Broad LCS Auxiliary Policy Regarding the Bearing of Arms

The official policy of the LCS Auxiliary regarding armed citizenry is three-fold:

1. It is our goal to encourage and facilitate the lawful bearing of or ready access to arms by trained individuals who are well-dispersed in the population. This policy flows directly from our mission to improve citizen response to emergencies and from citizen ownership of both civil defense and law enforcement. The word trained must take into account not just the mechanical skills but also the legal and ethical knowledge to understand when the use of violence is lawful, justified, and effective but should not imply a specific required training curriculum, training source, or narrow religious doctrine.
2. We are required under our oaths of service to uphold the fundamental rights of citizens, including the Right To Keep and Bear Arms (RTKBA) as protected by the 2nd Amendment and Missouri Article I Section 23[2].
3. Enforcement of laws prohibiting possession of firearms through legitimate due process (e.g. violent felons and adjudicated insane) is a legitimate purview of government, a common law and statutory responsibility of our served agency, the Lawrence County Sheriff's Office.

None of these policies is negotiable under our defined structure and purpose. Any public policies we support must be consistent with all of them. Within the constraints of these basic principles, there is still wide room for debate on the precise civil policies for supporting lawful bearing of arms.