The Cops Aren't Coming

I said it during the defund the police campaigns.

I'm saying it again with the local politicians talking about the potential effects of Florida's proposed Amendment 3.

If the cops aren't coming, then the cops aren't coming.

That means that the normal people are free to act against criminals in a way unremembered since we delegated our police power to the people doing it for a living.

Criminals, you REALLY want the cops to come because the average person has no way to jail you and no motivation at all to hold a trial after catching you red handed.

Essentially it's a judge, jury and (literal) executioner situation without worries of the cops second guessing the decision.

Bring it, you tax fattened hyenas. 

I Can Think Of Several Finer Groups Of People

Pat Harrigan (R-NC) wants LEOSA style carry for current and former Special Forces personnel.

He says he can think no finer group of people...

First, fuck you Pat.

Second, I can think of a finer group who is far more deserving of national reciprocity.

Everyone.

I've been opposed every and all LEO sop law ever proposed or passed.

We don't need more "only ones" legislation.  We need more everyone's.

I especially love the quote, "If enacted, the law would represent a significant expansion of gun-carry rights for service members and veterans, creating a new nationwide benefit not currently available to most civilians."

Let me amend that:

If enacted, the law would represent a significant expansion of gun-carry rights for SOME service members and SOME veterans, creating a new nationwide benefit not currently available to most civilians. 

An infinitesimally small portion of service members and veterans, I might add. 

A Reply To The Help

Heroes

The California Highway Patrol is staffed by heroes.

 Ayup, that's one super deadly gun there.

Not one mention of returning it to its rightful owner, is there? 

Jeff, You Cleared Up Any Doubt For Me

FOP is constantly on the wrong side of freedom and liberty in Florida and this scare tactic is bullshit since funding for fire, law enforcement and schools is guaranteed.

In other words, Jeff is lying through his teeth and he knows it.

Again.

I remember FOP and their position on conceal carry, open carry, campus carry, 18-21 year olds carrying, waiting periods, bump stocks, and anything NFA.

So, pardon me, if I just vote for my self interests and tell the help they can suck it up or find productive employment. 

I Have A Potential Solution

Dear gun makers, want this shit to end?

Stop all government sales.

No sales to any government entity or employee.

State, clearly, "people no get, cop no get," and watch the police lobbying organizations suddenly become pro-gun.

Ammo makers, you too.

The only reason places like NY and Cali keep doing this disarmament shit by a thousand cuts is because they know they have the support of the cops who still get theirs even if no civilian can own a gun.

I would not be surprised to find SIG-Sauer at the heart of all this, because their business model is centered on agency, government and military sales.  Losing the civilian market suits them and they'd be pleased to have monopoly status.

They should ask H&K and Colt how that works out in the long run. 

Progressive

The road from high-trust to low-trust societies follows a predictable path.

One of the first steps is the entities that have been entrusted with keeping order, refusing to do so or being selective about what order they keep.

Anarchotyranny is the result.

The classic example is a homeowner who has suffered through repeated thefts and burglaries and receiving no justice who decides enough is enough and administers some on their own.

The people who are supposed to be investigating the crimes that led to this, enforcing the law and meting out punishment...  Come down hard on the homeowner.

The homeowner did, assuredly, break the law; but the motives matter.

What was the government doing to keep them from losing their property?

Had they arrested anyone?

Had they secured a conviction?

Did they even bother to actually investigate past taking a vague description or logging the video of the crime?

The government and police have failed in their duties and since they are given powers delegated from The People, it is the right of The People to reclaim those powers from the government and police.

But there's a simple solution:  Just make it legal to shoot burglars and thieves in the act of stealing AND/OR running from the scene of the crime.

Fuck 'em.

Because if the cops don't start arresting people and the district attorney doesn't start getting convictions:  People are going to start killing criminals on their own and will shortly thereafter start shooting the police who try to stop them.

It's a place we, as a society, do not want to be; but the first step back from the brink is the hardest and it's on Leviathan to make it. 

Then Stop Paying Them

The courts, again, have ruled that the police don't have to do the job that the public thinks they should be doing.

The police in question, this time from Ulvade, Texas, again, have shown that they like the power that authority gives as long as they don't have to run towards the sound of gunfire and actually be the heroes they often claim title to.

I'm watching video of the police not doing their jobs when riots rage and property is destroyed.

Once again, I am asking, "why are we paying them?"

