But a firearm? Is there anything that is MORE likely than possibly alcohol or drug use which would make it EASIER, a temptation, to reoffend and to harm others. Who do we have to blame for this insanity? Who else - the NRA and gun nuts!
No wonder states fail to comply with the gun check data base; they've been corrupted by the NRA; they plan to give these felons their guns back, due to single issue fanatics, due to the effective lobbying of gun manufacturers. The safety and security of the rest of us who live in a lawful society be damned, so long as they make their blood money profits.
This section, from page 3 (of 5) particularly caught my attention, both because it addresses the irresponsible and outrageous efforts of the NRA specifically, but also because this is a former Minnesota senator. He was very much a conservative who represented MY home state, serving from 1978 until 1995, to give this a better historic context for how LONG the NRA has been the irresponsible marketing arm of gun manufacturers, how long they have NOT been advocates for 'responsible gun ownership'.
When Senator David F. Durenberger, a Minnesota Republican, realized after the law passed that thousands of felons, including those convicted of violent crimes, in his state would suddenly be getting their gun rights back, he sought the N.R.A.’s help in rolling back the provision. Doug Kelley, his chief of staff at the time, thought the group would “surely want to close this loophole.”
But the senator, Mr. Kelley recalled, “ran into a stone wall,” as the N.R.A. threatened to pull its support for him if he did not drop the matter, which he eventually did.
“The N.R.A. slammed the door on us,” Mr. Kelley said. “That absolutely baffled me.”
Until then, the avenues for restoration had been narrow and few: a direct appeal to the federal firearms agency, which conducted detailed background investigations; a state pardon expressly authorizing gun possession, or a presidential pardon. Felons convicted of crimes involving guns or other weapons, as well as those convicted of violating federal gun laws, were expressly barred from applying to the federal firearms agency.
From the NYTimes:
Restoring Gun Rights to Felons: Every year, thousands of felons across the country have their gun rights reinstated, often with little or no review. (my emphasis added - DG)
By MICHAEL LUO
Published: November 13, 2011
In February 2005, Erik Zettergren came home from a party after midnight with his girlfriend and another couple. They had all been drinking heavily, and soon the other man and Mr. Zettergren’s girlfriend passed out on his bed. When Mr. Zettergren went to check on them later, he found his girlfriend naked from the waist down and the other man, Jason Robinson, with his pants around his ankles.
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Some With Histories of Mental Illness Petition to Get Their Gun Rights Back (July 3, 2011)
Times Topic: Gun Control
Geoff Crimmins/Moscow-Pullman Daily News, via Associated Press
Erik Zettergren killed a man soon after regaining gun rights.
It was the first homicide in more than 30 years in the small town of Endicott, in eastern Washington. But for a judge’s ruling two months before, it would probably never have happened.
For years, Mr. Zettergren had been barred from possessing firearms because of two felony convictions. He had a history of mental health problems and friends said he was dangerous. Yet Mr. Zettergren’s gun rights were restored without even a hearing, under a state law that gave the judge no leeway to deny the application as long as certain basic requirements had been met. Mr. Zettergren, then 36, wasted no time retrieving several guns he had given to a friend for safekeeping.
“If he hadn’t had his rights restored, in this particular instance, it probably would have saved the life of the other person,” said Denis Tracy, the prosecutor in Whitman County, who handled the murder case.
Under federal law, people with felony convictions forfeit their right to bear arms. Yet every year, thousands of felons across the country have those rights reinstated, often with little or no review. In several states, they include people convicted of violent crimes, including first-degree murder and manslaughter, an examination by The New York Times has found.
While previously a small number of felons were able to reclaim their gun rights, the process became commonplace in many states in the late 1980s, after Congress started allowing state laws to dictate these reinstatements — part of an overhaul of federal gun laws orchestrated by the National Rifle Association. The restoration movement has gathered force in recent years, as gun rights advocates have sought to capitalize on the 2008 Supreme Court ruling that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to bear arms.
This gradual pulling back of what many Americans have unquestioningly assumed was a blanket prohibition has drawn relatively little public notice. Indeed, state law enforcement agencies have scant information, if any, on which felons are getting their gun rights back, let alone how many have gone on to commit new crimes.
While many states continue to make it very difficult for felons to get their gun rights back — and federal felons are out of luck without a presidential pardon — many other jurisdictions are far more lenient, The Times found. In some, restoration is automatic for nonviolent felons as soon as they complete their sentences. In others, the decision is left up to judges, but the standards are generally vague, the process often perfunctory. In some states, even violent felons face a relatively low bar, with no waiting period before they can apply.
The Times examined hundreds of restoration cases in several states, among them Minnesota, where William James Holisky II, who had a history of stalking and terrorizing women, got his gun rights back last year, just six months after completing a three-year prison sentence for firing a shotgun into the house of a woman who had broken up with him after a handful of dates. She and her son were inside at the time of the shooting.
“My whole family’s convinced that at some point he’ll blow a gasket and that he’ll come and shoot someone,” said Vicky Holisky-Crets, Mr. Holisky’s sister.
Also last year, a judge in Cleveland restored gun rights to Charles C. Hairston, who had been convicted of first-degree murder in North Carolina in 1971 for shooting a grocery store owner in the head with a shotgun. He also had another felony conviction, in 1995, for corruption of a minor.
Margaret C. Love, a pardon lawyer based in Washington, D.C., who has researched gun rights restoration laws, estimated that, depending on the type of crime, in more than half the states felons have a reasonable chance of getting back their gun rights.
That universe could well expand, as pro-gun groups shed a historical reluctance to advocate publicly for gun rights for felons. Lawyers litigating Second Amendment issues are also starting to challenge the more restrictive restoration laws. Pro-gun groups have pressed the issue in the last few years in states as diverse as Alaska, Ohio, Oregon and Tennessee.
Ohio’s Legislature confronted the matter when it passed a law this year fixing a technicality that threatened to invalidate the state’s restorations.
