Under The Radar

The Ultimate Answer to Kings said he hadn’t heard about this.  Me either.

That guy who got busted in New York earlier in the month for the heinous crime of carrying two too many rounds of ammo? The DA quietly but promptly dropped the charges. And his reasoning in doing so was quite, er, reasonable. For a DA.

“Ignorance of the law is no excuse under the law and this is still a crime but this guy has absolutely no criminal history and is not a danger to society,” Czajka said Friday.

Of course he also tried to steer clear of the political ramifications, using the case to pimp for more money for his department. Presumably if Czajka had the massive army of prosecutors he wants, Gregory Dean would suddenly have found himself declared a terrible danger to society. But hey! Whatever works. It was still a good decision.

Last time I checked, ignorance of the law IS an excuse (or at least a mitigating factor) in the Free State of Arizona.  Of course, having two more rounds of ammunition than the average bear isn’t a crime, here.

h/t Joel

Meanwhile, in Yuma…

AZ: Teen Fatally Shot in Possible Home Invasion Identified

Authorities have identified 19-year-old Matthew Sykora of Yuma as the teen who came across an armed homeowner in the middle of the night during a possible home invasion.Yuma County Sheriff’s deputies arrived to the home in the area of S. Avenue D and County 14th at 1:22 a.m. to find the Yuma teen dead from a single gunshot wound.Sheriff deputies said the homeowner called 911 to report being woken up after hearing sounds in the home.

The homeowner has not been named.

Records show, this was not the teen’s first time in trouble with the law; in January of 2012, Sykora was charged with felony counts of theft and fraudulent schemes.

Bizzaro Mayberry

Back when I had my own PI business (the eighties) I’d some interesting cases.  Some boring ones, too.  Most PI work is tedium, research, windshield time, shoe leather.  Sometimes not.  Sometimes it’s like a made-for-TV movie…

One day I get a call from Lewis.  My lawyer, friend, fellow gunnie and sometime client.

It seemed he had clients, a married couple, who had retired to ******** (a small town in S.E. Arizona, East of Tucson).  It hides just off the Interstate, and is essentially a large highway rest-stop.  Cheap motels, diners, no industry to speak of.  Farming and ranching nearby.

Anyway, his clients retired there from Chicago, with funds, and the intent of opening a new truck stop.  But, this is a tiny town, and there was already another truck stop in operation.

And the harassment began…

Vandalism of tractors and trailers using their facility, customers being threatened, the adjacent cafe being boycotted and other criminal mischief.  The local constabulary involved in drug dealing and prostitution in the truck stop parking lot.  All designed to get negative attention of the County Sheriff.

Into this Bizzaro Mayberry I was thrown.  Well, hired by my attorney to investigate the allegations made by his clients. And frankly, it scared me.  There was no CCW law at the time, and I worked alone – no partner, no backup, and with possible law enforcement collusion, I didn’t know whom to trust.  I envisioned looking behind the wrong door or asking the wrong question unwillingly populating the desert with a bullet in my head!

So, I went to Johnny @ John’s Uniforms, and discussed ‘borrowing’ a bullet-proof vest for my trip.  (There was no way I could afford to buy one!)  I ended up choosing not to get one, but it was nice Johnny did make one available.  And I made arrangements with my attorney to call me at noon the next day to make certain I’d arrived and survived the first night.  (no cell phones, yet!)

I spent a couple days tracking down witnesses, interviewing them, and checking records at the County courthouse in the nearby County Seat.  And constantly checking my six.  And not sleeping much.  And my 1911 was my constant companion.

The result?  Nothing.  While I did get some corroborative statements from some of the witnesses, some simply refused to speak or were non-committal.  And I could develop no hard evidence of the alleged harassment.  And the Sheriff and local police were of no help.  Quelle surprise.

But, the big surprise was yet to come.  Some months after the case fizzled, Lew called me about another case.  It seemed his clients had disappeared!  Of course, he’d not been stupid, and had previously obtained a handsome retainer out of which he and I were paid for our services.  But I was never able to re-locate them.

There were rumors they had been mob connected, and had crossed them and skipped town.  Or went into witness protection.  But, nothing I could confirm.

Perhaps it was they who unwillingly now populate the desert?

Too bad there was no Andy Taylor in Bizzaro Mayberry.

Land of The Free?

Walls of the City  reminds us (by way of Sharp As A Marble) that while we continue to speak of ourselves as the Land of the Free, we certainly are no longer:

30 years ago, you’d just assume that anything that wasn’t obviously contrary to morality was legal. That is, you’d have a built-in default setting of assuming liberty. And that assumption of liberty would then propel you to take actions.

But now, you have to assume that many things that aren’t contrary to morality are illegal anyway. And so you now have — quel coincidence! — a built-in default setting of assuming prohibition. And that assumption that many of the things you’d like to do are illegal and criminal thereby reduces your desire to take any action at all.

