Why cops and the NRA don’t mix

Many conservatives support both police officers and the National Rifle Association. They support the Second Amendment and revere cops. But a majority of police officers oppose the loose weapons laws the NRA fights to protect, and new laws the NRA is pushing that would make mass murder and cop killing easier.

After every mass shooting, the gun debate flares up, and the situation creates an inadequate template for arguing the laws. Las Vegas is no different.

Stephen Paddock, 64, killed nearly 60 people and wounded more than 525 Sunday when he began shooting from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino. Paddock killed himself, and police say they found 23 weapons in the suite and another 19 in his house.

Paddock, with no criminal or mental health history, seems to have acquired guns legally in Nevada, which has lax laws. He also seems to have modified at least one rifle into a fully automatic machine gun, which is against federal law.

It’s hard to craft a gun-control law a man willing to shoot 500 people would find limiting. But it might be harder to shoot 500 people were it not easy to buy piles of powerful weapons and ammunition.

Most Americans want federal laws requiring universal background checks for gun buyers, a ban on sales to mentally ill people, safety training, childproof gun locks and gun licenses, among other restrictions. But in the GOP-controlled Congress, the movement is toward loosening restrictions.

One GOP bill moving through the House of Representatives with NRA support is the Sportsmen’s Heritage and Recreational Enhancement Act of 2017. It would end a ban on silencers, protect the sale of armor-piercing bullets and allow owners of assault rifles to take those guns to states where they are illegal. That’s in line with another NRA-GOP bill, the Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act. This proposal would allow anyone who can carry concealed weapons in states where such permits are available to all gun owners, like Nevada, to carry them in states with strong restrictions, like New York.

The NRA and congressional conservatives want to pass laws that say a Paddock could bring the guns he bought in Nevada to New York, legally, with silencers and armor-piercing bullets, as well as handguns concealed on his person.

What do cops think?

“It’s absurd,” said former Nassau County Police Department Acting Commissioner Thomas Krumpter, now heading the Lloyd Harbor village force. “A silencer is a purely offensive weapon. Armor-piercing bullets have no legitimate nonmilitary purpose. I and most officers support gun ownership with proper restrictions like those in New York. I would never join the NRA.”

James Carver, who recently retired as the head of the Nassau County Police Benevolent Association, agreed. “I’m not a pro-NRA guy,” he said. “I and 90 percent of the cops believe in strict gun laws, partly because loose gun laws are dangerous to cops.”

Guns kill about 30,000 people in the United States every year. Relatively few die in mass shootings, yet such shootings touch off conversations about sensible gun laws. Wait times to purchase weapons, universal background checks, bans on sales to mentally ill people and an end to unfettered ammunition sales would lower that 30,000 number somewhat. Laws the NRA supports to increase the spread of powerful weapons would increase that 30,000 number somewhat, and potentially add more dead cops.

You can support the NRA. Or you can support the right of a cop to get home alive. But if you think you can support both, you’re kidding yourself.

Lane Filler is a member of Newsday’s editorial board.