In other news, out-of-jurisdiction, off-duty cops were allowed to bring their guns into Turner Field before now:
The Atlanta Braves will no longer allow some off-duty police officers to carry guns at Turner Field, which has prompted objections. Under the team’s new policy, off-duty officers from jurisdictions that don’t include Turner Field will no longer be allowed to bring firearms into the stadium.
Tyrone Police Chief Brandon Perkins tells WSB-TV that the policy change will make the ball games less safe, adding that “armed good guys stop armed bad guys.”
If you’re an off-duty cop from Atlanta or the Fulton County Sheriffs Department, you can still bring your weapon. It’s only the guys from out of town, who are not even in a jurisdiction in which they can reasonably be expected to be called into action, who can’t bring them in anymore.
Beginning in 2015 all major league ballparks will have metal detectors. Every park has security and police present on-site. Reggie Jackson has long been retired. To my knowledge, there has never been an incident in which a fan was required to use a firearm to protect other fans from violence or crime inside a stadium (if I’m wrong about that, please let me know).
The upshot: relying on a police officer who has traveled from wherever he lives for a night of leisure at the ballpark to spring into action may not be quite the pressing issue Chief Perkins makes it out to be. But I’m sure some of you will tell me how I’m wrong about that.
*Note: the pic is Glen Ford shooting the psycho on the field in Candlestick Park in the awesome movie “Experiment in Terror.” Ford played a San Francisco cop, so he was still in his bailiwick.