Can you name all of the crimes in your state that are felonies? Can you name all of the crimes in your state that are misdemeanors? Have you ever uttered the words, “Is that legal?” without actually being able to intuitively guess whether it is or not?

Welcome to the club. And the problem.

You should go and read the whole thing.  It’s well worth your time, and even has some Latin words in it!

The Country for whom I would have probably died (in Vietnam – had I not been a disabled 4-F) no longer exists.  She does on paper (The Constitution), but that was long ago, and like Benghazi, is no longer relevant.

Did you know The United States has more prisoners per capita than any other Nation?  How many of these folks zigged when they should have zagged?  Or were caught with weed.  Or carrying a gun for protection?

Lets stop electing people to legislatures to pass more incomprehensible laws.  Lets elect them to remove laws.  And hold those accountable who messed everything up.  THEY are the people who should be afraid. And incarcerated!

Not exactly a glimmer…

…but all is not, yet, lost…

Judge rules secret FBI letters unconstitutional

 SAN FRANCISCO — They’re called national security letters and the FBI issues thousands of them a year to banks, phone companies and other businesses demanding customer information. They’re sent without judicial review and recipients are barred from disclosing them.

On Friday, a federal judge in San Francisco declared the letters unconstitutional, saying the secretive demands for customer data violate the First Amendment.

The government has failed to show that the letters and the blanket non-disclosure policy “serve the compelling need of national security,” and the gag order creates “too large a danger that speech is being unnecessarily restricted,” U.S. District Judge Susan Illston wrote.

She ordered the FBI to stop issuing the letters, but put that order on hold for 90 days so the U.S. Department of Justice can pursue an appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The DOJ said it is reviewing the decision.

FBI counter-terrorism agents began issuing the letters after Congress passed the USA Patriot Act in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

More at the above link.  Apparently, not everyone in government supports the push toward totalitarianism.

Funny how the congress keeps passing more legislation ‘to protect us’, and instead constrains us.

The Life and Times of Deputy U.S. Marshal Bass Reeves

Miss Cellania brings us the little-known tale of a man born a slave, who became a prodigious lawman:  Bass Reeves.

The ‘history’ we are spoon-fed doesn’t always jibe with the truth.  This guy was the real deal and escaping slavery and fathering 10 children wasn’t the half of it!

Over his 32-year career as a Deputy U.S. Marshal, Bass Reeves arrested 3,000 felons, killed 14 men, and was never shot himself. His reputation for persistence, his total fearlessness, his skills with a gun, and his ability to outsmart outlaws struck terror into lawbreakers in what we now call Oklahoma. Although other colorful characters made their way into our pop culture, Bass was the real badass of the Old West

The marshal was famous for fair-mindedness and was impossible to bribe or corrupt. In 1902 he arrested his own son, Benny, for murdering his wife (Reeves’ daughter-in-law). Benny had fled to the badlands after the crime, and no other marshal was willing to pursue him. As distasteful as the task was, Reeves brought him back, and Benny served twenty years at Leavenworth.

You should visit the link and read his whole story.

Mr. President…

We’ve secretly replaced the verbiage of the unconstitutional executive orders you’ve issued against the Second Amendment as though they were for the First Amendment.  Because all of the Bill of Rights amendments have equal status, per Supreme Court decree…(as corrected)

List of executive actions Obama plans to take as part of gun hate speech violence censorship plan

The Triumvirate On Gun Control

There has been much gnashing of teeth in the past few days over the most recent school shooting.  Surely, the fact that I must use the term ‘most recent’ gives one pause.  Or the term ‘school shooting’ that doesn’t involve marksmanship practice.

And the Internet is all abuzz with sorrowful pleas for ‘they’ to do ‘something’.  I believe it’s human nature in that we all feel so helpless when such things occur.  We want ‘something’ to be done.

The President himself just released his proposals, including another assault weapons ban, a magazine capacity ban and restrictions on private sales of firearms.  (Of course, none of these measures would have stopped the homicidal, unbalanced criminal from the recent massacre of innocents.)

I’ve mentioned recent events a couple of times, and even wrote a couple yet unpublished posts, but many other bloggers have addressed the issues in a much more eloquent and informed manner than I.  If you’ve not seen these three recent postings, you should go to the links and read.  And think about what you have read.  And hope The Nation has enough wisdom to absorb these things, as well.  Links and excerpts below…

A Couple of Elephants by Old NFO

~The mental health community has morphed away from actually treating and committing people due to numerous lawsuits by, among others, the ACLU.  Also, due to ‘privacy’ concerns, many institutions will not report a person with mental health problems to NICS or even to local police.  You can go find articles that point out that the ONLY way to get someone committed is to have charges filed against someone.~

~A few school systems use School Resource Officers (SROs) who are either retired LEOs or are LEOs specifically hired to work in schools both for security. those SROs are armed, have full police powers and are directly connected to the local police departments via radio if they need assistance/backup.

