Local news reports
The Pasco County Sheriff's Office reports that 54-year-old Charles Martin Jones and 51-year-old Michael Edward McCord were traveling along a rural road Saturday night when they pulled over to shoot the deer, which they left dead by the road.
The men traveled several more miles before throwing the rifle out the window.
The Tampa Bay Times reports that a deputy caught up to the pair and arrested them.
Jones was charged with taking wildlife on a road.
McCord was charged with willful waste of wildlife, taking wildlife on a road and discharging a firearm in public.
Don't worry. They'll get a slap on the wrist and be right back in business.
Since they were out committing crimes, it's inaccurate and deliberately misleading to call them lawful gun owners.
ReplyDeleteWrong, Greg. Lawful gun owners do unlawful things all the time. Those who have not been convicted of a felony continue to pass as such.
DeleteA criminal who isn't caught is no less a criminal. You deceitfully use the term "lawful" to smear all gun owners.
DeleteNo, Greg, people are innocent until proven guilty - proven, get it? You're such a champion of rights - until it's inconvenient for your biased argument.
DeleteThe group called "lawful gun owners" contains about 50% hidden criminals. That's my best guess.
Mikeb, we're talking about two different subjects here. Under the law, a person is a criminal upon conviction. Morally, a person is a criminal or wicked or a thug upon committing an immoral act.
DeleteBut do you seriously believe that forty to fifty million Americans are "hidden criminals"? If 50% of gun owners are that, what about people who don't own guns? Is the percentage the same? If so, how can you believe in democracy?
I'm talking about one thing, you're the one bringing the moral definition of a criminal into it.
DeleteYes, I believe it's as high as 50%. You do remember the definition of a hidden criminal, don't you?
http://mikeb302000.blogspot.it/2011/04/venn-diagram-of-gun-owners.html
Just because you claim it doesn't make it true. I reject your assertion. Now prove it.
DeleteLawful Activists Harass Grieving Families after Sandy Hook Tragedy
ReplyDeletehttp://www.godhatesfags.com/fliers/20121217_CT-Shooter-Principal-Funeral.pdf
This group of lawful activists is using the internet to spread an insensitive message of hate. They are abusing the Constitution's right to free speech, and they are spreading their hate far and wide due to the easy access to DNS addresses.
It's time that we, as a nation, stand up and say No More to these "lawful activists" who use the Constitution as a shield to protect themselves from Common Sense regulation of activism. We are Better than This!
Activists should be licensed before they can advocate for a policy position.
This should be a "may issue" license based upon approval by the local Chief Law Enforcement Officer.
An Activist's license should be required before anyone could buy a web address or organize a demonstration.
These licenses should be denied if a background check shows a criminal record. This should weed out most of these "Lawful Activists" who commit crimes all the time and just manage to avoid being arrested or convicted.
Truly responsible activists shouldn't worry about this common sense activism control--they won't have any problem getting this license, and they and the rest of us will finally be safe from having our hearts broken all over again by these "Lawful Activists."
Perhaps our host, or some of the other lawful activists around here can explain why they don't think that such common sense regulations are warranted.
What do you think?
I'm not surprised you want to ignore the fact that many so-called lawful gun owners are really hidden criminals. It's embarrassing and it flies in the face of the big lie that gun owners are divided into two groups, good guys and bad guys, and that the good guys are safe and responsible.
DeleteMike,
DeleteI fully understand that many legal gun owners commit crimes they haven't been caught for. If we want to get technical about it, EVERYONE, including you, commits many crimes every day--including various felonies--because we have created a byzantine legal system that has so many crimes that it is impossible to obey everything. Law schools actually talk about this in legislative theory classes as a goal of legislation intended to ensure that the government can convict any "bad guy" it wants on at least some charge the way they got Al Capone on Tax Evasion. But that's a discussion for another day.
I'll also freely admit that if we restrict ourselves to those things we would all say should be crimes, e.g. theft, assault, etc., there are people who have purchased guns legally who have committed these crimes and not been caught. As you said to Greg, we don't take rights away unless someone has been convicted by due process.
My point was not to distract from these individuals, but to lampoon the way that you use the phrase "lawful gun owner" to describe people who are behaving in anti-social ways or who have been caught committing crimes and haven't had time to be convicted.