Ken Hanson, legislative chairman of the Buckeye Firearms Coalition, argued that felons should be able to reclaim their gun rights just as they can other civil rights.
“If it’s a constitutional right, you treat it with equal dignity with other rights,” he said.
But Toby Hoover, executive director of the Ohio Coalition Against Gun Violence, contended that the public was safer without guns in the hands of people who have committed serious crimes.
“It seems that Ohio legislators have plenty of problems to solve that should be a much higher priority than making sure criminals have guns,” Ms. Hoover said in written testimony.
That question — whether the restorations pose a risk to public safety — has received little study, in part because data can be hard to come by.
The Times analyzed data from Washington State, where Mr. Zettergren had his gun rights restored. The most serious felons are barred, but otherwise judges have no discretion to reject the petitions, as long as the applicant fulfills certain criteria. (In 2003, a state appeals court panel stated that a petitioner “had no burden to show that he is safe to own or possess guns.”)
Whitman County Sheriff’s Office
A few months after Erik Zettergren of Washington got back his gun rights, he fatally shot a man and threw his body in a river.
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Some With Histories of Mental Illness Petition to Get Their Gun Rights Back (July 3, 2011)
Times Topic: Gun Control
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Even some felons who have regained their firearms rights say the process needs to be more rigorous.
“It’s kind of spooky, isn’t it?” said Beau Krueger, who has two assaults on his record and got his gun rights back last year in Minnesota after only a brief hearing, in which local prosecutors did not even participate. “We could have all kinds of crazy hoodlums out here with guns that shouldn’t have guns.”
Powerful Lobby Prevails
The federal firearms prohibition for felons dates to the late 1960s, when the assassinations of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Senator Robert F. Kennedy, along with rioting across the country, set off a clamor for stricter gun control laws. Congress enacted sweeping legislation that included a provision extending the firearms ban for convicted criminals beyond those who had committed “crimes of violence,” a standard adopted in the 1930s.
“All of our people who are deeply concerned about law and order should hail this day,” President Lyndon B. Johnson said upon signing the Gun Control Act in October 1968.
Even the N.R.A. backed the bill. But by the late 1970s, a more hard-line faction, committed to an expansive view of the Second Amendment, had taken control of the group. A crowning achievement was the Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986, which significantly loosened federal gun laws.
When it came to felons’ gun rights, the legislation essentially left the matter up to states. The federal gun restrictions would no longer apply if a state had restored a felon’s civil rights — to vote, sit on a jury and hold public office — and the individual faced no other firearms prohibitions.
The restoration issue drew relatively little notice in the Congressional battle over the bill. But officials of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms identified the provision in an internal memo as among their serious concerns. Some state law enforcement officials also sounded the alarm.
When Senator David F. Durenberger, a Minnesota Republican, realized after the law passed that thousands of felons, including those convicted of violent crimes, in his state would suddenly be getting their gun rights back, he sought the N.R.A.’s help in rolling back the provision. Doug Kelley, his chief of staff at the time, thought the group would “surely want to close this loophole.”
But the senator, Mr. Kelley recalled, “ran into a stone wall,” as the N.R.A. threatened to pull its support for him if he did not drop the matter, which he eventually did.
“The N.R.A. slammed the door on us,” Mr. Kelley said. “That absolutely baffled me.”
Until then, the avenues for restoration had been narrow and few: a direct appeal to the federal firearms agency, which conducted detailed background investigations; a state pardon expressly authorizing gun possession, or a presidential pardon. Felons convicted of crimes involving guns or other weapons, as well as those convicted of violating federal gun laws, were expressly barred from applying to the federal firearms agency.
By contrast, the restoration of civil rights, which is now central to regaining gun rights, is relatively routine, automatic in many states upon completion of a sentence. In some states, felons must also petition for a judicial order specifically restoring firearms rights. Other potential paths include a pardon from the governor or state clemency board or a “set aside”— essentially, an annulment — of the conviction.
Today, in at least 11 states, including Kansas, Ohio, Minnesota and Rhode Island, restoration of firearms rights is automatic, without any review at all, for many nonviolent felons, usually once they finish their sentences, or after a certain amount of time crime-free. Even violent felons may petition to have their firearms rights restored in states like Ohio, Minnesota and Virginia. Some states, including Georgia and Nebraska, award scores of pardons every year that specifically confer gun privileges.
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Some With Histories of Mental Illness Petition to Get Their Gun Rights Back (July 3, 2011)
Times Topic: Gun Control
Felons face steep odds, though, in states like California, where the governor’s office gives out only a handful of pardons every year, if that.
“It’s a long, drawn-out process,” said Steve Lindley, chief of the State Department of Justice’s firearms bureau. “They were convicted of a felony crime. There are penalties for that.”
Studies on the impact of gun restrictions largely support barring felons from possessing firearms.
One study, published in the American Journal of Public Health in 1999, found that denying handgun purchases to felons cut their risk of committing new gun or violent crimes by 20 to 30 percent. A year earlier, a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that handgun purchasers with at least one prior misdemeanor — not even a felony — were more than seven times as likely as those with no criminal history to be charged with new offenses over a 15-year period.
Criminologists studying recidivism have found that felons usually have to stay out of trouble for about a decade before their risk of committing a crime equals that of people with no records. According to Alfred Blumstein, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, for violent offenders, that period is 11 to 15 years; for drug offenders, 10 to 14 years; and for those who have committed property crimes, 8 to 11 years. An important caveat: Professor Blumstein did not look at what happens when felons are given guns.
The history of the federal firearms agency’s own restoration program, though, offers reason for caution. The program came under attack in the early 1990s, when the Violence Policy Center, a gun control group, discovered that dozens of felons granted restorations over a five-year period had been arrested again, including some on charges of attempted murder and sexual assault. (The center also found that many of those granted gun rights were felons convicted of violent or drug-related crimes.) In the resulting uproar and over the objections of the N.R.A., Congress killed the program.
