Dwayne Feguson, arrested for bringing a gun to Harvey Austin School, is a well-known community activist.
Dwayne Ferguson spent more than a decade advocating for nonviolence and peace in the streets of Buffalo.
He was a well-known face in the movement for the SAFE Act, the state law that made carrying a gun on school property a felony. He was also a familiar presence in the hallways of the city’s Harvey Austin Elementary School, where he worked in the after-school program and mentored students.
No one imagined that on Thursday he would show up at the school in possession of a gun, touching off an hours-long lockdown, search and ultimately his arrest on two felony charges.
Ferguson, 52, told WGRZ-TV that he frequently carries the gun, for which he has a permit, and did not realize he had it on him when he went to the school as part of the mentoring program.
Those who have worked with him also said they believe it was an honest mistake.
“I’m sure Dwayne went into the school not thinking he had the gun on him,” said Rev. James E. Giles, a friend of Ferguson and president of Back to Basics Outreach Ministries. “We know this for a fact, that he called out to a Buffalo police lieutenant asking why the school was in lockdown, and that they were looking for a man with a gun.
You got the label right this time. Of course, the typical attitude of a gun control advocate is rules for thee, but not for me, so I'm not surprised.
ReplyDeleteThat's nonsense, Greg. Your side has its share of examples too.
DeleteI'm not aware of any gun rights supporters who want one set of rules for them and another set for the public in general.
DeleteOf course he's a fucking liar like all the rest with "I didn't know" shit.
ReplyDeleteThe irony in this story is so thick that you could cut it with a knife: someone was worried about a "man with a gun" in a school so they called in men with guns (police) to deal with the "man with a gun".
ReplyDeleteA police officer is an armed citizen wearing a costume and a shiny piece of metal. A costume and a shiny piece of metal have no magic power that guarantees a police officer will not harm innocent citizens. In fact police officers commit both violent and non-violent crimes at a higher rate than concealed carry license holders.
For the life of me I cannot understand why so many people hate an armed citizen unless they wear a costume and a shiny piece of metal.
-- TruthBeTold
Are you just pretending to not get it?
DeleteThe reason people react the way the do is because a good guy with a gun is indistinguishable from a bad guy with a gun.
The default position of a free society must be that a person is a good citizen until proved otherwise.
DeleteThe default position of society is to take prudent measures to avoid the death of innocent people.
DeleteYes, that means good citizens have to follow the law, even if it will never apply to them.
This story proves you can't trust anyone, so there must be laws to set unacceptable behavior for all.
Just another old, fat, white gun nut right?
ReplyDeleteAs for Mr. Ferguson owning and carrying a firearm, I cannot reconcile that with his public advocacy for gun control. Which is it? Is he for or against gun control?
ReplyDeleteLet me guess: Mr. Ferguson believes he is above the crowd so gun control should not apply to him, only to the pathetic masses who are simply giant toddlers.
And once again we catch a glimpse of the liberal mind. They are the elite ... the "only ones" who are capable of living a civilized life. Everyone else is a toddler who cannot control themselves and has no idea what is good for themselves ... desperately in need of "parenting" in every aspect of their lives from the liberal elite.
I cannot decide which is greater: the magnitude of the liberal elite's delusion that everyone else are toddlers or the liberal elite's contempt for everyone else.
-- TruthBeTold
Well, unless he was touting total civilian disarmament, there might not have been much of a clash. Unless he had a magazine with 30 rounds in it, he might have been perfectly consistent with what he preaches.
DeleteThe problem was carrying in a gun-free zone and then lying about it saying he forgot.
