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Are you really safe or does it only look that way?

Pittsburgh police recently announced that they will not answer calls unless it’s an emergency of a felony crime already in progress and your life is imminently in danger.

That means that if someone is breaking into your car, or a bunch of thugs are looking for a way into your house but are not actually in it, they may reroute the call to a special unit so you can fill out a report over the phone.

They will get to it when they can.

Furthermore, between 3am and 7am there will be no police officers manning any of the precincts and as few as 20 officers on duty in the entire city.

So, if you call 9–1–1, don’t expect the 9–1–1 type of response you have come to expect.

If you used to think that when seconds counted the police were only minutes away, well now, they may not be at all.

This is not the first time we’ve seen that happen. During Hurricane Katrina, the New Orleans Police Department all but left town and its residents to fend for themselves. Not only that, they did so after going door to door confiscating guns.

The horror stories that followed are secret no more.

How about during the COVID pandemic? Police departments were short staffed and, in many cities, made scarce even more by politicians who succumbed to the pressure of the Defund The Police movement.

Violent crime in these cities increased exponentially overnight, and in some cities, these levels of crime remain elevated.

And now? With millions of illegal immigrants flowing into the country, many of which are drug cartel members, known terrorists on a wanted list, violent prisoners freed from international prisons, and gang members of the worst kind, and some of which have already committed rapes, murders, kidnappings, assaults on law enforcement, and more, do you expect law enforcement to respond faster?

Not to mention that when a police department publicly announces that there will be virtually no one available to respond between 3 and 7 a. m., I dare say criminals are looking at each other wide eyed, jaws to the floor, high fiving and popping champagne for being handed the 4-hour window of opportunity of a lifetime.

And guess what? I can’t even blame law enforcement for what’s happening. After all, their funding keeps getting cut and the level of scrutiny police officers face nowadays in certain sell-out states of the Union, recruiting has suffered dramatically.

It’s a disgrace, but a trend we must get used to until this country’s leadership changes for the better.

Under the best of circumstances, “To Protect and Serve” is a nice slogan.

Unfortunately, it’s only as reassuring as the resources available for law enforcement to actually do it, which is inadequate to keep us as safe as we’d like to be on the best of days.

Furthermore, the police are under no legal obligation to keep us safe or save us. It’s a job description and an expectation we have. Nothing more.

So no matter how much you’d like to think that you are safe, be it because you live in a gated community, in a good part of town, or a city with great crime rating, blah, blah, blah, the perception of safety isn’t the reality.

Criminals plan their crimes, scout their prey, decide the time and place, and come prepared with tools of the trade.

As law abiding citizens, we can only react to an attack that is already in progress. The police will not just show up out of nowhere to respond and save us. And even if they did, it doesn’t guarantee they’ll themselves prevail and keep themselves safe. That window of time when all hell breaks loose, is on you.

Hopefully being able to escape unharmed without using any force, will be possible. Hopefully throwing a can of beans and knocking out the bad guy works, or maybe pretending to be a mannequin in a store window will make them walk right past you. But if none of these strategies work and you are face to face with someone hell bent on getting what they want, I hope you have more to fight with than begging for your life.

And if we don’t have the tools and training to fight back on an equal playing field, until the cavalry comes to the rescue, if they do, don’t be surprised at the outcome. To be blunt? You have only yourself to blame.

Many victims of violent crime lived with the perception they were safe until reality proved otherwise. They watched others on TV become victims, shook their heads in sympathy, and moved on.

They may have thought or wanted to believe it will never happen to them, and that the police will handle it if it does. Well, Pittsburgh is just another example of how that is no longer a foregone conclusion.

So, whether you like guns or not, having one or two and being well trained is just another safeguard that changes the odds dramatically in your favor in the event that your perception of being safe gets a rude awakening by reality.