Timing is Everything

In New York City the other day, a jury acquitted the cops who shot an unarmed man 50 times outside a club, just prior to his wedding.

Today, Al Sharpton threatened to "shut down" the city and, for one of the first times, I don't quite blame the guy.

I'm all for the cops, but there has to be a point at which we say, "yeah, you have to protect yourself first and foremost, but you also have to exercise at least some self-control."

This brings us to our next story a few miles to the west.

Chicago's Mayor, Richard M. Daley, who just celebrated a birthday the other day, is proposing that his rank and file cops get to start carrying semi-automatic weapons because they're sometimes out-gunned on the streets.

Sooner or later, someone's going to have to pull their collective head out of wherever it's residing and have a sensible discussion about this. I don't blame the cops for wanting to be able to come home alive after their shift, but it's a shame that in a country with this many smart people, we're stuck in a situation like this because of people's refusal to look beyond themselves when it comes to an appreciation of the Constitution.