A Superficial Process
In 2001, three police officers in the Columbia Heights suburb of Minneapolis were shot and wounded by a convicted murderer whose firearms rights had been restored automatically in 1987, 10 years after he completed a six-and-a-half year prison sentence and then probation for killing his estranged wife and a family friend with a shotgun. (The State Legislature had imposed the 10-year waiting period for violent felons after it discovered what Senator Durenberger had feared: that felons’ gun rights would be restored immediately under the Firearm Owners Protection Act.)
What happened in the wake of the shooting is emblematic of how the issue has played out in many states, particularly where the gun lobby is powerful.
Two Democratic legislators sought to impose a lifetime firearms ban on violent felons, although they concluded that for their bills to have any chance of passing, they would also have to set up a process that held out a hope of eventual restoration. They were unable, however, to get their bills through the Legislature.
The issue was taken up the following year by Republican lawmakers, but it became wrapped up in legislation to relax concealed-weapons laws. Initially, a moderate Republican introduced a bill with a 5- to 10-year waiting period for regaining gun rights, but the waiting period was scrapped entirely in the law, written by gun-rights advocates, that was finally enacted in 2003. That law, which does not even mandate that prosecutors be notified of the hearings, requires judges to grant the requests merely if the petitioners show “good cause.”
“The decision was, we have good judges and we trust them,” said Joseph Olson, who helped write the statute as president of the advocacy group Concealed Carry Reform Now.
One man who has benefited from a Minnesota judge’s gun rights ruling is William Holisky.
Mr. Holisky, an accountant who has struggled with bipolar disorder and alcoholism, had gone out only a few times with Karen Roman, a nurse he had met online, before she broke up with him.
In August 2006, Ms. Roman was getting ready to work a night shift, putting on makeup in the bathroom of her home in Duluth, when she heard a truck pulling up and a loud boom. Moments later, she heard another boom and glass breaking. She hit the floor, calling out to her teenage son in the other room to do the same as she crawled to the phone to dial 911.
The police arrested Mr. Holisky later that night for drunken driving. Several months later, they charged him in the shooting as well. He pleaded guilty to second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon.
(Page 4 of 5)
Around the same time, he also pleaded guilty to a felony charge of making terroristic threats against an elderly neighbor. The woman had reported to the police that someone — she suspected Mr. Holisky — had left her a threatening and obscene note. She had also reported a series of escalating incidents that included harassing telephone calls, his entering her apartment and someone’s smashing her bedroom window. Mr. Holisky also had a misdemeanor burglary conviction from 2003, for breaking into an ex-girlfriend’s house, as well as another misdemeanor conviction for violating an order of protection.Multimedia
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Some With Histories of Mental Illness Petition to Get Their Gun Rights Back (July 3, 2011)
Times Topic: Gun Control
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“There were people still scared of him,” Mr. Conrow said recently.
For his part, Mr. Holisky took documents from the plea agreement in his assault case, in which the prosecutor in neighboring St. Louis County agreed not to oppose the restoration of his firearms rights.
Mr. Holisky, who is 59, did not specify in his often-rambling petition exactly why he wanted a gun. He described his behavior in 2006 as an “aberration.”
The county judge, Kenneth Sandvik, was set to retire in a few months. He knew Mr. Holisky’s family from growing up in the community. Several weeks later, he ruled that Mr. Holisky had met the basic requirements of the law.
In an interview, Judge Sandvik said he had given considerable weight to the St. Louis County prosecutor’s agreement not to oppose the restoration of gun rights for Mr. Holisky. But Gary Bjorklund, an assistant St. Louis County attorney, said in an interview that he had been focused on extracting a guilty plea that would send Mr. Holisky to prison and had thought no judge would take a firearms request from Mr. Holisky seriously.
Judge Sandvik acknowledged that he had not looked into the details of Mr. Holisky’s assault case, arguing that his job had been only to review what the prosecutor had presented to him.
“We’re not investigators,” he said.
The ease with which Mr. Holisky regained his gun rights does not appear to be an anomaly. Using partial data from Minnesota’s Judicial Branch, The Times identified more than 70 cases since 2004 of people convicted of “crimes of violence” who have gotten their gun rights back. A closer look at a number of them found a superficial process. The cases included those of Mr. Krueger, who criticized the system as insufficiently rigorous after winning back his gun rights in a perfunctory hearing, and of another man whose petition was approved without even a hearing, even though his felony involved pulling a gun on a man.
The ruling in Mr. Holisky’s case prompted members of his family to write a series of frantic e-mails to Judge Sandvik and Mr. Conrow, warning of dire consequences.
It is not entirely clear whether Mr. Holisky, who did not respond to several requests for comment, is legally able to buy a gun at this point, because at least one of the outstanding orders of protection, which expires next year, appears to trip another federal prohibition. But Mr. Holisky has been writing letters to relatives in Texas, threatening legal action if they do not turn over his gun collection.
So far, they have refused.
A Killer’s Successful Petition
Just as in Minnesota, violent felons in Ohio are allowed to apply for restoration of firearms rights after completing their sentences. The statute is similarly vague, requiring only that a judge find that the petitioner has “led a law-abiding life since discharge or release, and appears likely to do so.”
Only a handful of county clerks in Ohio said they could track these cases, producing records on several dozen restorations. They included people who had been convicted of first-degree murder, voluntary manslaughter, felonious assault and sexual battery.
The case of Charles Hairston in Cuyahoga County stands out.
Mr. Hairston was 17 in January 1971, when he shot a man to death in Winston-Salem, N.C. Mr. Hairston and a group of neighborhood toughs had been preparing to rob a local grocery store when the owner, Charles Minor, 55, closed up and headed for his car.
“I am fixing to get him,” Mr. Hairston told one of his friends, according to witness statements to the police, before he pulled the trigger on a 20-gauge shotgun.