There are millions that own guns, yet, refuse the extremist views of the NRA and its racist board members. They accept there is a gun problem in America and support background checks and other gun control options. They do not support gun banning, or confiscation as Greg and other gun loons suggest. With guns being a big problem in America they are willing to try methods that will lesson gun shot deaths. They support gun safes, trigger locks, background checks and other controls that will lesson gun shot deaths. They know those are not absolute answers, they also know they will help, they also know those measures are not an infringement on the 2nd amendment, and they support the right to own a gun. If you step out of your extreme position you will see this. The gun loons stance that nothing will help, or does not work, or stop some of the killing is an extremest view. It's not either, or. It's being sensible about using tools that will lesson the 33,000 gun shot deaths in America, which they as gun owners, find unacceptable. .
DeleteYou claim that those measures will "lesson" [sic] gun deaths, but the evidence isn't there. Gun deaths would be lessened if there were no guns, but that's impossible to achieve in this country. And there would still be many deaths, even if no guns existed. As always, gun control is the lazy person's solution, instead of going after the real problem, namely violence.
DeleteWhere is your proof those measures don't work?
DeleteAnother gun loon explaining why he refuses to even try to lesson gun shot deaths.
Another gun loon falsely claiming the only aim of gun control is to ban and confiscate all guns. A total lie.
Again, you dismiss ANY attempt to help the problem and lie about some of the solutions. You prefer to see these deaths continue. That's your character. That's your extremism, your defeatism, your love of death.
Of course they would lessen the death toll, Greg. You know this but deny it because otherwise it would be hard to justify your fanatical gun-rights ideas.
DeleteNo, Mikeb, you've offered no evidence to support your claims. And I'm not willing to give up my rights for your speculations.
DeleteWith hypocrisy so intimately inherent to the "gun control" camp, one cannot help but wonder if hypocrisy even existed before the KKK invented the "gun control" concept.
ReplyDeleteNonsense, the "gun control camp" has no monopoly on hypocrisy.
Delete"Dwayne Ferguson, the leader of the anti-violence organization Mad Dads, pleaded not guilty Friday in connection with an incident that forced a city school into lockdown for several hours Thursday."
ReplyDelete"Buffalo Police Department Spokesman Mike DeGeorge said Thursday night that police arrested Ferguson, 52, of Buffalo, in connection with the lockdown at Harvey Austin Elementary School earlier in the day. Ferguson was charged with two counts of criminal possession of a weapon, including having a loaded weapon on school grounds."
"Despite a request by prosecutors, who asked for bail to be set at $10,000, City Court Judge Jeanette Ogden released the activist on his own recognizance, citing his community involvement and the fact that Ferguson has no prior run-ins with the law. The judge did, however, order him to turn in all of his weapons and to stay away from the school until the case is resolved."
http://www.wgrz.com/story/news/local/east-side/2014/02/06/buffalo-police-make-arrest-after-lockdown/5271069/
I wonder if he qualifies as one of those hidden gun criminals. Want to bet he's likely forgotten before? At least if he is like all of the other gun owners that we read about here.
Mike, what are your feelings about this man's forgetfulness. Do you believe this should have some bearing in the trial he'll be soon participating in soon? There are apparently many people advocating for him in saying this was an unintentional act.
From what I'm seeing, by his release with no bail, he is already benefitting from his advocacy for gun control. Want to bet any other guy would get out of jail without having to post bail?
You may be right about the special treatment but I don't think it's due to his gun control stance as much as the fact that he's a well-known public figure.
DeleteIn this thread, there are several references to the "only ones" and the special treatment of gun control advocates, but I think that's just more whining and victimism on your parts.
Just face facts, Mikeb. One of your own was caught demonstrating that he actually agrees with us. He carries a gun, presumably for self-defense.
Delete"My own," gun control advocates, for the most part do not object to gun ownership or even concealed carry. We do object to the ease with which these two things happen and we feel people should be better qualified and screened, but what you keep doing is pretending we all want total civilian disarmament. We don't, obviously.
DeleteMark Kelly was in the pro-gun news lately. The headline said he's a hypocrite for going to the gun range. This is the same lying and twisting that you keep doing. Mark Kelly does not oppose gun ownership and his going to the range is not a sign of hypocrisy.
