5 to the racist and regressive ACA 5, the list goes on. But as she keeps pushing for awful policies, I will continue to sound the alarm. After all, we’re the ones paying her.
Her latest goal is to set a “clear standard” for how law enforcement should and shouldn’t use weapons. This may sound like a good idea to some, but this legislation isn’t even regulating the use of deadly force. She’s currently targeting non-lethal rubber bullets.
George Floyd’s death has acted as a catalyst for some dangerous ideas and greatly intensified the war on police. It’s gotten so bad that far-left activists are even turning on the Democratic officials that they elected into office. Just this week, Minneapolis Democratic Mayor Jacob Fray was forced out of a Black Lives Matter protest after refusing to disband the city’s police force. Infamous Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar has also called for disbanding the Minneapolis Police Department.
Floyd’s death was an atrocity and a murder, to be clear. What is was not, however, is an example of systemic racism. The liberal mob has assumed that this was a race issue simply because the officer was white and Floyd was black. I am not making any excuses for the officer, but one officer’s actions should not reflect on the entire police force, especially on a nationwide scale.
According to the Washington Post’s police shootings database, 5,366 people have been killed by police since 2015. For reference, that’s 0.00167% of the U.S. population. So, in five years, less than a quarter of a percent of the population has been killed by police. Additionally, 2,426 of those killed were white, while 1,269 were black, showing that twice as many white people were killed.
By contrast, in 2018, 862,320 innocent lives were ended via abortion. That’s over 160 times the number of lives taken by police, and all 862,320 of those victims were innocent. Where is the outrage for that?
The riots and broader Black Lives Matter movement are no longer about George Floyd or black lives. They are using his death as a cover for a radical, racist agenda. It’s despicable, but it may be working. Assemblywoman Gonzalez’s new push for additional red tape is just her hopping on the bandwagon and perpetuating the war on police.
Breaking a city-imposed curfew is not a sufficient basis for use of rubber bullets. Crowd control where there is no rioting is not proper grounds to use rubber bullets. Protesting alone should not result in disability, injury or death at the hands of law enforcement.
— Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher (@LorenaSGonzalez) June 4, 2020
The problem is that many of the protests were not peaceful. Surely you’ve seen the carnage that has come as a result of some of these “peaceful protests.” Buildings have been reduced to piles of ash, stores have been looted, and there have been dozens of deaths across the country as a result.
Rubber bullets and other non-lethal uses of force are not being used to end lawful protests, they’re being used to enforce the law and return to civil order. If you are in violation of a curfew, which many cities have had to impose for the first time in decades because of the severity of the riots, you are breaking the law. Police can’t possibly arrest every single person when dealing with large crowds, so alternate methods must be used.
Thousands of police officers, firefighters, and medical workers put their lives on the line every day to keep us safe. George Floyd’s death, while despicable, was an isolated incident and does not represent systemic racism or anything else within our country. There are always going to be bad apples, but that doesn’t make the whole orchard bad. Unnecessary red tape regarding non-lethal force puts blue lives at even greater risk.
Elected officials like Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez and Rep. Ilhan Omar are trying to tear this country apart and are hiding behind Floyd’s death to do it. America is not a racist country—plain and simple. The silent majority knows what’s going on, and we need to stop being silent before it’s too late.