You do this to justify restrictions on gun ownership, a right, that would take place BEFORE due process had been completed. Therefore, I thought I'd offer a similar, equally wrong, suggestion of a restraint on free speech to take place before due process was executed, based on antisocial or criminal behavior.
If your problem is people who get away with crimes still being able to have guns, the answer is to push for better policing. It is not to install a may issue permitting system for ownership that allows police to deny a right to individuals who have not been duly convicted.
I think I understand your point, but this is a ridiculous exaggeration.
Delete"EVERYONE, including you, commits many crimes every day--including various felonies"
Maybe you need to better understand what I mean by hidden criminals.
http://mikeb302000.blogspot.it/2012/06/definition-of-hidden-criminal-ian.html
Mike,
DeleteI included that point partially to make a point about overcriminalization--one of my pet peeves in the current legal system, and because I hadn't seen that old post, so I could not be 100% certain that you were not counting every possible crime. As for it being an exaggeration, I tried to avoid exaggerating by not saying that everyone commits multiple felonies per day (something my advanced criminal law professor said repeatedly). The simple fact is that the criminal law system has been expanded, and due to lobbying by lazy prosecutors, there are an increasing number of crimes that have no intent provision. The result is that there are multiple crimes that everyone could be convicted of and that in many or most of these cases, the conviction could be a felony.
All that being said, my next paragraph moved on to the type of issue that I thought (correctly) you were talking about, and that's what the bulk of my post was about.
In your link, the example is a guy who, in spite of what his family knew about him, hadn't gotten a disqualifying felony conviction.
Your answer here is to restrict the 2nd Amendment to a privilege via a may issue permitting scheme.
On the other hand, I view the amendment's use of the word right as similar to the use of the word right in other amendments. That is why I argued that we must have due process and an appropriate conviction to remove the right.
Does my answer mean that some of these people will be able to get guns and use them with tragic results? Unfortunately, yes. However, this is the case with any right--a case on point would be those who avoid conviction based on evidence being thrown out due to a violation of the 4th or 5th Amendments.
Right wing authoritarians love to talk about people who get out of convictions based on "technicalities" and use these cases as a way to further restrict 4th and 5th Amendment rights. I oppose these attempts with equal vigor (and often with more vitriol).
My answer to those cases, as to these you cite, is that we need better, more Constitutionally conscientious policing to properly catch and convict criminals, and that we need to clean up the byzantine mess that is the criminal code so that fewer resources are wasted on silly crimes and more is focused on the real crimes--thefts, assaults, murders, extortion, burglary, etc.
Before I realized you were being facetious I was gonna blast you with both barrels. ;-)
ReplyDeleteorlin sellers
LOL!
DeleteYeah, I have been silently ignoring these "Lawful Gun Owner" posts, but it got to be too much, so I've decided to post something about "Lawful Activists" or "Lawful Bloggers" in the comments sections. "Sauce for the goose," as the saying goes.
And Thank you, Orlin, for having that reaction. I was afraid all I'd get would be E.N. writing up some type of vehement agreement.
I recognized the flattery inherent in your emulation of myself.
DeleteThe State bears the fundamental responsibility to prevent the dissemination of materials which may be harmful to the feeble public mind. The U.S. Government must not derelict it's fundamental duty to enforce the People's Right to Advocate State Policy, and your right to the suppression of materials harmful to the national interest. Some form of "choice architecture" is inherent to the creation of a civilized society, as is the systematic reduction of harmful material. Liberals and Conservatives alike would agree with such notions, whether the goal is to suppress "hate speech" or promote "family values", while those neo-Anarchists such as yourself, who still cling to bizarre and depraved notions of "personal freedom" and "individual rights" would be so obtuse as to disagree.
"Tennesseean" may find Sunstien's (probably the greatest western legal scholar currently living) books "Republic.com" and "Democracy and the Problem of Free Speech" interesting, and perhaps informative on such a misunderstood topic.
E.N.,
DeleteActually, I wasn't emulating you; rather, the style of these "Lawful Gun Owners" posts.
But thank you for being the reliable voice of statist insanity and tyranny. Whether you're for real or not, you can always be counted on to be that one, unmoving star that we can always reference and plot our course away from.
E.N., always late to the battle. The information has already been disseminated. American citizens are already heavily armed. Tools of freedom, like guns and the Internet, keep your kind from success.
Delete