At least twice I've seen parents being held at a perimeter while their children were being murdered while the police did nothing but maintain that perimeter.

What good were those cops?

Yes, I am aware of police who do live up to the title of hero and represent the ideal.

Because it's becoming very apparent that they are a minority, laws need to be changed to force the majority to adhere to the expectations of their employers, The People.

The court's rulings might be valid if one small thing was different about becoming a cop.

If they were conscripted, perhaps, there would be a point that we couldn't expect them to enter a dangerous situation where they could be killed in the course of saving the citizens they swore to defend.

But they weren't involuntarily conscripted to the job.

They volunteered.  They actively sought the education and training to become cops.

THEY WANTED THE JOB!

Until the moment comes where the reason they have medical and pension plans far in excess to the people surrounding them hoves into view.

Then they refuse.

The military, something that lots of cops like to emulate, has a term: dereliction of duty.

What happened at so many school massacres is a dereliction of duty.

A duty they swore to do, refused to do, and then begged the courts to get out of the consequences of that dereliction.

Well, fellow citizens, I think we should start getting our congresses to stop sucking cop cock so damn hard and to remember who THEY work for.

Get of your asses. 

He Makes Some Good Points

For me the entire point was never to open carry, but to get sheriffs like Judd off my ass when my conceal fails because they can't understand brief and unintentional.

But making open carry illegal because it's tactically unsound?  Fuck off.

I Disagree

Bearing Arms author Tom Knighton feels that shooting that autistic kid was self defense on the part of the cops.

I have a huge problem with that.

All they needed to do was to step back four feet from the fence and the kid could have waved that knife menacingly all day.  They were not in imminent danger.

Tom, stop licking the jackboots.

It's not self defense unless and until you're in imminent danger.

Next, I think it's high time we get night sticks back on the belts of law enforcement.

This could have ended with the kid having a broken wrist instead of being ventilated by four cops and lots of rounds.

Back in a better time shooting the suspect was not the first choice.  It was well down the list.

I know that we're jumpy about night sticks since Rodney King, but it's the original less lethal weapon for cops to carry.  Hell, in many places that truncheon was a constable's only weapon for a long time.

I've watched the video, and saw that the police didn't do fuck all to de-escalate the situation.  They rolled up, gave orders and when they weren't instantly obeyed, they opened fire.

Fuck you Pigs!

A free citizen doesn't owe you instant obedience.

Fuck you and your officer safety trigger happy bullshit too.

We give far too much deference to them while we forget that they're on the vanguard of fucking us out of our liberties and rights.

It's almost enough to say, "defund the police."

In Accordance With Departmental Guidelines?

These four officers are fucking heroes.  No doubt about it.

Unloading on an autistic kid with a knife while on the other side of a barrier.

I, for one, am ecstatic that they all got to go home safe.

Because that's what's important.

That cops are safe.

That's all that matters.

The above is sarcasm, just in case you can't parse it.

I'm utterly fed up with cops being held to a lower standard than the general populace.

There was very little that autistic person could have done with that knife from the other side of the fence.  That means there was no imminent danger to the four officers.

The autistic person was also, apparently, contained in their own yard, so no imminent threat to the public.

What, most likely, happened here was Karen got mad at the kid, dialed 911 and started filming.

Except for The Boy having a knife or getting shot, we've been here and done that a lot.

The main difference is our sheriff isn't in the habit of hiring and covering for cowards.

The Boy, in fact, was a driving force in the local department changing training and guidelines for dealing with the mentally challenged!  Some of my legal drama contributed, in fact.

 

You Know What Officer You're Right

Your job SHOULD be easy.

Yet...  There's that 4th Amendment in the way.  There's that 5th Amendment in the way.  There's that 6th Amendment in the way.  There's that 8th Amendment in the way.

Four amendments that are there, pretty much, solely to keep government from speedily and easily arresting, convicting and incarcerating us.

All of the Bill of Rights are about making the job of government harder because the liberty of the citizenry was thought to be more important than efficient government.

So, actually, Mr Spokesman of the Large Police Organization:  You are wrong.

Your job is supposed to be difficult.

You are supposed to work for it.  Earn it.

DEAL WITH IT.

Liberty does not come without warts, but you're supposed to exist in a world where us normal folk are in charge and giving you duties we want performed.  You're not supposed to be dictating terms to us and suborning our elected officials against us.

We'll, eventually, get those turncoats gone.

Then where will you be?

Can I quote someone whom you should be familiar with and emulating?

