Category: Guns

If guns are your issue, Utah might be the place to live if the links that David sent us this morning are to be believed.

A homeowner arrived at his home to discover a man with a prybar at his door and a woman in his driveway honking the horn on her car frantically to warn prybar guy;

“He saw a male exit the home, he had some type of pry-bar in his hand. The homeowner then returned to his car and retrieved a handgun from his car and two rounds were fired before officers arrived. We’re still investigating where the rounds were fired,” said Layton Police Lt. Shawn Horton.

The male suspect, identified as 43-year-old Robert Santos Cruz, tried running from the house as officers arrived, but he was caught a short time later.

Meanwhile, Utah’s sheriffs have sent a letter to President Obama warning him that they won’t violate Second Amendment protection in their counties – well, 28 of 29 counties, anyway;

Part of the letter reads, “No federal official will be permitted to descend upon our constituents and take from them what the Bill of Rights—in particular Amendment II—has given them.”

Summit County Sheriff Dave Edmunds, the head of the Utah Sheriffs’ Association, says the letter is just a preemptive warning saying that if anything unconstitutional is passed, local authorities will not enforce it.

Edmunds says that he doesn’t object to anything proposed by the Obama Administration already.

“We thought it prudent from our position knowing full well what the manifest intent of that administration is and they’re being very clear about it, they want gun regulation in this country and they want it to be more widespread,” Edmunds said.

And there’s murmurs in the legislature to loosen gun laws in the state;

Rep. John Mathis, R-Vernal, is proposing legislation that says that if you can legally own a gun you can legally carry it, whether it’s open or concealed.

But Curtis Haring of Utah Political Capitol disagrees; he says Utah’s concealed carry permit system is fine.

“We want to make sure we have reasonable set of gun laws, much like the status quo,” Haring said. “Do we want to be seen as a state where just anybody can walk around with a gun at any time?”

Oh, scary – gun owners just walking around with guns. I guess because we only buy guns to hang on our wall for show when we’re not out hunting. As one legislator said; “The mere fact that you’re legally carrying a gun does not constitute disorderly conduct.”

Brian sends us this video of Joel Smith who is licensed to carry a concealed weapon when he was pulled over by Citrus County, Florida deputy Alan Cox. After showing the officer his license and registration, he puts his wallet in his hip pocket and the officer sees his weapon and goes ballistic;

When the case went to court, the prosecutor wouldn’t press charges because he didn’t think the jury would prosecute. Yeah, I guess not since Smith was legally carrying his weapon and not brandishing it.

That’s why my concealed carry permit is with my driver’s license, so if I get stopped for something by the authorities, I can hand over both so they can see that I have a weapon and I’m within my legal rights to carry it, without giving them time to wonder about me. And I don’t have to say the word “gun” in case there’s a rookie cop on the other side of the car with his itchy trigger finger.

Yes, the officer in this case was wrong. I can understand cuffing Smith until he can prove that he’s legally carrying a gun concealed, but arresting him and letting it get to the prosecutor was a misstep. I’m sure there was something else going on in Citrus County that day which needed more attention than Joel Smith. But Mr Smith should have handed the officer his permit with his license to preclude the drama he got to participate in that day.

Deputy Cox is currently on suspension according to the news report while the Sheriff’s Office investigates his actions that day.

Eggs sends us a link from the Associated Press that, for some odd reason, isn’t getting much coverage in the news. It seems that one student shot and injured another student before he was disarmed by the resource officer;

The wounded boy was taken “alert, conscious and breathing” to Grady Memorial Hospital, said police spokesman Carlos Campos. He was expected to be released Thursday night.

Police swarmed the school of about 400 students after reports of the shooting while a crowd of anxious parents gathered in the streets, awaiting word on their children. Students were kept at the locked-down school for more than two hours before being dismissed.

Investigators believe the shooting was not random and that something occurred between the two students that may have led to it.

Schools Superintendent Erroll Davis said the school does have metal detectors.

Given how much school shootings have been in the news in recent years, you’d think that one that was nearly thwarted would be headline stuff, but I haven’t seen it in my travels around the internet today.

So, my take away is that metal detectors aren’t dependable, or at less dependable than armed resource officers. I’m sure someone else will take away something completely different.

Several of you folks have sent us links to the story about former sergeant Nathan H. Haddad who was arrested in Jefferson County, NY, near Fort Drum for possession of five 30-round magazines. Reports are sketchy on the actual facts. The Watertown Times says that he was arrested “when he was found with prohibited rounds of ammunition” – but there are no “prohibited rounds” in New York State except exploding ammunition and it’s doubtful that he had any of those. More likely, he was arrested for possession of 30-round magazines as others are reporting. Like this one at Off-Grid;

On Sunday January 6th Staff Sgt. Nathan Haddad, a decorated combat veteran, was driving through Jefferson County New York when he was randomly pulled over for a vehicle check. Haddad, who had five 30 round empty magazines in his possession, was arrested by the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department and charged with five felony counts.