Mr. Hairston spent 18 years in prison before being released on parole in 1989. He moved to Cleveland and started working in heating and cooling, a trade he had learned behind bars.
In 1995, he pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge for allegedly grabbing and pushing his wife.
More seriously, later that year he was indicted on 60 counts of rape, felonious sexual penetration and gross sexual imposition; prosecutors charged that he had forced sex upon his stepdaughter, starting when she was 12. He was acquitted of the most serious charges and convicted only of corruption of a minor for one encounter at a motel for which prosecutors were able to provide corroborating evidence beyond the girl’s detailed testimony.
Mr. Hairston, who denies the charges and is still fighting the conviction, filed his first gun rights restoration application in 2006 in Cuyahoga County but was summarily denied.
When he filed a new petition two years later, a judge thought he was ineligible and denied him again, though she wrote in her decision that she did not believe Mr. Hairston was likely to break the law again. But an appeals court ruled that the judge had misread the statute, and sent the case back for another hearing late last year.
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Some With Histories of Mental Illness Petition to Get Their Gun Rights Back (July 3, 2011)
Times Topic: Gun Control
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“Nearly 40 years ago, you know, I was a dumb kid,” Mr. Hairston said at his first hearing. He added, “I am in a situation now where if, God forbid, if someone was to come into my home and attack me, my wife, there isn’t a lot I could say about it, there isn’t a lot I could do.”
In the end, the judge, Hollie L. Gallagher, granted his petition without comment.
Soon after the judge’s ruling, Mr. Hairston obtained a concealed weapons permit from a neighboring county and bought a 9-millimeter semiautomatic handgun.
Returning to Crime
Erik Zettergren originally lost his gun rights in 1987 because of a felony conviction for dealing marijuana. A decade later, the police went to his house after being called by his ex-wife and discovered a cache of guns. He was convicted of another felony, unlawful possession of a firearm.
He relinquished his weapons to friends but eventually got them back, sometimes hiding them in an old car in his backyard, according to friends. Sometime after that, though, he became worried that the police might come after him again and turned over the guns — two long guns and a Glock pistol — to a friend, Tom Williams.
“I kept them under my bed,” Mr. Williams said.
In December 2004, Mr. Zettergren successfully petitioned in Kittitas County — a three-hour drive from his home — to have his gun rights restored. (Like Minnesota’s, Washington’s law allows petitioners to apply anywhere.) Court records show he did not even have a hearing. Instead, his lawyer, Paul T. Ferris, who specializes in these cases, took care of the matter.
Right away, Mr. Zettergren retrieved his guns from Mr. Williams and soon obtained a concealed pistol license. He made something of a sport of showing off his Glock to friends. “He was so proud of that thing,” said Larry Persons, a friend. “He was flashing it in front of everybody.”
Not long after, he would use it in the killing.
Washington’s gun rights restoration statute dates to a 1995 statewide initiative, the Hard Times for Armed Crimes Act, that toughened penalties for crimes involving firearms. The initiative was spearheaded, in part, by pro-gun activists, including leaders of the Second Amendment Foundation, an advocacy group, and the N.R.A.
Although it drew little notice at the time, the legislation also included an expansion of what had been very limited eligibility for restoration of firearms rights.
“There were a lot of people who we felt should be able to get their gun rights restored who could not,” said Alan M. Gottlieb, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation, who was active in the effort.
Under the legislation, “Class A” felons — who have committed the most serious crimes, like murder and manslaughter — are ineligible, as are sex offenders. Otherwise, judges are required to grant the petitions as long as, essentially, felons have not been convicted of any new crimes in the five years after completing their sentences. Judges have no discretion to deny the requests based upon character, mental health or any other factors. Mr. Gottlieb said they explicitly wrote the statute this way.
“We were having problems with judges that weren’t going to restore rights no matter what,” he said.
The statute’s mix of strictness and leniency makes Washington a useful testing ground.
The Times’s analysis found that among the more than 400 people who committed crimes after winning back their gun rights under the new law, more than 70 committed Class A or B felonies. Over all, more than 80 were convicted of some sort of assault and more than 100 of drug offenses.
There were cases like that of Mitchell W. Reed, disqualified from possessing firearms after a 1984 felony cocaine conviction. He also has seven misdemeanor convictions on his record from the 1980s, including for assault. In 2003, he successfully petitioned for his gun rights in Snohomish County Superior Court.
His wife, Debi Reed, went with him to the hearing and said in an interview that she had been shocked at how easily his rights were restored. He immediately bought a 9-millimeter semiautomatic handgun.
The following year, she said, he beat her up for the first time. In 2008 he became more angry and violent, she said, in one instance putting a gun in her hand during an argument, pointing it at his head and saying he was going to frame her for murder. During another fight that year, he struck her with a gun, giving her a black eye, and held a loaded gun to her head.
Mr. Reed was ultimately arrested in 2009 and charged with harassing and threatening to kill his wife’s ex-husband. While those charges were pending, he was arrested on second-degree assault charges after he beat up and tried to strangle his wife. The charging documents also mentioned the 2008 gun episode. He eventually pleaded guilty to third-degree assault and intimidating a witness, as well as fourth-degree assault and harassment.
Jason C. Keller, disqualified because of a 1997 burglary conviction, had his rights restored after a brief hearing in 2006. He waited a few years before buying a Hi-Point .40-caliber semiautomatic pistol, according to his girlfriend at the time, Shawna Braylock. But she did not trust him with the gun because of his temper, making him keep it at his parents’ house.
In 2010, Mr. Keller left a Fourth of July party in the late evening, picked up his gun and drove to the house of a woman he knew. He fired several shots as she stood out front with her 9-year-old son; her 6-year-old daughter was sleeping inside. Mr. Keller pleaded guilty to drive-by shooting, a felony.
In Mr. Zettergren’s case, his friends said they were shocked that a judge had restored his gun rights, because they knew he was receiving disability payments, in part because of mental health problems.
