Your superiors are asking you to do the federal government’s dirty job and enforce the new (well, “new” since the previous round in 1991!) firearm controls. This job is incompatible with the duty of a police officer serving citizens.

The controls that you are asked to enforce are sanctioned by jail terms for individuals whose only “crime” would be to reject police databases for honest citizens, and to disobey “laws” and regulations that are arbitrary, immoral, and contrary to our traditions. An important, and growing, minority opposes these controls, and it is likely that the majority would reject them if they knew what they actually amount to. In any event, your role is not to enforce on peaceful minorities whatever diktats some majority whimsically issues.

Those who have taught you that you are “protecting society,” have forgotten to explain that this society is made of individuals, and that your role is not to protect an abstract community by criminalizing real, peaceful individuals. They have forgotten to tell you that the rule of law is not consistent with any kind of law.

In the deep of your heart, you know that I am right. You know that these so-called “laws” are not of the same nature as laws against murder, theft or rape. You know that these so-called “laws” serve only to transform honest citizens into paper criminals.

Moreover — and let me be clear on this — you are our servant, not our master. You serve and protect, you don’t rule and nurture. Whatever power you have is entirely delegated by us. We are the ones who pay your salaries. And this “we” also includes peaceful minorities. Without the general support of law-abiding citizens, you would be nothing but a little rotten cop in a banana republic.

You will reply that you only do your job, and that you have to earn a living. Yet, this constraint can never be an excuse for violating fundamental laws and morals. Don’t put yourself in the situation of an enemy of peaceful citizens.

Please be assured of my support if you choose the side of liberty.

Sincerely,

Pierre Lemieux