Earlier today, I wrote about how cops shouldn’t get exemptions to gun laws. One of my arguments has always been that while most police officers are good people trying to do good work, there are exceptions just the same as you’ll find in society as a whole.

Like most groups, some are excellent, some are scum, and most are somewhere in between.

But when a law enforcement officer goes bad, it can get very interesting. After all, they’ve got a badge that lets them get treated differently than most of us.

And one now-former North Carolina officer allegedly did just that.

A former Gastonia police officer is accused of selling drugs and using her badge to buy guns for people. Those are just some of the 32 felonies that 26-year-old Officer Xana Dajanae Dove faces out of Gaston County.

"I understand now what i did was wrong”

A former Gastonia police officer charged with crimes during her tenure as an officer gets a $1 million bond. Xana Dove reportedly admitted to selling drugs, buying guns for other people, and illegal searches with police databases. pic.twitter.com/4fHmyLLS6x

— Ken (@kenlemonWSOC9) December 13, 2023

Dove was arrested and charged Tuesday morning. She faced a judge on Wednesday, who upped her bond from $250,000 to $1 million. Dove also got a court-appointed attorney to represent her.

The charges stem from a joint investigation between the Gastonia Police Department and the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department.

The allegations against her started last year. Prosecutors said Dove used her position as a police officer to commit crimes.

…

Dove is additionally accused of helping others obtain guns, Page said.

“Using her status as a law enforcement officer to easily obtain firearms on at least one occasion,” Page said.

“Firearms?” the judge asked.

“Firearms. Yes, your honor,” he said.

Dove is also facing a number of drug trafficking charges, among others. Hilariously, she even tried to make the claim that she didn’t realize at some of what she did was wrong.

Law enforcement first started looking into Dove when a suspect had a picture on his phone of information that could only have come from police.

I don’t think they expected to find anything quite like they found.

Look, a case like this isn’t an indictment of cops as a whole. This is one bad officer who was knee-deep in doing bad cop stuff. I mean, the list of charges looks like something you’d see the TV version of a dirty cop pulling.  But it was good officers who brought her down.

But on the same token, we have to remember that police are people. They include all the foibles you’d find in just about any other group of people.

As a result, though, there probably shouldn’t be exceptions for law enforcement in gun control laws. If the police need something like an AR-15 or a higher capacity magazine, then by God we should be able to have access to them as well.

Otherwise, you’re essentially arguing that police are a higher class of individual, yet the charges Dove is accused of suggests that there’s at least a chance of going down the criminal road as the rest of us might have.

The rules shouldn’t be different and that means most of those rules simply shouldn’t exist. It’s not rocket science, but some people are willfully stupid on this one.