Right to Opine

From the only-in-California file, the state’s legislature has passed a law banning violent felons from owning body armor. Not surprisingly, the Gubernator signed it yesterday:

“Violent felons wearing body armor pose a dangerous threat to our communities and especially to our men and women in law enforcement,” Schwarzenegger said.

You know, Arnie, the real problem ain’t the body armor…it’s the violent felons. The law was apparently inspired by the infamous North Hollywood bank robbery of 1997.

In 1997, two bank robbers wearing body armor exchanged hundreds of rounds of gunfire with LAPD officers in a takeover robbery at a Bank of America in North Hollywood. Some of the bullets fired by police were deflected by the body armor worn by the robbers. The battle left 11 officers and seven civilians wounded. The two robbers were eventually killed by police during the shoot-out.

Let’s see here. Robbing a bank is already illegal. Robbing a bank with guns is, um, armed robbery, which is double-illegal. Now robbing a bank with guns and body armor will be triple-illegal. So the nutjobs who run CA believe that criminals who are willing to commit an armed felony are going to hear about this law and think, “Yeah, I’m all for using my rifle to rob a bank, but, gosh! I can’t wear body armor, ’cause it’s illegal. Guess I’ll skip the body armor today.”

This is what happens when you hand over your legislature to the far left—a bankrupt state that’s drowning in red ink, unemployment, and punitive taxes (all three of which are very closely related) wherein law-abiding citizens find it almost impossible to arm themselves for protection but have representatives whose idea of keeping them safe is passing yet another law that criminals are going to ignore.