"[T]he power of the police to fulfil their functions and duties is dependent on public approval of their existence, actions and behaviour, and on their ability to secure and maintain public respect."

-R. Peel.

Learn it, love it, live it, Officer.

If This Were Us

If I got busted selling an NFA item without a Form 4, or selling a non-transferable NFA item to a normal person:  I'd be in jail!

But Bradley Wendt, police chief of Adair, Iowa, is not in jail.

Is he?

Hey!  WAIT!  He is!  Or will be once he loses his appeal.

But something he says worries me.

"If I'm guilty of this, every cop in the nation's going to jail."

Exactly how widespread is cops selling NFA stuff without the proper taxes and licenses?

And, honestly, how can we get more of it because, clearly, the sales aren't feeding crime beyond the malum prohibitum violation of the NFA.

The only reason I wouldn't be getting an M134 from the trunk of my local LEO's car is I can't afford the $6,000 a minute rate of fire.  But I'd damn sure like a couple lowers with giggle switches.

I think that this conviction and the statement of the former police chief are evidence enough to end the stupidity of the NFA and let us have our liberty back.

Open Carry

I want my right to open carry back.

I am also unlikely to exercise that right.

There's lots of good reasons to keep it concealed and many reasons to not advertise that you're toting.

Those reasons are not the point.

I am being denied a right.

That alone would be enough, but the people who are politically powerful and denying my that right are dishonest about it.

The consistently fail to compellingly communicate why I shouldn't be able exercise my right.

They very rarely cite the reasons I alluded to above.

I reject, out of hand, "officer safety."  That bat has been used to beat me too many times.

Very often the spokesweasels for the police and their professional organizations bring forth the hoary old, "It will make our jobs harder."

So?

I think it's within a citizens rights to demand that their civil servants life be made more difficult.  Did you ever think of that, Sheriff?  That we WANT you to work harder for the vast sums of money that your agency consumes?

But does it really make their jobs harder?

I guess it would.  If open carry is legal, then they can't just arrest everyone without the Seal of the King* on their chest they see with a weapon.

Ever notice, while they are not citing the solid reasons to not open carry I allude to near the top of this rant, cops, deputies, chiefs, sheriffs, police unions and law enforcement organizations and lobbies never advocate for LEOs to stop open carrying?

Wearing of arms, historically, is a badge of rank.  A divider between the nobility and the commoner.

Well, Sheriff, there ain't no nobility in a Republic; or rather we're ALL noble because we're all sovereign.** 

This is all about political power and elitism.  If I can openly carry, then they aren't special.  They are not elevated above me.

The truth of the matter is they are beneath me.  They're supposed to be working for us not telling us what we can and cannot do.

*Badge
**Not to be confused with the Sovereign Citizen Movement

Done Fucked Up

I noticed right away that Chief Hagen had not read an important part of 870.044.  That'd be the reference, "pursuant to s. 870.043.

He quotes most of 870.044...

Title XLVI CRIMES

Chapter 870 AFFRAYS; RIOTS; ROUTS; UNLAWFUL ASSEMBLIES

SECTION 044Automatic emergency measures.

---

870.044 Automatic emergency measures.—Whenever the public official declares that a state of emergency exists, pursuant to s. 870.043, the following acts shall be prohibited during the period of said emergency throughout the jurisdiction:

(1) The sale of, or offer to sell, with or without consideration, any ammunition or gun or other firearm of any size or description.

(2) The intentional display, after the emergency is declared, by or in any store or shop of any ammunition or gun or other firearm of any size or description.

(3) The intentional possession in a public place of a firearm by any person, except a duly authorized law enforcement official or person in military service acting in the official performance of her or his duty.

Nothing contained in this chapter shall be construed to authorize the seizure, taking, or confiscation of firearms that are lawfully possessed, unless a person is engaged in a criminal act.

History.—ss. 4, 5, ch. 70-990; s. 1401, ch. 97-102; s. 2, ch. 2006-100.

That part I've highlighted is important (h/t Erin).  But far more important is what 870.043 says about WHEN you can evoke 870.044!

Title XLVI CRIMES

Chapter 870 AFFRAYS; RIOTS; ROUTS; UNLAWFUL ASSEMBLIES

SECTION 043Declaration of emergency.

