[Az-Geocaching] Law Enforcement

[Scott Wood]

Law enforcement is a thankless job, but I believe that the cops bring a lot 
of that upon themselves.  We seem to forget that our safety should fall on 
our own shoulders first and that we should be responsible for our own safety.

If I wake up in the middle of the night and there is an intruder in my 
house threatening the safety and lives of my family, I am not going to 
cower in the corner and wait for a cop to come as save us, it is my 
responsibility to protect myself and my family.  I am not sure I want to 
live in a society where there are enough law enforcement officers to make 
sure that crime never happens.

One of the problems is that we as a society are making more and more things 
illegal, thus giving a finite number of police officers more and more 
things that they feel they need to be on the look out for.  I think this 
recent situation is a perfect example of just that, this cop seemed to feel 
that geocaching was a pretty serious offense if he told them that if they 
said they were geocaching they would be arrested, heck, I doubt it would 
have been anything more than a citable offense if it were infact 
illegal.  There is a different between being cited for something and being 
arrested.

I never buy the argument that we don't have enough cops on the streets, but 
I do see a big problem with the training that our current cops get, or I 
should say the lack of training they get.  I deputy friend of mine down 
here in Pima was telling me that there is a 1 year waiting list to get time 
to shot on the county range unless you are doing your qualification shooting.

Lawmakers at every level like to make laws, but they fail to realize what 
those laws do to the people that have to enforce them.  Having more and 
more cops won't change the fact that there are simply too many laws on the 
books, and when I cop realizes that they can cite/arrest a person for just 
about anything anymore, I believe that is where a lot of the us vs. them 
attitude comes from.

I'll get off my soap box now.


Scott

scott@myblueheaven.com
www.myblueheaven.com