According to Haddad’s brother, Michael Haddad, Nathan thought these magazines were legally made before the New York Assault Weapons Ban. When Nathan Haddad was arrested the new ban had not even been fully enacted yet.

The problem with that analysis is that 30-round magazines have been illegal in New York State since September 14, 1994 under the last Governor Cuomo. The latest legislation which defines “large capacity ammunition feeding device” as having more than seven-round capacity and that legislation doesn’t take effect until next year, but 30-round magazines are currently illegal there regardless.

But, yes, it is bullshit. By all accounts, Nathan H. Haddad was a fine soldier and a model for other wounded soldiers to emulate, but as anyone who has ever lived in New York knows, you don’t give them an excuse to make an example of you – because they will certainly do that, no matter who you are.

The folks at the NRA’s Life of Duty send us their latest video “Catch and Release;

NRA Life of Duty presented by Brownells is proud to announce the release of this month’s Patriot Profile Feature “Catch & Release”. Brought to you by Smith & Wesson, this documentary shares the story of two Spokane County Deputies shot in the line of duty by a felon who had no business being on the street.

On June 19, 2012 Deputy Matt Spink and Deputy Michael Northway pulled a vehicle over in an investigative traffic stop, to question known associates of a dangerous felon regarding his whereabouts. Unbeknown to them, Charles Wallace, the man they were looking for sat in the front passenger seat in a disguise. The driver, a woman, and a small child were also in the car. As deputies approached the car, Wallace rolled out of the vehicle and shot them with their weapons holstered. He fled on foot and the occupants in the vehicle fled as well.
“This story is one of heroism and healing, unquestionable valor and unthinkable ignorance.”

(more…)

If you are a reader of comments here at American Thinker then you have probably noticed an increasing use of the term molon labe. For those of you unfamiliar with the term and too busy (or too lazy) to look it up, I’ve done it for you. It is a Greek expression first attributed to King Leonidas of Sparta when the Persian invader Xerxes I, prior to the Battle of Thermopylae, demanded that the Spartans lay down their arms and submit to him. Its essential meaning was, “Up yours, pal: come do your worst.” In so many words, it is the Greek equivalent of the response of Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe* of the 101st Airborne Division, who when surrounded at Bastogne, Belgium during WWII, reportedly said, “Nuts!” to a German demand for surrender. Screaming Eagle lore has it that the defiant general’s actual response to the German general was in language unreportable in those more discreet days, “Eff you, Kraut!” Whatever, the unflinching meaning of both statements is abundantly clear:

“Come on, hoss; take your best shot.”

According to multiple web sources, molon labe now translates to an unwavering, “Come and take it,” as in Charleton Heston’s defiant challenge at the 2000 NRA convention, “From my cold dead hands.” Considering that the expression, in one form or another, has been quite forcefully and purposefully addressed to would-be tyrants by very strong and admirable men, from Leonidas to Heston, many of us find a sense of oneness with men of such resolve, embracing their defiance and applying it to our own determination to defend our constitutional right to keep and bear protective weaponry free from federal constraints.

As James Webb has documented in his seminal work, Born Fighting, How the Scots-Irish Shaped America, we Americans out here in fly-over country are not a people ever to be persuaded to surrender our arms. As descendants of those highlanders and frontier mountain settlers who kept weapons close to hand to ensure their survival, America’s largest ethnic group feels a deep ancestral imperative to do the same. No wannabee elitist, utopian pol attempting a socialist Sherman’s March through our national heritage is ever going to change that attitude in these millions of Americans. Many citizens of fly-over America may have no clue as to the meaning of the term molon labe, but the essence of the concept is inherently embodied, and embraced in every fiber of their beings. Dismissed by the liberal coastal elites as bitter clingers to their God and their guns, they are in fact that huge segment of America, both comfortable with and accustomed to, the everyday presence of firearms in their homes and their hands, and most importantly, confident in their ability to use them when threatened by criminals or tyrants. Tens of millions of contemporary Americans are descended from those Scots-Irish highlanders and Appalachian frontiersmen, a people renowned as born fighting. Molon labe may be Greek in its origins but it is thoroughly Scots-Irish in its present-day application.

Molon labe, Mr. President.

*General McAuliffe was himself of the Irish Clan McAuliffe

Crossposted at American Thinker