If you guys really had right on your side, you wouldn't have to continually resort to such petty tricks.
No, Mikeb, there's nothing obvious about what you just said. You keep forgetting that we can't trust gun control groups. We know your side lies. We've seen the moments when you let the truth slip. And since you only ever push for more bans or restrictions, you can't be surprised that we doubt your claims about not wanting to disarm everyone.
DeleteFor you to call anyone else a liar, is the definition of hypocrisy.
DeleteMikeB: “Mark Kelly does not oppose gun ownership and his going to the range is not a sign of hypocrisy.”
DeleteBut he does opposed AR-15 ownership, and he went out and bought one of those.
TS, I don't believe that. I'll bet you heard in on InfoWars.com.
DeleteDo you really not remember this stuff?
Deletehttp://mikeb302000.blogspot.com/2013/03/gabby-giffords-husband-mark-kelly-buys.html
I had to look up what inforwars.com is, but no, I heard it at an even shadier website than that.
DeleteThat's a good one, even shadier.
DeleteThe buying of an AR was to show how easy it is and the plan was to turn in into the Tucson police dept. That's a pretty weak case for hypocrisy, man.
Oh, please. Mark Kelly’s excuse is what is very weak. Let’s count up the ways:
Delete1) The big debate at the time was over banning “assault weapons” and banning private sales without an FFL. So why didn’t he buy the AR-15 from a private seller, especially since that has been the bigger issue for his PAC than banning AR-15s. Why would he instead go to an FFL to show the country how someone with a perfectly clean record and enough government security clearance to send him up into space could pass a background check? That doesn’t make any sense.
2) If his plan was to show the country how easy it is for him to buy an AR-15, then why didn’t he document the sale? He didn’t take video, or audio recording, or notify the press to witness the transaction- nothing. How was he supposed to “show” us how easy it was? And he only spoke up about it after he was caught buying the guns by pro-gun people in the shop who recognized him and took pictures, and it made rounds on the internet. You got to admit, that looks pretty bad.
3) He wasn’t even able to take the gun home that day. I not sure why, maybe it was backordered, but again how does that help his point about “how easy it is” when he had to wait to come back another day and pick it up. Tying in with no.1, why wouldn’t he seek out a private transaction, or at least one where he could walk out with the gun that day and say “see?”
4) And then to top it all off, he was denied purchase of the gun! Because he had to wait, and this story was broken by pro-gun folks, and he made up that excuse that he didn’t buy the gun for himself, the dealer ended up nixing the sale. So his little excuse of a plan backfired on him, because instead he showed how a public figure with a clean record and high level government security clearance wasn’t able to buy an AR-15. Did he even try to complete the plan and go buy another? No.
Mike, you really won’t question anything somebody from your side tells you, will you?
That's not an accurate description of me, what you said on the end.
DeleteYour lengthy comment seems to prove that Mark Kelly is a bumbling idiot rather than a hypocrite, or at least that his methods and motives are unclear. The original accusation is wrong. If he'd been spotted sneaking to the range whooping it up with his own personal AR-15, that might do it. But this is clutching at straws, or weak bullshit on your part.
Fine, believe he’s a “bumbling idiot” then, whose plan falls somewhere between Operation Fast & Furious and Sir Bedivere’s plan to take the taunting French castle in terms of being well thought out. So why should we listen to this guy’s plan on gun policy?
DeleteNo, you're the one who went to such lengths to prove him a bumbling idiot, I don't buy it. But the point I made was your earlier accusation that he's a hypocrite for having bought an AR was total bullshit.
DeleteIf he'd been spotted sneaking to the range whooping it up with his own personal AR-15, that might do it.
ReplyDeleteI don't have any pics of Kelly "whooping it up" at the range with an AR-15, but his wife (now so brain damaged she supports "gun control") certainly seems to have had fun liberally (pun not particularly intended) ventilating a target picturing a rather young looking fellow.