Minnesota Not-So-Nice: Armed Security For City Council, Not Citizens

Isn’t it weird how the city council doesn’t have to worry about self-defense, but you do?

What happens when you want to disband the police, but have no plan at all to replace them? Well, in Minneapolis what’s happening is that the city council is spending thousands of dollars in private security for three council members while the city’s citizens are left high and dry. It’s as if the city council were saying to Minneapolis business people and citizens to go ahead and arm themselves right now, because they’re on their own. The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA)’s Alan Gottlieb clarified the message today:

“What’s happening in Minneapolis is a reprehensible act of hypocrisy,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “While council members are planning a lengthy process of developing what they call a ‘new public safety model,’ what are the citizens supposed to do? They’re not getting private security protection. That’s apparently a perk only for three council members who claim to have received threats since the killing of George Floyd last month.

“Even more ironic,” he continued, “is that the council members, Andrea Jenkins, Alondra Cano and Phillipe Cunningham, have been outspoken about defunding their city’s police department. One report said this private security has already cost taxpayers $63,000. The police department is reportedly not providing security services because those resources are needed in the community.

“It’s time for Minneapolis business people and private citizens to arm themselves,” Gottlieb said, “because the city certainly won’t pay for their private security. It’s the common sense response to a city council that appears to have lost perspective, if not their collective minds.

“The death of George Floyd was a tragedy,” he added, “but working to defund and disband the police department and reinvent it with some sort of new public safety model is overkill. In the meantime, the public has a right to be safe in their homes and businesses, and they don’t have the luxury of hiring private security.

“People should put their personal safety, and the safety of their families, first,” Gottlieb said. “What they should not do is allow the city council to con them into being guinea pigs for some Utopian social reform effort. Buy a gun, learn to use it safely and competently, seek competent instruction and practice safe storage.

“Maybe members of the Minneapolis City Council should do likewise,” he concluded. “After all, it would be far less a burden on taxpayers than the $4,500 a day the city is reportedly paying for the security details.”

Isn’t it fascinating how detached from the issues of public safety one can become when one has one’s own private army? Ask any of these CEOS…or any anti-gun politician.