On-Topic-ish: The analogy of a car vs. a gun is very appropriate. Off-Topick: What is not appropriate is a cop telling me that my civic duty is to be defined by a cop. A cop should never throw stones when he resides in a glass house.
Driving is a privilege . RKBA is a right. The distinctions are immense. Anybody who thinks the state doesn't have immense interest in regulating the single most dangerous activity the average person engages in, and that injures or kills scores of thousands of people every year, doesn't understand the difference between libertarianism and libertinism
As for your opinion. Groovy. My opinion differs. First of all, whether it's a cop or not a cop is irrelevant. I am a concerned citizen before I am a cop. And my opinion as to what your civic duty is, is just that, my opinion. It would be no different if I was a stockbroker. Imo, if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. Imo, if you are not kind and polite to people, you are in the wrong. Imo, if you know that your local PD is doing stuff wrong, and you make zero effort to effect change, you are shirking your civic duty. Imo, if you aren't keeping an eye out for your neighbors, you are shirking your civic duty.
Imo, if you are just going to sit in your basement, eating hot pockets while your mama brings you lemonade, but aren't doing your civic duty, you got nobody but yourself to blame if your pd sucks.
I've seen the good that people who do their civic duty can do. Heck, today is national night out! and I'll be meeting with block watch people and other concerned citizens who have gone way beyond their civic duty to make their communities safer and to help fight crime. Bully for them
Imo, it's anybody's prerogative, cop, stockbroker, or fisherman to give his opinion on what people's civic duty is. And it's anybody else's opinion to agree or disagree.