---

870.043 Declaration of emergency.—Whenever the sheriff or designated city official determines that there has been an act of violence or a flagrant and substantial defiance of, or resistance to, a lawful exercise of public authority and that, on account thereof, there is reason to believe that there exists a clear and present danger of a riot or other general public disorder, widespread disobedience of the law, and substantial injury to persons or to property, all of which constitute an imminent threat to public peace or order and to the general welfare of the jurisdiction affected or a part or parts thereof, he or she may declare that a state of emergency exists within that jurisdiction or any part or parts thereof.

History.—s. 3, ch. 70-990; s. 1400, ch. 97-102.

Where's the riot, Chief?  870.044 isn't for just any emergency, it's for a specific kind of emergency.  More along the lines of reining in the KKK or "mostly peaceful" protesting.

I think Donald has stepped in it here.  GOA-Florida is on it and we have a statute that lets us sue government busybodies who get gun stuff wrong.  They don't even get to hide behind their office.

FFS, I'm not even a lawyer and I keep discovering just how ignorant cops and elected officials are about the law. 

Arrested For The Bad Shoot

Former Deputy Eddie "Triggerhappy" Duran has been arrested in connection with the shooting death of Airman Roger Fortson.

Good!

Even with Crump's involvement, this is good news.

Manslaughter seems light.  I'm in favor of laws that up the charge for an agent of the state by at least one level when they break the law.

Now Charge Him

I remember back 6 years ago when someone who was actually threatening someone got their ass killed and the person who killed them got convicted over it because the very slight repositioning of their feet didn't constitute a credible threat.

Former Deputy Duran used the exact same claim for using lethal force as convicted felon Drejka when shooting Airman Fortson.

Duran has been fired by the Okaloosa Sheriff's Dept for violating procedures.

This opens the door for him to be charged and I think, to be consistent, that his justification for use of force be dismissed just as Mr Drejka's was.

PS: Airman Fortson's posture was not threatening in the interaction that led to his death.  McGlockton was squared up to fight.  They aren't equivalent at all.  I feel like I needed to amend the post to make my snark a bit clearer.

Bad Shoot

If you ever wonder if it's a good shoot or a bad shoot, just ask yourself if you would be going to prison if you had done the shooting.

I say this, because except for qualified immunity, the cops operate under the same statutes as we do.

Airman Roger Fortson didn't even have his finger on the trigger of the pistol he had in hand pointed at the floor.

That got him ventilated by Deputy Triggerhappy.

Go find the bodycam, Airman Fortson didn't do anything to get shot.  No furtive movement.  He was simply at the door of his domicile with a firearm in his hand.  A prudent response to someone unexpectedly pounding on the door.

This is the kind of police shooting that gets me aligned with the defund the police because Deputy Triggerhappy has already claimed self defense, and I am certain the Okaloosa Sheriff's Department (of shots fired acorn fame) will soon affirm that all relevant training and procedures for the use of deadly force were adhered to.

I'm strongly of the opinion that your home should be sacrosanct from officer safety because, if no other place, you have the most right to be there.

I've also long held that as interchangeable representatives of The State that officers must actually receive fire before shooting, not just feel threatened.

The State came to Airman Fortson's door and had him killed because he was armed.

Clarity

I figured out how to say it!

It's not that Morgan and Morgan isn't spending money on advertising through clever accounting.

The costs to a multi-billion dollar law firm here don't matter and I shouldn't have side tracked into it.

The "we bought guns with that ad money" defense is the problem.

Morgan and Morgan was going to spend that money advertising, no matter who they hired.

So, yes, Admin and Donut are getting over, somewhat, in spending an anti-gunner's money on something their employer would be happy to see banned.

The problem is if their ad gets someone to hire Morgan and Morgan and the pittance spent at the guntubers results in a winning case for the law firm.

The law firm's cut of these judgements is significant.  Far more than they spent on ads.

If they then turn around and use that money to fund the election campaign of a district attorney who rapes gun owners every chance they get...

Sure are nice guns aren't they?  But, hey, you got yours, right?

I'm old enough to remember when we called out dancing monkeys for their hypocrisy when they owned guns and shilled for anti-gun politicians.

I can even remember people being critical of places like Taran Tactical for training dancing monkeys who shill for anti-gun politicians.

But ex-cops shilling for anti-gun lawyers?

Cool?

Alone

At the time of this writing, I believe that Florida is the only state with "constitutional carry" which also bans open carry.

Odd that.

I wonder how the other 27 states are keeping the blood from flooding the streets and how the cops manage to function with open carry making their jobs harder.