Boulder police officer Eric Talley, who died in the line of duty as he rushed into the King Sooper grocery store where a man was firing on shoppers, was an advocate for the right to keep and bear arms who would have been “deeply offended to know his death would be used to promote gun control,” according to his father.

Homer Talley spoke with TMZ about his son’s life and passion for law enforcement, as well as his support for the Second Amendment. Talley said that his son, a father of five and a ten-year veteran of the Boulder Police, owned an AR-15, enjoyed target shooting, and would be opposed to the idea of new gun control laws as a response to the shooting that took ten lives, including his own.

While Biden, many lawmakers and a large majority of Americans feel banning AR-15’s and similar weapons would deter these tragedies — Eric’s father isn’t so sure. He calls [the suspect’s] alleged attack “a senseless act and that is just it. The situation [Eric] found himself in wasn’t one that the government could protect him from.”

 

He adds, “Just because some wacko goes around shooting people doesn’t mean guns need to be taken away. You can’t take away enough guns to protect this country.”

Talley’s support for the Second Amendment isn’t uncommon among law enforcement. In 2017 a Pew Research survey found that the vast majority of officers who were surveyed believed that protecting the right to keep and bear arms was more important than putting more gun control laws on the books.

By a margin of 3-1, officers supported rights over gun control (74 percent to 25 percent).

When it comes to proposals to ban modern sporting rifles, more than one-third of officers, 67 percent, oppose a ban. Only 32 percent said they support a ban on so-called “assault-style weapons.”

This opposition echoes the findings of earlier surveys. In one poll, conducted in March 2013 by PoliceOne, 71 percent of officers polled said that a ban on so-called assault weapons would have no effect on reducing violent crime.

According to PoliceOne, their survey of officers actually found that 91-percent (not 71-percent) believed that a ban on modern sporting rifles would have either no effect on violent crime or would actually make things worse. That’s not all the survey discovered.

More than 91 percent of respondents support the concealed carry of firearms by civilians who have not been convicted of a felony and/or not been deemed psychologically/medically incapable.

A full 86 percent feel that casualties would have been reduced or avoided in recent tragedies like Newtown and Aurora if a legally-armed citizen was present (casualties reduced: 80 percent; avoided altogether: 60 percent).

… What would help most in preventing large scale shootings in public? The most popular answer among respondents – at 29 percent – was “more permissive concealed carry policies for civilians,” while 20 percent choose “more-aggressive institutionalization for mentally ill persons.”

These are the men and women who not only most frequently encounter armed criminals and the aftermath of their acts of violence, but are the ones who would be expected to enforce any new gun control measures. It’s telling that the vast majority of them are, like Officer Talley, opposed to the idea that more gun control laws will make us safer.

Anti-gun politicians love to tout polling showing broad public support for things like universal background checks and a ban on so-called assault weapon, while at the same time they ignore the polls of rank-and-file officers who say that putting more gun laws on the books won’t reduce violent crime or make us any safer. Big city police chiefs who willingly tout the gun control agenda of the anti-gun mayors who have the power to hire and fire them will be trotted out by these politicians to issue a soundbite in support of Joe Biden’s gun ban agenda, but they’ll ignore the voices of the street cops simply because their experience and viewpoints don’t align with an anti-gun ideology.

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