“Most of the people around here that knew him, knew that he could be dangerous,” said Darrell Reinhardt, one of Mr. Zettergren’s friends.
Mr. Zettergren’s mental health issues, in fact, have been at the heart of his efforts to appeal his convictions for second-degree murder, second-degree assault and unlawful imprisonment. He had been in counseling since 2000, and several mental health experts had found he had post-traumatic stress disorder and major depression, saying he had a “very high degree of psychological disturbance” and suffered frequent “flashbacks and disturbing images,” according to a declaration from a forensic psychologist in one of Mr. Zettergren’s appeal briefs. The post-traumatic stress, according to the psychologist, resulted from scenes he had witnessed years before, including his mother’s death by electrocution and the shooting death of a friend.
None of this was reviewed by the judge who heard Mr. Zettergren’s gun rights petition.
Donna Bly, the mother of Jason Robinson, Mr. Zettergren’s shooting victim, considered suing the county for negligence over the decision but could not find a lawyer to take the case. She also tried bringing the issue up with a state legislator but got nowhere.
“This man did not deserve to have his gun rights back,” she said.
These people are the "otherwise law abiding citizens" the gun lobby keeps mentioning. If it weren't for all those pesky laws, they would be law abiding.
ReplyDeleteOtherwise, they are called criminals.
Plain and simple.
Anonymous said...
ReplyDeleteIs copyright infringement part of your "law abiding" criteria? I'd like to know how you categorize yourself.
I don't engage in copyright infringement; instead I appear to have a rather better grasp of fair use and how it is applied than you do. Beyond that I frequently contact the authors and request their permission, on behalf of their employers, to use their work. On the occasions when I don't do that, I am very careful I comply with fair use, including appropriate attribution to the source, provided in the link following 'from ', and the clear inclusion of the author's name, and where possible the organization for which he or she works - NYTimes, AP, etc.
But then, clearly, I'm better at facts than you are. You should be more careful; someone like me might become angry at your libel in a forum like this and sue your ass for it.
To me, it's all or nothing. When a convict is returned to society, that person needs to be a full participant in every aspect. Understand that I see probation as a provisional return. But once the sentence has been served, all rights should be restored.
ReplyDeleteWhen Mr. Zettergren went to check on them later, he found his girlfriend naked from the waist down and the other man, Jason Robinson, with his pants around his ankles.
ReplyDeleteSo he shot a rapist.....
good for him, his only problem was not shooting him outright, instead taking time to argue with Mr. "can't keep it in his pants".....
dog gone said...
But then, clearly, I'm better at facts than you are. You should be more careful; someone like me might become angry at your libel in a forum like this and sue your ass for it.
Good luck with that.....
But just out of curiosity, how exactly are you going to present your, "I allowed his libelous post on a moderated website, and now I want to sue him" Tort?
Yeah my attorneys would have fun with that one.
ReplyDeleteThis is where the NRA's talk about "just enforce existing laws" falls flat. It is hypocritical, and their attempt to relax gun laws lead to more deaths, as this article shows.
ReplyDeleteIt's all about the Benjamins to the NRA. Felons and criminals are an important market segment.
ReplyDeleteIn Mr. Zettergren’s case, his friends said they were shocked that a judge had restored his gun rights, because they knew he was receiving disability payments, in part because of mental health problems.
ReplyDelete“Most of the people around here that knew him, knew that he could be dangerous,” said Darrell Reinhardt, one of Mr. Zettergren’s friends.
Mr. Zettergren’s mental health issues, in fact, have been at the heart of his efforts to appeal his convictions for second-degree murder, second-degree assault and unlawful imprisonment.
We don't know that a rape was in progress, and Zettergren is the poster child for every reason someone like this should not have access to a gun anywhere, anytime, EVER.
But you think NO civilian should have access to a gun, ever.
ReplyDeleteThomas wrote: "I allowed his libelous post on a moderated website, and now I want to sue him" Tort?
ReplyDeleteWho says I'm the one who moderated his comment?
And what ever gave you the idea that by permitting a dissenting comment, that the commenter was not still liable for the content of that comment - including slander, defamation, and libel?
Given the recidivism rate, and particularly the correlation between any kind of conviction, much less violent felony convictions, there is perfectly good justification for denying gun ownership or possession.
That is the OPPOSITE of allowing voting rights to be restored to former felons.
Do you oppose making sex offenders have to report to authorities, and continuing them on a public list is wrong too?
You who are conservative seem hell bent on imprisoning people, but soft on them later - and both ignore all of the information from criminology studies. You opt for those things not because they work, or have any connection to the problem. Rather you prefer them because you don't care about the cost of prisons, you don't care about whether any thing works, because damn being punitive or vengeful makes you feel good, and you like those simplistic solutions. They don't require you to know anything or to think on any level of complexity.
Anonymous said...
ReplyDeleteBut you think NO civilian should have access to a gun, ever.
That is incorrect.
Neither I nor any of my three co-bloggers have ever advocated for that.
I believe hunters should have firearms, and that they are important to wildlife management. I believe that shooting sport enthusiasts should have access to firearms, providing they are regulated european style - as in requiring they belong to a gun club and actually use a range facility to train.
I don't believe that the number of people engaging in open or concealed carry are reasonable in view of the decades of declining crime rates, and particularly in view of the differences between our stats for gun violence and those of other industrialized countries.
It is the antithesis of a lawful society where law enforcement does just that, and where the courts are the ones who determine guilt and assess punishment - not vigilantes on the street.
Anonymous said...
ReplyDeleteYeah my attorneys would have fun with that one.
I think they would be less amused than you believe. I am also quite sure that the attorney I have in mind is better qualified and of a better caliber than yours - since your comments suggest your identity (coward).
