Fairfax County, Virginia, an elite, left-wing enclave right outside Washington, DC, is dealing with a crime surge, and now police officers will be shooting beanbags instead of shotgun shells.
According to Wikipedia, Fairfax County “has the third-highest median household income of any county-level local jurisdiction in the U.S.” and went nearly 70 percent for His Fraudulency Joe Biden in 2020. In other words, this is a county run by Democrats without serious opposition from Republicans.
The result? Between 2021 and 2022, crimes against persons increased by ten percent, and crimes against property jumped by 19 percent.
More from an article published just a few months ago:
“Our police department has had to eliminate many of its specialty units (neighborhood policing, speed enforcement teams, etc.) in order to staff patrol positions due to the staffing crisis that the Board [of Supervisors] has been slow to address despite my continued advocacy,” said Herrity. However, FCPD contends that “despite staffing challenges in law enforcement agencies across the country, the FCPD remains dedicated to keeping our county one of the safest jurisdictions of its size. As of Feb. 9, we have an authorized strength of 1,492 police officers and 186 vacancies. Last fall, our department moved to two 12.5-hour shifts and increased our minimum staffing levels. Patrol areas have not been consolidated and remain the same as they have been.”
And now those understaffed, overworked police officers facing a serious crime surge will be shooting beanbag guns instead of shotgun-shotguns:
The department took 800 shotguns out of its circulation and put 630 beanbag shotguns into use.
“This new solution provides officers with an additional option they can use when faced with less-lethal use situations,” police said in a release on Wednesday.
Not The Bee immediately picked up on the Orwellian lie and spin found in that last paragraph. When you remove a shotgun-shotgun and replace it with a beanbag shotgun, you are not providing an “additional option.” Instead, you are removing one option and replacing it with a less serious one. Additionally, removing 800 shotgun-shotguns and replacing them with only 630 beanbag shotguns means there will now be 170 fewer options of any kind on the street.
From the same article:
All patrol officers were required to undergo training on how to use the less-lethal guns, and they were taught the appropriate areas to target to minimize major injuries[.]
Man alive.
The beanbag shotguns are orange. They look like toy guns. They aren’t. Beanbag guns hurt like hell. But what are criminals going to do when a police officer pulls what looks like a toy gun?
What’s more, how will criminals react knowing the local police no longer carry shotgun-shotguns and are being trained now to minimize serious injuries when shooting?
Obviously, this will only embolden criminals and make them more aggressive both in their criminal pursuits and their dealings with police officers.
What are you gonna do, pig? Give me a welt?
This is just a guess, but logic tells me soft-on-crime policies are good for America. Why? Well, think about it… Criminals might not be college educated, but they are shrewd. Like illegal aliens and the homeless, criminals probably migrate to cities and counties where they feel the most safe and comfortable. The Democrat party’s affection for violent criminals must work as a magnet to attract those violent criminals, so criminals likely migrate from the red counties where everyone owns a gun and law enforcement doesn’t coddle to blue counties where they can literally get away with murder.
I’m all for this.
The Democrat voters in Fairfax County should get what they vote for; they should get it and then some…