{"id":8300,"date":"2024-04-08T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-04-08T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/?p=8300"},"modified":"2024-04-08T13:32:05","modified_gmt":"2024-04-08T17:32:05","slug":"is-pittsburgh-the-canary-in-the-mineshaft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/is-pittsburgh-the-canary-in-the-mineshaft\/","title":{"rendered":"IS PITTSBURGH THE CANARY IN THE MINESHAFT?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Pittsburgh, PA is a city of some 300,000 people. They used to have a damn good police department with enough officers to stay on top of crime.&nbsp;&nbsp;My old friend and fellow instructor John Farnam recently called our attention to the situation there now. You can read about it <a href=\"https:\/\/voz.us\/pittsburgh-police-reduce-the-number-of-active-officers-in-the-early-morning\/?lang=en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yes, there is crime in Pittsburgh. Thirty-some years ago, I arrived there to give a lecture for the Center for Advancement of Applied Ethics at Carnegie-Mellon University. I wound up in a very nice hotel which, strangely, did not have the customary double lock on the door. In the wee hours of the morning, I was awakened by the sound of a key going into my door and the door opening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By the time the feral-faced white dude got through the door, I already had my SIG-Sauer P220 .45 pointed at him, my finger on the trigger because there wasn\u2019t much space between us and he was moving toward me. The expression on his face turned to horror, and he backed up and slammed the door behind him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I called the desk. They sent up their security guy. Interesting that a good hotel would need one working 24\/7. When I told him what happened he went white-faced and said \u201cThank God it was&nbsp;<em>your&nbsp;<\/em>room, Captain!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They never caught him to my knowledge, nor found out how he got a key. Mine had been the first room to the right off the elevator. If it had been occupied by someone unarmed and helpless\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Pittsburgh is now getting an extra-strong taste of what\u2019s happening around the country. Anti-police politicians, prosecutors, and media outlets have told young people who would have been good cops that they don\u2019t want to become the Gestapo, and veteran cops are leaving the profession in droves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At least in Pennsylvania people can readily get concealed carry permits, and visitors who go through the hoops can get non-resident permits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When there aren\u2019t enough police to protect everyone \u2013 which there aren\u2019t,&nbsp;<em>anywhere&nbsp;<\/em>\u2013 it is imperative that law-abiding citizens be able to protect themselves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pittsburgh, PA is a city of some 300,000 people. They used to have a damn good police department with enough officers to stay on top of crime.&nbsp;&nbsp;My old friend and fellow instructor John Farnam recently called our attention to the situation there now. You can read about it here. Yes, there is crime in Pittsburgh. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":8313,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-8300","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8300"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8300\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8314,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8300\/revisions\/8314"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}