I wonder how much work your attorneys would care to do for free in such a suit. Because if you are who I believe you to be, a person who has previously been careless of fact in making similar accusations, you're closer to being one of the so-called 'underclass' than the 1%.............whereas the attorney I have in mind is definitely in that 1% group. He is also very good with cybercrime, so I have no qualms that it would be relatively easy to track you down and find you.
Tommy spews:
ReplyDelete"When Mr. Zettergren went to check on them later, he found his girlfriend naked from the waist down and the other man, Jason Robinson, with his pants around his ankles.
So he shot a rapist.....
good for him, his only problem was not shooting him outright, instead taking time to argue with Mr. "can't keep it in his pants"....."
Do you happen to have the police report handy that says the guy was raping anyone?
Let me know when you get that police report that says that there was a rape involved.
Then after you get that verified, dig into the penal law and cite some chapter and verse that says shooting someone after a rape has been committed is covered under the "castle doctrine", or in some "imminent danger" clause of some sort. Or, maybe, just STFU when you don't have any idea what you're blathering about.
That's a good boy; now, go out and play with your gunz.
"Neither I nor any of my three co-bloggers have ever advocated for that."
ReplyDeleteActually MikeB has, in the comments on another blog.
Anonymous wrote:
ReplyDelete"I will let those snobby comments stand on their own. Wow. "
Not snobby at all.
I simply contrast the value of a $500 an hour attorney who can take a case because he chooses to do so with free or cheap legal help because I don't believe you can afford better, or would get better.
While not an absolute measure of competency, billing $ tends to equate to quality of expertise.
What would be at risk is you having to sell your guns to pay both your attorney, and to pay me if I win. But in either event, such an exercise is one that you aren't easily in a position to afford, so you should act accordingly in writing factually inaccurate slurs that you present as fact rather than opinion.
Even as your opinion, it is shit.
Who says I'm the one who moderated his comment?
ReplyDeleteAnd what ever gave you the idea that by permitting a dissenting comment, that the commenter was not still liable for the content of that comment - including slander, defamation, and libel?
can you show “actual malice”—that someone actually published with either knowledge of falsity or in reckless disregard for the truth. This is a difficult standard for a plaintiff to meet.
Then you as the publisher...... because it would not be difficult to show you have editorial control over the content of this blog.... hence you ultimately are the publisher..... would be subject to this.....
Immunity exists if website operators edit comments (so long as the edits do not materially change the meaning of the statement) or otherwise exercise discretion in selecting which comments to post or remove. See, e.g., Donato v. Moldow, 865 A.2d 711 (N.J. Super. Ct. 2005).
You cannot publish or allow something to be published then, then cry "libel", panties in a knot maybe but not libel.....
You cannot sue yourself.....
can you show “actual malice”—that someone actually published with either knowledge of falsity or in reckless disregard for the truth. This is a difficult standard for a plaintiff to meet.
ReplyDeleteNot hard to meet at all; this person made a claim of violation of copyright with a reckless disregard for the truth. They did not check, they ignored the obvious indications of fair use.
I don't own this blog, and did not moderate this comment. I can sue the person who made the false statement, not the publisher. This person has made this statement in more than one place and more than this time - an every time has demonstrated a total disregard for the truth.
“actual malice”—that someone actually published with either knowledge of falsity or in reckless disregard for the truth. This is a difficult standard for a plaintiff to meet.
ReplyDeleteNot necessarily. If there have been corrections published and there is some showing that accurate information has been available to the person making the statement, then the standard has been meet.
The standard is that "knowledge that the information was false" or that it was published "with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.": if that can be shown, then you have a showing of actual malice.
As a general rule, any competent evidence, either direct or circumstantial, can be resorted to, and all the relevant circumstances surrounding the transaction may be shown, provided they are not too remote, including threats, prior or subsequent defamations, subsequent statements of the defendant, circumstances indicating the existence of rivalry, ill will, or hostility between the parties, facts tending to show a reckless disregard of the plaintiff's rights."
Thomas, if it were the case that this was an impossible standard, then there would be no libel actions. Furthermore, no one could succede in a liber action. Given that people do sue and can win, this is not an "impossible" standard to meet.
SO, not at all impossible, Thomas.
Yeah that is true you can sue for anything.....
ReplyDeletewinning is another thing....
And defending against a suit is expensive.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous, who appears to be Andrew Rothman, likes to make statements which are light on fact and heavy on malice.
I don't think I'd have trouble proving either that he in fact had a grudge over a period of time against me, for differing with him on gun issues, which is what he does for a living - teaches gun classes.
Or that he made statements past and present that were factually inaccurate.
I'm not to worried about the winning. It is easier than you might think, given the pattern of fuckups by Mr. Rothman, not the least of which is to confuse posting with claiming authorship.
As to a blog publishing comments that are libelous and then talking about them, that has happened before, over on the blog of a friend of mine.
The idea of felons getting their hands on guns doesn't appeal to a lot of people, the ones who agree that guns shouldn't be in the hands of criminals.
In Minnesota, there is currently an issue for example over cop killing criminals being released after a shorter time served when given life sentences, under previous indeterminate sentencing. That angers enough people. Point out how those guys could next get guns.........that will make it really hit the fan.
"Thomas said...
ReplyDeleteIs copyright infringement part of your "law abiding" criteria? I'd like to know how you categorize yourself.
If that were a real question, it has been answered. I don't engage in copyright infringement, and so yes, in that respect I consider myself absolutely and meticulously law abiding.
Mr. Rothman on the other hand appears to engage in serial libel, slander and defamation by making erroneous statements.
Or, to put it another way, I'm just asking YOU a question, Thomas - have you stopped beating your wife? I don't really know if you beat your wife or not; I don't even know if you are married. But rather that was the same kind of 'question' that Rothman-Anonymous asked. Like it much? Want to take up that question.
I'm sure we'd all love to read your answer.
It's libelous to ask a real person if he still beats his wife.
ReplyDeleteNo it's not. It is asking a question, it is not making a statement which is presented as fact, not opinion.
