From: [d c d] at [se.houston.geoquest.slb.com] (Dan Day)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns,alt.politics.org.batf,alt.society.civil-liberty
Subject: Re: Support For Law-Givers Eroding? (was: Re: Who is Lon Horiuchi...)
Date: 12 Aug 1994 22:20:21 GMT

In article <[3291 h 3 INN 9 gn] at [duncan.cs.utk.edu]> [b--n--d] at [cs.utk.edu] (Lance Bernard) writes:
>
>The leadership of the FOP is explicitly in the HCI camp, despite the fact
>that the rank & file strongly disagree.

Yup.  The following is from Kopel and Morgan's "The Assault Weapon Panic":

####### Begin included text

     Some police chiefs have attempted to suppress dissenting voices in their
department. For example, in San Jose, former police chief Joseph McNamara
wrote fund-raising letters for Handgun Control, Inc., on official city
stationary, and claimed to represent what "every police officer" believed. In
1989, one of McNamara's officers, a firearms instructor named Leroy Pyle, was
subpoenaed by the California legislature and legally required to testify
before that body. Officer Pyle did so, on his own time, and out of uniform.
The next day, Pyle was suspended from duty, and McNamara attempted to fire
him.{94} In Cincinnati, Lieutenant Harry Thomas has been harassed for
speaking out (on his own time and out of uniform) against the gun prohibition
policies favored by the police hierarchy.
 
     To counter the statements of pro-rights rank-and-file officers such as
the firearms examiners or Leroy Pyle, Handgun Control, Inc. often points to
the Fraternal Order of Police. The FOP is the largest rank-and-file police
organization in the country; its head, Dewey Stokes, supports "assault
weapon" control, and Stokes was recently re-elected to his position despite
a challenge from a pro-gun officer.{95}
 
     Handgun Control's respect for the views of the FOP appears, however, to
be a sometimes thing. In New Jersey, the state chapter of the FOP opposed
Governor Florio's severe "assault weapon" ban (which even applied to BB
guns). National FOP President Dewey Stokes backed up the New Jersey chapter,
because the New Jersey ban was so extreme. Nevertheless, Handgun Control
pushed for (and won) the draconian New Jersey ban, claiming all the while to
be responding to the cries for help from law enforcement.
 
     While the largest rank-and-file police organization, the FOP supports
"assault weapon" control (at least for controls less severe than New
Jersey's), the second-largest rank-and-file organization, the American
Federation of Police, opposes such controls. Unfortunately, neither
organization has polled its membership on the subject. (FOP head Stokes has
been repeatedly asked to conduct a poll, and has refused.)
 
     What limited polling of law enforcement has been done does not support
the claims of Handgun Control, Inc., that all the police want "assault
weapon" prohibition. The Florida chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police
polled its membership, and found 75% opposed to an "assault weapon" ban. The
most recent poll of police opinion was carried out by _Law _Enforcement
_Technology_ magazine in March 1991. The results were reported in the
July/August 1991 issue: "75% do not favor gun control legislation ... with
street officers opposing it by as much as 85 %."  In particular, 78.7%
opposed a ban on "assault weapons." (About 37 % of top management supported
a ban, and about 11% of street officers.){96}

Every spring the National Association of Chiefs of Police (NACOP) conducts a
nationwide survey of command-rank police officers (not just top management or
chiefs).  The survey includes all command-rank officers, including those who
do not belong to NACOP. Ninety-five percent said that they believed a citizen
should have the right to purchase any type of firearm for sport or self-
defense.


94.  The formal pretext for suspending Pyle was that he had appeared (not in
uniform) in a video explaining the difference between automatics and
semiautomatics, and in that video had stated that he was a San Jose police
officer, but had not expressly stated that his views were not the official
views of his department. The rather severe discipline meted out to Pyle
seemed odd in light of the fact that Chief McNamara himself wrote political
fundraising letters for Handgun Control, Inc. on official city stationary.
 
95.  One percent of the approximately 225,000 Fraternal Order of Police
members attended the convention, and Stokes won the vote 68% of the
attendees. It might be that delegates to the police conventions, like
delegates to NRA conventions, or to Democratic or Republican conventions,
hold views more extreme than held by the membership as a whole.
 
96.  Two thousand police officers participated in the Law Enforcement
Technology magazine survey, only a few hundred less than voted at the
Fraternal Order of Police convention. Because participation in the _Law
_Enforcement _Technology poll or attendance at the FOP convention were both
affirmative acts of a non-random sample, neither the _Law _Enforcement
_Technology poll nor the FOP convention vote is necessarily a statistically
valid sample of police opinion.