Quote Originally Posted by John_Wayne777 View Post
...it does if you are fighting for budget.

Now personally it wouldn't bother me much if the local constabulary was reduced to a skeleton staff and couldn't respond to many calls for service. I'm a pretty proactive guy and I've got no moral or psychological issues with prolifically perforating any bad guy stupid enough to target me. I'm willing to bet that most of my neighbors and fellow citizens don't feel quite the same way and would react to such an announcement with no small measure of trepidation.

"OMG!! Who is going to protect us!!"

Further, many find the idea of people arming themselves to protect against the criminals that the police cannot deal with to be somewhat distasteful and a sign of some sort of barbaric, backward society. Combine those two groups and you have a pretty large chunk of voters capable of putting pressure on the politicians to protect the PD budget.

It's basic politics. If your budget is on the chopping block, do some PR to acquaint everyone with the dire consequences to the personal safety of the public if the cuts go through while making sure to paint yourself as doing all within your power to protect everybody with the limited resources you've been given. Then hope that enough public pressure is generated to make the politicians blink and eviscerate the parks and recreation department instead.
Yup, exactly the aim. Recall that this is Dennis Kucinich's district. So I can see them reacting that way.