Proactive Gun Confiscations Aim to Prevent Violence in Santa Cruz County

Bob Lee (@Shmuel Thaler)

The Santa Cruz Sentinal

The Santa Cruz County District Attorney's Office has been working quietly on a program to keep guns out of the hands of felons and other offenders.

Operation Street Sweeper, spearheaded by the Santa Cruz County District Attorney's Office, has checked up on at least 48 suspects since February, according to District Attorney Bob Lee.

Investigators in the project have tried to prevent violent crime by checking on three groups of people with gun restrictions: felons, domestic violence offenders and people with mental health problems.

"We wanted to do something a little more proactive," said Lee, who first spoke publicly about the project at an Aptos Chamber of Commerce meeting.

"A lot of these people don't have guns any more. We just make sure they're not violating the law," said Lee.

Big Bruvver is Watching YOU!

You think you're so cool here on the internet talking about all your guns.  Maybe you even spout some "anti-guvment" talk in a chat room thinking that you are safe and sound.

GUESS AGAIN!

You are aware that it was the Military, not Al Gore, who developed the internet.  At one time, it was called DARPANET or ARPANET.

You'd kind think that people like NSA and GCHQ might have an "in" on how to track people on it.

But, I've been wanting to write a piece about CCTV and how that is probably a  far more effective method of stopping crime than a bunch of idiots carrying handguns.  And not all those CCTV units belong to "THE STATE".

No, if you want to come to my house, you will walk past at least 3 CCTV cameras before the one that will send your image to a remote server that is focused on MY DOOR.

And NONE of them belong to the Guvment.

But what got me to write this is something from Naomi Wolf in the Guardian:

A software engineer in my Facebook community wrote recently about his outrage that when he visited Disneyland, and went on a ride, the theme park offered him the photo of himself and his girlfriend to buy – with his credit card information already linked to it. He noted that he had never entered his name or information into anything at the theme park, or indicated that he wanted a photo, or alerted the humans at the ride to who he and his girlfriend were – so, he said, based on his professional experience, the system had to be using facial recognition technology. He had never signed an agreement allowing them to do so, and he declared that this use was illegal. He also claimed that Disney had recently shared data from facial-recognition technology with the United States military.

Yes, I know: it sounds like a paranoid rant.

Except that it turned out to be true. News21, supported by the Carnegie and Knight foundations, reports that Disney sites are indeed controlled by face-recognition technology, that the military is interested in the technology, and that the face-recognition contractor, Identix, has contracts with the US government – for technology that identifies individuals in a crowd.

Fast forward: after the Occupy crackdowns, I noted that odd-looking CCTVs had started to appear, attached to lampposts, in public venues in Manhattan where the small but unbowed remnants of Occupy congregated: there was one in Union Square, right in front of their encampment. I reported here on my experience of witnessing a white van marked "Indiana Energy" that was lifting workers up to the lampposts all around Union Square, and installing a type of camera. When I asked the workers what was happening – and why an Indiana company was dealing with New York City civic infrastructure, which would certainly raise questions – I was told: "I'm a contractor. Talk to ConEd."

I then noticed, some months later, that these bizarre camera/lights had been installed not only all around Union Square but also around Washington Square Park. I posted a photo I took of them, and asked: "What is this?" Commentators who had lived in China said that they were the same camera/streetlight combinations that are mounted around public places in China. These are enabled for facial recognition technology, which allows police to watch video that is tagged to individuals, in real time. When too many people congregate, they can be dispersed and intimidated simply by the risk of being identified – before dissent can coalesce. (Another of my Facebook commentators said that such lamppost cameras had been installed in Michigan, and that they barked "Obey", at pedestrians. This, too, sounded highly implausible – until this week in Richmond, British Columbia, near the Vancouver airport, when I was startled as the lamppost in the intersection started talking to me – in this case, instructing me on how to cross (as though I were blind or partially sighted).

The funny bit to me is that you lot are complaining up and down about your "gunz" and "statism"; one the other hand, here is a serious bit of intrusion on your privacy, yet you lot are SILENT.

Is it because it's not coming from the "State", but private enterprise?

Or is it because your masters haven't told you that you need to say anything about it?

I'm hearing you sing:

We are poor little lambs
Who have lost our way.
Baa! Baa! Baa!
We are little black sheep
Who have gone astray.
Baa! Baa! Baa!

When is it Appropriate to Disarm Someone?

NPR reports

Timothy Courtois' family had been worried about him for weeks. They repeatedly told police in Biddeford, Maine, that the 49-year-old was off his meds for bipolar disorder. And police were also told he had guns. But still, because he wasn't doing anything that rose to the legal definition of imminent threat, police said their hands were tied.

