Gun-control measures threaten rural residents

When seconds count, the police are only minutes away. That’s reality, like it or not, for city dwellers. And for rural residents, those minutes can become an hour.

That’s the underlying point made by Fresno County Sheriff Margaret Mims and local law enforcement leaders at a May 17 news conference, where they accurately called Lt. Gov. Newsom’s “Safety for All Act” a threat to public safety.

Sheriff Mims described how Newsom’s act would serve no useful purpose, cost many millions of dollars annually and drain law enforcement resources, causing those critical “minutes” to increase. And heretofore legally owned firearms and ammunition magazines would be banned, leaving many people defenseless, while those minutes ticked away.

Then on May 19, not to be outdone by Newsom, state Senate Democrats passed 11 additional anti-gun laws that would, again, come at immense cost, serve no useful purpose, do little for public safety and further block citizens’ rights to self-defense.

With longtime friends and a family background in law enforcement, I know how hard officers work. They spend their working lives doing everything possible to protect us. But no matter how hard they try, they can’t be everywhere all the time.

This story was originally published May 25, 2016 at 12:08 PM with the headline "Gun-control measures threaten rural residents."