TMR: Gov. Perry Loses Concealed Carry Rights, Cops Cleared For Homicide 400 Times Per Year, and Teen Arrested for Shooting a Dinosaur..In A Story
It's Thursday! Which is almost Friday! But more importantly, it means you get another edition of The Morning Roar!Texas Governor Rick Perry Loses Right to Concealed Carry and Purchase AmmoThis past weekend Texas Governor Rick Perry - our old friend from our days of live tweeting every GOP debate in 2012 - was indicted on charges that he abused his official capacity as governor and of coercion of a public servant. I don't intend to dwell on the charges themselves. Rick Perry may be corrupt, but it's hard to imagine he's much more corrupt than your average "public servant", and considering the overall coercive nature of our present governmental system, it seems odd to focus on the specific actions of one governor. Even Ron Paul - a frequent critic of Perry and government corruption in general - has called the indictment "a joke" and believes it to be politically motivated.Austin Statesman at Rare points out that the indictment does have some immediate consequences for the Texas Governor - before he is even able to launch a defense. In accordance with Federal law, Perry will legally lose his concealed carry license as well as his right to purchase ammunition. Statesman explains:
It’s right there in federal law, specifically the federal law known as 18 USC 922(n), and I quote:“It shall be unlawful for any person to sell or otherwise dispose of any firearm or ammunition to any person knowing or having reasonable cause to believe that such person (1) is under indictment for, or has been convicted in any court of a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year.”Thanks to last week’s indictment, your fun-with-guns governor is now in that category.For those of you who’ve been sleeping since it happened Friday, Travis County grand jurors indicted Perry on charges of abuse of official capacity and coercion of a public servant. The first count carries a possible prison term of five to 99 years. The second, two to 10. I’m no expert on law or math, but I believe those potential sentences each exceed one year.And there’s more. As an indictee, Perry’s state-issued Concealed Handgun License, assuming he still has one — his office didn’t know as of Tuesday afternoon — will be suspended until the case against him is decided.
Undoubtedly many of Perry's opponents on the left will be squealing in delight at the news that the gun-loving Texan will lose at least a portion of his gun rights, but this should be disturbing to those concerned with individual rights. Effectively, federal law is requiring that one who has been indicted, but has not been found guilty yet, can be punished with infringement upon his 2nd amendment rights even before he has stood trial. This is in complete disregard to the principles of due process.Particularly troubling is that the crimes which Perry is charged with are administrative in nature - the counts upon which he is being charged are illegal solely due to his position as Governor of Texas - and are in no way violent in nature.Luckily for Rick Perry, he has a full security detail courtesy of Texas taxpayers, but what if he were an ordinary citizen facing an indictment of some kind? The federal government would deny a citizen the right acquire the means to defend himself for as long as it may take to see through his defense.Rick Perry might not be the poster child for sympathy in this case, but it does serve to highlight a very serious problem with federal law as it relates to those facing indictments.Police Cleared For Justifiable Homicide Over 400 Times Per YearWith all eyes on Ferguson, MO as the facts over the shooting of Michael Brown are very much in dispute, the Washington Times has looked into just how often police are cleared for cases of "justifiable homicide" - meaning that the officer committed a homicide in accordance with his line of duty. According to the report:
More than 400 fatal police killings a year are sanctioned by local, state and federal authorities as justified homicides, but the FBI doesn’t specifically track how many times officers are prosecuted for improperly causing a person’s death.The FBI said Tuesday that it doesn’t keep statistics on specific prosecutions of law enforcement officers because it doesn’t track crimes by profession, though it does track justified homicide rulings.In 2012, the last year available for full statistics, law enforcement ruled a total of 410 deaths as justified homicides, the FBI said. The annual number has been steady for much of the past few decades, officials said.
It's certainly possible that many of these deaths were indeed justified in the context of the officers' performance of their duties. The problem here is that so many of the "duties" of police officers under our present day system include violating the basic rights of individuals. The War on Drugs alone gives officers all of the incentive needed to routinely initiate encounters that become violent.How many of these "justifiable" deaths could have been avoided had the duties of police officers been confined to the defense of individual rights?We may never know, since these deaths were not cleared via a trial such as you and I would receive if we had caused the death of another human being. Rather, police officers often receive the dreaded "internal investigation", and no formal charges are ever filed once they have been cleared.Even when brought to public trial, police officers are often cleared by juries despite overwhelming evidence against them, as in the Kelly Thomas case.At the end of the day, the actions of police are sanctioned en masse by the population who supports the rights-infringing laws which they are tasked with enforcing. Until that changes, we can expect many more police homicides to be swept under the rug and classified as "justified".Teenager Arrested for Shooting a Dinosaur...In A Story He WroteIt seems that children and teenagers are increasingly being suspended and even arrested for completely harmless and normal acts in America's schools. Early last year we reported on a 5 year old girl who was suspended and forced to undergo a psychiatric evaluation due to possessing a child's "bubble gun." Earlier this year, a 10-year-old boy was arrested for merely pointing his finger like a gun.It seems our nation's schools are in competition with each other, as the latest incident is so absurd I had to double check to be sure I wasn't reading The Onion. But, sho' nuff, the above headline is sadly legitimate. NBC-12 reports:
A 16-year-old Summerville High School student says he was arrested Tuesday morning and suspended after writing about killing a dinosaur using a gun.Alex Stone said he and his classmates were told in class to write a few sentences about themselves, and a "status" as if it was a Facebook page.Stone said in his "status" he wrote a fictional story that involved the words "gun" and "take care of business.""I killed my neighbor's pet dinosaur, and, then, in the next status I said I bought the gun to take care of the business," Stone said.Stone says his statements were taken completely out of context."I could understand if they made him re-write it because he did have "gun" in it. But a pet dinosaur?" said Alex's mother Karen Gray."I mean first of all, we don't have dinosaurs anymore. Second of all, he's not even old enough to buy a gun."Investigators say the teacher contacted school officials after seeing the message containing the words "gun" and "take care of business," and police were then notified on Tuesday.
As I discussed with defense attorney Dale Carson in a recent Lions of Liberty Podcast, once you are arrested you are essentially "in the system", and an arrest - even if charges are later dropped or a suspect is found not guilty - can negatively impact one's life going forward. With this knowledge, would it kill our public officials to use the slightest amount of due diligence before needlessly arresting children for doing children-esque things?The full story from NBC-12.NBC12.com - Richmond, VA NewsRead The Morning Roar every weekday Monday-Friday!The Lions of Liberty are on Twitter, Facebook & Google+Receive access to ALL of our EXCLUSIVE bonus audio content – including “Conspiracy Corner”, “Degenerate Gamblers” and the “League of Liberty Podcast” by joining the Lions of Liberty Pride and supporting us on Patreon!