ReplyDeleteGeeze, haven't any of you taken classes on this stuff? You bloviate stuff like that, pulled right out of your butt.
Anonymous said...
ReplyDeleteIt's libelous to ask a real person if he still beats his wife.
November 15, 2011 1:46 AM
Blogger dog gone said...
Actually it would be slander... not Libel
No it's not. It is asking a question, it is not making a statement which is presented as fact, not opinion.
That said, I believe that you would find it immensely difficult to get a favorable libel judgement as an "administrator" of a blog....
you can talk of how you do not "own this blog but you have on many occasions, commented on the fact that you would delete insulting comments.
You have control over the contents of this blog, saying that you have been harmed by something that you allowed to be or remain published is ridiculous.
Geeze, haven't any of you taken classes on this stuff? You bloviate stuff like that, pulled right out of your butt.
November 15, 2011 2:01 AM
Tommy:
ReplyDeleteI understand that you're still busy with the "beating your wife" thing, but I'm still waiting on a copy of the police report that says that a rape was occuring and that is why the killer shot the other guy. Or are you just talking through your ass, as gunzloonz tend to do?
Of that number, more than 400 — about 13 percent — have subsequently committed new crimes
ReplyDeleteUnlike the 67% of the unpardoned that that are rearrested after 3 years.
67% rearrested....
ReplyDeletehttp://blueshifthome.com/recidivism/statistics/bjs/BJS%20-%20Recidivism%20of%20Prisoners%20Released%20in%201994%20-%20June%202002%20-%20NCJ%20193427.pdf
Anonymous said, "But you think NO civilian should have access to a gun, ever."
ReplyDeleteand
"Actually MikeB has, in the comments on another blog."
I can't imagine what comments you're referring to. But, I can assure you my best case scenario is one in which half of you guys would still own the same guns you do now.
I am for disarming the unfit and unqualified. I'm perfectly in favor of one-strike-you're-out for convicted felons wich the exception of some white-collar guys, perhaps.
But you probably knew all that and were just breaking balls by saying what you did.
Maybe they are confused.
ReplyDeleteThe Second Amendment, prior to the revisionism of Heller-McDonald, was not a bar to civilian gun ownership.
Heller-McDonald has taken that option out of the mix, but allows for other measures to regulate firearms.
nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms. Heller at 54-5
Which has as a footnote (26):
We identify these presumptively lawful regulatory measures only as examples; our list does not purport to be exhaustive.
I stil hold that the Second Amendment is not a bar to a ban on civilian firearms ownership, but I seriously doubt such a thing would happen in my lifetime.
There could be a registration requirement, which anyone caught with an unregistered firearm, but I seriously doubt the police would conduct door-to-door searches looking for firearms.
The cost would be prohibitive.
Tommy:
ReplyDeleteIOW, you got nothin', thanks for playing.
"I can't imagine what comments you're referring to."
ReplyDeleteMikeB, did you or did you not say the following?
All right, I was exaggerating. If you guys suddenly cooperated with the common sense gun control laws that we propose and we saw a tremendous decrease in gun violence, we would naturally want stricter laws in order to lower even more the remaining gun violence. Eventually, I and most of the others would conclude that no guns at all in civilian hands is the best way to go.
Yeah, now I got ya.
ReplyDeleteThat's referred to as my famous "if-if-if" statement.
It was superseded by my Official Goal.
http://mikeb302000.blogspot.com/2011/08/my-official-goal.html
Mikeb302000,
ReplyDeleteSo what you're saying is that you were for complete citizen disarmament before you were against it? You were against private ownership of firearms, but now you'll tolerate some?
What's that article of footwear called?
"Eventually, I and most of the others would conclude that no guns at all in civilian hands is the best way to go.
ReplyDeleteNovember 15, 2011 4:42 PM"
And I want a pony for the Saturnalia Feast, but neither one's gonna happen.
Gunzloonz, paranoia since 1787,
Um, Democommie, Anonymous was quoting Mikeb302000. So we're paranoid because we read comments like his and conclude that your side wants to ban private ownership of firearms?
ReplyDeleteYou are correct, though. It ain't gonna happen.
Io Saturnalia!
Greg Camp:
ReplyDeleteI'm well aware of who said what. I'm also well aware that you belong to a group that believes all of the propaganda put out by Weenie LaPew's NRA spin machine.
Mr. Obama said that people like you cling to their gunz and religion. He should have added paranoid fantasies to those others.
No, Greg, it was no flip-flop at all. The quote Anonymous is trying to use against me in a sort-of gotcha was a triple hypothetical, reaching far beyond what any of us believe is possible.
ReplyDeleteMy Official Opinion on the other hand, is exactly that.
Mikeb302000,
ReplyDeleteYour official position is bad enough.
I'm not sure how I missed this tidbit:
ReplyDelete"When Senator David F. Durenberger, a Minnesota Republican, realized after the law passed that thousands of felons, including those convicted of violent crimes, in his state would suddenly be getting their gun rights back, he sought the N.R.A.’s help in rolling back the provision. Doug Kelley, his chief of staff at the time, thought the group would “surely want to close this loophole.”
But the senator, Mr. Kelley recalled, “ran into a stone wall,” as the N.R.A. threatened to pull its support for him if he did not drop the matter, which he eventually did."
So, Durenburger, knowing that a law he had signed onto could wind up compromising the security of his constituents said, in essence, "Fuck them, I needz the NRA's cash!.". The words "principled" and "Republican" can very rarely be used in a sentence these days.
Thanks, democommie, that's a wonderful bit.
ReplyDeleteGreg, why is my official position bad enough? Would it touch you personally? Or, are you just concerned for you unfit gun buddies?
Democommie, ". The words "principled" and "Republican" can very rarely be used in a sentence these days." Yeah, those words haven't been used in the same sentence, at least not seriously, for a lot longer than 'these days'.
