While people are beginning to take note of the rise of the gun-related deaths of police officers, one issue that needs to be examined is the very high percentage of those murders that were conducted by men with criminal backgrounds.
Men are singled out, because every one of these police officers were shot by men. There have been 15 officers of the law that have been killed by gunfire this year alone (up 107 percent from the same time in 2015).
One officer was killed by “friendly fire,” but that was during an ambush on police. Prince Georges County (Md.) Detective Jacai Colson was in plain clothes when he tried to encounter the shooters in an ambush on police outside a police precinct.
Of the 14 remaining police officer shootings, 86 percent of the murder suspects are men with criminal backgrounds.
In one instance of an alleged “cop-killer” having a criminal background, Phillip M. Ferry, had been booked 41 times into Clastop County Jail in Oregon since 1991, according to the Oregonian. Ferry, reportedly, shot Seaside police Sgt. Jason Goodding on Feb. 5 after Goodding and another officer confronted Ferry about a warrant he had out for his arrest. Ferry was shot by another officer and died as a result of his wounds.
Of the two murderer suspects that did not have a previous criminal background, both had lethal intentions when encountering police.
Ronald Hamilton, 32, is an active duty staff sergeant in the Army. He had already shot and killed his wife when police arrived on the scene on Feb. 27. Hamilton is the suspected shooter in the much publicized death of Prince William County (Va.) Officer Ashley Guindon. It was Guindon’s first day as a police officer.
According to WUSA9 in Washington D.C.:
He is being held without bond and facing capital murder, first-degree murder and other gun charges. Police say Hamilton could face the death penalty.
Austin Holzer, 17, reportedly shot Mesa County Sheriff’s Deputy Derek Geer on Feb. 8. Police say that Holzer was looking for an altercation and may have been suicidal.
According to CBS in Denver, Holzer said the following in police reports:
I’d rather run than get caught by a cop. That’s why I wanted him to shoot me. I knew I was going to jail. I was like, ‘Just shoot me, please, just please.’
CBS also reported that Holzer was a "habitual drug offender" and the he used "meth" days before shooting Geer.
The Mesa County district attorney dropped juvenile charges against Holzer to try him as an adult. He is charged with first-degree murder and 20 other counts.
President Obama and his “gun-free zone” ilk can politicize tragic shootings with their gun control rhetoric all they want, but the fact remains that felons do not register their guns because they cannot register their weapons.
The National Firearms Act states the following about not allowing criminals to legally purchase firearms:
1. anyone who has been convicted in any court of a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year;
2. any fugitive from justice;
3. any unlawful user or who is addicted to any controlled substance;
4. anyone who has been adjudicated as a mental defective or who has been committed to a mental institution;
5. any alien who is illegally or unlawfully in the US or except as provided in 18 U.S.C 922(y)(2), has been admitted to the US under a non-immigrant visa;
6. anyone who has been dishonorably discharged from the Armed Forces;
7. anyone who was a US citizen and has renounced his or her citizenship;
8. anyone who is subject to a court order that:
a. was issued after a hearing of which such person received actual notice and at which such person had an opportunity to participate;
b. restrains such person from harassing, stalking, or threatening an intimate partner of such person or child of such intimate partner or person, or engaging in other conduct that would place an intimate partner in reasonable fear of bodily injury to the partner or child; and
c. (I) includes a finding that such person represents a credible threat to the physical safety of such intimate partner or child; or (II) by its terms explicitly prohibits the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against such intimate partner or child that would reasonably be expected to cause bodily injury, or
9. anyone who has been convicted in any court of a crime of domestic violence; to ship or transport in interstate or foreign commerce, or possess in or affecting commerce, any firearm or ammunition; or to receive any firearm or ammunition which has been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce.
Obama might be able to circumvent Congress with his “phone and pen,” but actual law prohibits criminals from owning guns.