"We're very limited — very, very limited to what we can do," says Biddeford Police Deputy Chief JoAnne Fisk. "Just because somebody has a hunch, we will investigate it. But everybody has rights, and you have the right to bear arms in this country."

It was both frustrating and a relief to police and the family when Courtois was finally arrested for speeding down the highway to what could have been a tragedy. Police found an AK-47, handguns and several boxes of ammunition in Courtois' car as he drove toward New Hampshire, he reportedly told police, to shoot a former employer.

This little story, which is being repeated in every city all over the country, perfectly illustrates a serious dilemma we're facing.

All people, including gun owners, have the right to privacy and should be able to conduct their affairs without outside interference.  This is basic.  But, when the public safety is at risk, something needs to be done.  What's the solution?

In my opinion, the criterion which is generally used now is not sufficient,  It says if a person has "ever been deemed by a judge to be mentally incompetent or involuntarily committed," only then would they lose their right to own guns. Even if the reporting of such cases were 100%, which it is not, that would be setting the bar too high. We have daily examples of people who qualify under this lenient ruling and yet wreak havoc with their guns.

The only way I can see to address this problem would require a major overhaul of our gun control policy and attitudes.  It would require licensing of  gun owners with a "may issue" stipulation by the local authorities.  When an obvious situation is developing, the license can be suspended and guns forfeited.  Many lives would be saved.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

Incredible Police Brutality

via Democratic Underground

The issue of "protecting their own" is one that often comes up. Whenever the offending member of the group goes as far as these two cops did, the rest have no hesitation denouncing and disowning them. But what about less extreme examples of brutality? That's where the famous "blue wall of silence" comes into it.

It's exactly the same thing with gun owners. When one of them flips out and kills the whole family, they're quickly banished into the dark realm of "criminal." But what about all the lesser indicators of unfittness? What about the gun owner who is known to drink too much or use drugs? What about the guy who smacks the wife around once in a while and everyone knows it because of her bruises and inappropriate sunglasses?

In those cases the "protecting their own" mentality supersedes any sense of moral disapproval at the behavior or true concern. Mutual respect, not wanting to butt into each other's lives, privacy, these are the primary concerns. What's lacking is a sense of policing their own and weeding out the bad apples BEFORE something serious happens.

As Cenk said about the cops, these guys, these unfit gun owners, do enormous damage to all of you.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

Personal Privacy in 1998

Thanks to Opinione. Jon Voight's character was born on 9/11.

Random Drug Testing

On the Fifth Column site there's a fascinating post about the random drug testing which is planned in West Virginia for the Kanawha school system's teachers. The thrust of the post is that this kind of initiative is a violation of peoples' rights under the 4th Amendment.

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated…” It’s right there in the damn Constitution, which these inbred mouthbreathers might realize if they’d bother to keep reading after the Second Amendment.

I couldn't resist including that remark about the kind of people who "don't bother to keep reading after the Second Amendment." I seriously doubt that applies to anyone who comments on this blog, but we can talk about it.

The more alarming thing mentioned in the Fifth Column post is that a significant percentage of the population want this. He cites the comments received in favor of the policy in the local press.

What's your opinion? Are the kind of folks who passionately believe in the 2nd Amendment also the kind who would comply with this kind of creeping totalitarianism? Does this issue divide the gun enthusiasts into different groups? I would think the same guy who opposes gun control laws which infringe upon his rights would bristle at the prospect of random drug testing. But, maybe not. What do you think?

UK DNA Database Shot Down by EU

CNN reports on the EU ruling that prohibits the police in England from keeping DNA samples of suspected persons.

The British police practice of keeping DNA records of anyone they arrest is a human rights violation, The European Court of Human Rights ruled unanimously Thursday.

I wondered how this fits into our recent discussions about tyranny coming to the UK. Some of our commenters feel that the draconian gun laws in the UK are a prelude to out and out tyranny. The fact that the police had been building a database of DNA samples, not only of convicted and proven miscreants, but of innocent people exonerated of any guilt, seems to add credence to the theory. Is tyranny coming to the UK?

Like many of our discussions, I think there's a big gray area in this one. How much privacy are citizens entitled to? How much of that would they be willing to give up for increased security? Video surveillance is an example. It's become commonplace, especially in London they say, and we accept it as doing more harm than good. Or, do you oppose the video cameras? Do you oppose DNA databases for criminals? They have a right to privacy too, don't they?

I'm in agreement with the Labour Home site, which says the following about the EU ruling:

In fact it was the unanimous decision of a court of seventeen judges!

This decision is excellent news.

What's your take on it?