ReplyDeleteDurenburger was the MN Senator from 1978 to 1995. This goes back a long way in terms of NRA corruption of politicians - especially on the right.
Mikeb302000,
ReplyDeleteI can imagine some mental health expert deciding that anyone who wants to have a firearm is obviously unfit to own one. I oppose arbitrary power, and I oppose a system that requires lots of paperwork and money to be permitted to exercise our rights. Your proposal presumes the unfitness of any applicant. We have to show ourselves worthy. I want a government that presumes us to be worthy.
be permitted to exercise our rights
ReplyDeleteGreg, I support your right if you want to be part of a well-regulated militia, organised under Article I, Section 8, Clause 16 for the purposes of Article I, Section 8, Clause 15.
I even more wholeheartedly support that right if you have some drill instructor yelling in your face that you are a complete and total dumbfuck.
On the other hand, the Second Amendment provided no explicit right to the ownership of arms outside the context of a well-regulated militia.
To argue otherwise is an admission that the Second Amendment is an anachronism.
"Cessante ratione legis cessat ipsa lex."
Greg C writes:
ReplyDelete"I can imagine some mental health expert deciding that anyone who wants to have a firearm is obviously unfit to own one. I oppose arbitrary power, and I oppose a system that requires lots of paperwork and money to be permitted to exercise our rights. Your proposal presumes the unfitness of any applicant. We have to show ourselves worthy. I want a government that presumes us to be worthy."
So, your reasoning is that we should NOT accept the authority of a mental health professional, who could be overruled by other mental health professionals and who could be held to the standards of professional conduct in how he uses his authority, even though we do not have a single example of a medical health professional acting as you describe so as to wrongly deny someone a gun. If anything we have had too little input from medical health professionals in identifying people who subsequently go on to do mass killings, like Virginia Tech and the shootings that included Gabby Giffords.
I would suggest to you that so long as mental health professionals are held accountable for conforming to standards of care and conduct we are not at any such reasonable risk, and that your fears are not based in reasonable, objective fact.
But on the other hand while you wish to presume mental health professionals wrong, who would not be killing anyone if they were wrong, and where that wrong could be easily corrected, you are inconsistent when it comes to firearms.
You want to assume that no one is mentally deranged who wants a firearm, and force us to only act after we have incidents like the Giffords shooting or the VA Tech massacre, or any of the many other instances of a deranged person acting dangerously with a firearm - like this one. In fact being wrong in allowing to easily for someone to have a firearm clearly DOES result in harm. And unless you can bring back the judge, the child, and the others who died in Arizona, or the other people who died at Virginia Tech, clearly your way of doing things does not only more demonstrable harm, but harm which cannot be corrected.
You want us to give the people with a dangerous weapon the benefit of the doubt, but not a trained and licensed and professionally accountable mental health professional.........and that is just nuts on the face of it, not to mention damnably bass ackwards.
This is one more instance where you wish to operate by whim, and not by reason, one more instance where you are clearly and demonstrably not applying critical thinking.
And I believe I have been quite clear in explaining how where and why your reasoning is badly badly flawed.
Greg, you badly need remediation on your critical thinking skills. I would say the same thing if you were arguing for the same side as Laci and I do.
ReplyDeleteYou might want to start with these resources, but I think you need some serious classwork from an accredited 4 year school on the topic.
Because what you have demonstrated here does not make you qualified to teach this to kids, and if this IS what you teach, your screwing up their education badly.
The sources:
ReplyDeleteCriticalThinking.org - Defining Critical Thinking
Critical thinking — in being responsive to variable subject matter, issues, and purposes — is incorporated in a family of interwoven modes of thinking, among ...
www.criticalthinking.org/pages/defining-critical-thinking/766
CriticalThinkingOrg's Channel - YouTube
Discourse on critical thinking for teachers and educators in all grade levels and in all societies. This channel contains video footage, interviews and clips from ...
www.youtube.com/user/CriticalThinkingOrg
Greg, My idea does not "presume unfitness" any more than any other type of screening or qualifying does. To get a driver's license you need to pass an eye exam, written test and a practical driving test. In a criminal trial, you're innocent until proven guilty.
ReplyDeleteYou could say the same thing about those two examples, but you don't.
Gun ownership could and should be carefully screened. We realize you don't like that, but exactly why is unclear. Your freedom would not be interfered with, on the contrary, by disarming most of the troublemakers you law-abiding guys would have it better than ever.
Now that you mention it MikeB, an eye test and a written test are not a bad idea for gun permits, including periodic renewals....
ReplyDeleteMikeb302000,
ReplyDeleteThe reason that I oppose your proposal is clear. You are outlining an onerous process to exercise a right.
My parents sent me to a church school. The librarian there wouldn't allow me to check out some books, even books that had been approved for that repressive system, because she figured that my parents wouldn't like them. (The Hound of the Baskervilles, if you're curious.) She glued together pages in an astronomy book because she didn't like the evolutionary implications therein.
The same kind of thing is what goes on in may-issue states. If you're a celebrity or a big donor to a politician, you get a license. Otherwise, you're subject to the whims of the licensing agency and its bureaucrats. I prefer a clear statement of law: Anyone who passes the background check--as we currently understand it--receives the license. I'll even concede a training requirement as making sense. But that's it.
Dog Gone,
The Tucson shooting and the Virginia Tech shooting are rare events. You want to change the system for something rare? That's like banning civil aviation because a few planes have been used in acts of terrorism.
Regarding mental health professionals, I don't trust them. I've known a few over the years, and they all remind me of you. As far as I'm concerned, psychology is a philosophy, not a science. It bases its conclusions on the belief that all humans can be explained by quantifying small aspects of the minds of a few test subjects. Many mental health professionals are quick to offer medicines to treat diseases, medicines that no one really knows how they work and diseases that may not be diseases in the first place.
What we've done is substitute one mystery, religion, for another, psychology. I respect both, when they operate in their proper places, but neither should have power over anyone.