Many were funded under programs from the Federal Government after Columbine…

However, those programs were de-funded by the current administration.~

Stop Teaching Our Kids To Kill by Dave Grossman, Lt. Col. USA (ret.) (via Maddened Fowl)

~Research on the background of our juvenile mass murderers show they have one thing in common:  they ALL dropped out of life and filled their lives with nothing but violent movies and violent video games.  The sickest video games and the sickest movies are very very sick indeed.  And the sick sick kids who immerse themselves in this “entertainment” are very sick indeed.

~And it is a world-wide phenomenon!  Germany has had two mass murders in their high schools with body counts that beat Columbine.  England had a massacre in the kindergarten class in Dunblain Scotland, tragically forecasting Sandy Hook.  Canada had the Taber, Alberta school massacre.  Finland has had three school massacres.  In Norway the killer got on an island and killed all their kids.  In China killers are going in the classrooms with knives and gutting and hacking the kids.  In Belgium a sicko got in the day care center and hacked 12 babies in the cribs, dressed as the Joker from the Batman movie.  (All those European gun laws made THEM real safe, eh?)

And we though it wouldn’t happen here!?

And you think its over now?  The worst is yet to come.  We will reap what we sow for a generation to come…. Until we stop teaching our kids to kill.~

Feeling Good by A Girl and Her Gun

~My extra bag of rice, my gun, my ammo, my kerosene heater are of real value to my survival. I used no government funds to purchase those items. In fact the purchase of those items only helped contribute positively to a failing economy. I have never harmed a single person. I am of no threat to you. Your desire to label me crazy and limit my rights will only serve to put me at more risk and it has ZERO chance of doing anything for you other than to make you feel good.

Please forgive me, but your facade of happiness just isn’t worth my life. I won’t hand it over without a fight.~

The mental health crisis/real school security, video games as parenting, and the desire to absolve our guilt – to feel better – all need to be addressed and solved, lest these behaviors continue.  And lest our rights be taken away for no good reason.

PS - Bobbi punctuates EVERYTHING with common sense!

~Know the facts.  Know the “official facts” even if you choose to doubt them — and get expert advice.  The “rifle found in a car” was contentious issue here at Roseholme Cottage, until Tam found video of it being removed: it’s a scary, black…pump-action shotgun! She was pretty sure of make and model from the low-rez image, thanks to her years shooting and working at gun stores. (Remember, the media talking heads reporting this stuff know a lot less about guns than you do — and they’re being briefed by police who are used to dumbing things down for them.)~

~Know your audience.  In my blog, I can talk about the deterrent effect of removing legal barriers to teachers and school employees being armed if they chose to be (and qualify for whatever carry permit their state offers!).  In the lunchroom at work, not so much.  Don’t be That Guy; we can’t afford it just now.~

OKAY, that’s really four, not three!  Regardless, take a few minutes and read each of these wise bloggers’ entire posts.  I’d say doing so is for the children, but that would just be pandering.  It’s for ALL OF US!

Newtown, Connecticut

THIS JUST IN

Connecticut school shooting: 20 children among 28 dead

It’s being reported by multiple sources that one shooter is dead, a second remains at large.

Please keep the innocent souls in this horrible event in your thoughts and prayers.

Of course, even with few facts, the usual folks are clamoring for more gun control – as if criminals obey all the current laws.

Dog and Pony Show

Today is sentencing day for Jared Loughner.  He’s the young man who plead guilty to shooting 6 people dead, and wounding 12 others, including U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ).

The 24-year-old had pleaded guilty three months ago to 19 federal charges under an agreement that guarantees he will spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Today, many of his victims will face their attacker and make victim statements.  Rep. Giffords is expected to have her husband read hers.

Now, please understand.  The man has already plead guilty.  This is just sentencing.  Of course, I know if someone shot me, I’d like to face them in court.

But, it’s mostly for show.  I expect the media to be there. (snark)

This means one of the other issues has again surfaced.  Mental disease and the right of gun ownership.  It’s expected that the current administration will soon make some-kind of appeal to change current firearms law to somehow invade medical privacy to make certain whacky folk can’t get their hands on a firearm.  Legally.  Of course, nothing would prevent them from using knives or bombs.  Or stealing one.  Or a dozen.  And we all know how efficient such a system will be.  Like the one that put Ted Kennedy on the No-Fly List.

And, you can bet there will be attempts to make seeking counseling or other mild mental health assistance to make it’s way to the governmental no-guns-allowed list.

Yeah, I’m certain it’ll work well to protect us all.  Just look how safe New York and Chicago are from gun-related crime.  (snark)