We can’t afford a thinner blue line

Each passing day brings more calls to “defund,” “reform,” “reimagine” and even “abolish” the police. The enforcers of such demands are violent rioters who accuse law enforcement officers of “systemic racism” in instances where lethal force was employed in interactions with minority individuals.

We’re told Congress, not the communities affected, should set  standards for policing. Certain laws should no longer be enforced. Social workers, rather than police, should respond to some emergencies. Officers in the line of fire must lose  limited immunity. And all police must submit to training that accuses whites of endemic racism.

Such initiatives probably won’t eliminate the “thin blue line.” But they will make it a lot thinner, less effective and transform our police into politicized enforcers of selective justice, not equal justice under the law.

That’s a formula for homeland insecurity, not the United States of America.

This is Frank Gaffney.