Because when left up to the discretion of law enforcement, those law enforcement officers given to being pricks will be pricks — and you’ll either comply with them or you’ll suffer. How much you suffer — or where they’re allowed to exert their prickness — depends on just how much leeway you give them to presume you guilty until you prove otherwise.
And that’s what these universal background checks do: without a registry, proving you’ve obtained a weapon with a background check is going to be impossible. And that opens you up to shit like this: “Texas Soldier Arrested for ‘Rudely Displaying’ Weapon“:
I just got off the phone with Army Master Sergeant. C. J. Grisham, a serving American soldier and veteran of the the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, who recently was illegally disarmed by the Temple Police Department while out for a walk with his son.
“We live out in the country in Texas, near Temple,” he told me. “My son and I were on a ten-mile hike so that he could earn his hiking merit badge – it’s the last badge he needs to become an Eagle Scout.” But half way into the hike, Grisham said, “a police officer pulled up.” Initially, he was “cordial” and he “asked what we were doing.” Grisham told him. “Then he looked at my rifle. I carry a rifle any time I walk around because there are feral hogs and cougars and things like that.”
From here, things took a turn for the worse.
“‘Where you going with that rifle?’ he asked me. I said, ‘does it matter? Am I breaking any laws?’” Then, he says, the officer “grabbed the rifle without telling me – but it was attached to me. My immediate reaction as a combat veteran was to grab it back and then take a step back. I asked him what he was doing. So he pulled his gun on me. Then I thought about my son, so I put my hands off my gun and he told me to move over to the car. Luckily my son had the video camera to document the hike for his merit badge. I told him to turn it on.”
[…]
Note the officers’ ignorance of the rules they are there to uphold, the suggestion that the law doesn’t apply in this “day and age,” and the persistent claim that American citzens are presumed to have their weapons illegally unless otherwise demonstrated. Note the officer’s claim that merely owning a gun makes someone dangerous. Note the conflation of a soldier in a war zone with a citizen in rural Texas. Note the presistent refusal to explain what law Grisham has broken.
I urge you to go read the rest of account. And I particularly urge you to pay close attention to how the police make up “rights” for themselves that they deny you. The plebes. Even in Texas.
I’m disgusted. But I’m not surprised. Yesterday we saw in Boston the bravery of law enforcement; here in Texas, we see the arrogance that sometimes comes along with it, too.
(h/t Pablo)
link
No safe State exists any more.
I find myself increasingly in sympathy with those who would declare the enactment of malum prohibitum laws to be in itself malum in se.
it’s good to stay far away from the piggy piggy pension whores no matter what state you’re in cause they’re erratic and unstable, most of them
Just sent an email to the Temple, TX, Mayor, William Jones, asking for his position on this arrest. You can find contact information here: http://www.ci.temple.tx.us/
No more background checks, indeed. Thanks for posting this, Jeff. On a personal note, it’s been years since I’ve commented here but used to be a regular in my own warped way. Thanks for continuing to do all you do…..for the children, of course.
I like how he was charged with resisting arrest and nothing else. I’m just a stupid civilian, but it seems that they must have had something else they were arresting him for before he could have resisted arrest.
These stupid pigs need to be beaten bloody, and then fired.
BREAKING: Backdoor Registration? MO Omitted That ATF Made Request
A previous attempt at disarming the populace:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Samuel_Whittemore_Monument.jpg
Well if he wasn’t guilty then why was he resisting, Pablo?
The year was around 1986. The location was a subdivision on the edge of farmland and then woods. The suspects were a group of 12 to 14 year old boys carrying rifles. They’d knock on the doors of their friends and the dangerous mob would grow.
This was less than 30 years ago.
I doubt much thought is ever given to such things but perhaps the cops should recognize the eerie coincidence that they too can best be described as a “man with a gun”.
Often, they also act sorta dodgy and strange. Like right here for instance. Now we have “a man with a gun acting suspiciously”. Imagine hearing that over the police scanner! Better turn on the lights and hit the gas.
I suppose the only thing worse would be if they aimed their weapon at another person. Oops, that happened here as well, didn’t it? So, now we have a “suspicious man waving his gun around”.
I wonder how they’d react to someone like themselves?
beaten bloody then fired works for me
sounds good
I’m not sure why he should only be fired. This appears to be a clear cut civil rights offense that the local DA should be acting upon already.
Further, if you point your gun at a man to commit this crime, that sounds like a mandatory felony to me.
yes good point the local DA needs to get off his pig-loving ass and stand up for America
here is the internet website page for the Bell county District Attorney his name is Henry Garza, and what Henry Garza needs to do is get off his pig-loving ass and stand up for America
I think it’d be very useful if someone (or many) sent a well-worded email to Henry Garza asking about his apparent dereliction of duty.
[I made a mistake above by saying the cop “aimed their weapon at another person”. I don’t know that this actually happened. The victim only states that the assailant “pulled his gun on me.”]
you have to email his secretary it looks like
that would be kathy.hogue@co.bell.tx.us
Awhile back I was motivated to talk with a local cop about police behavior in Jeff’s neighborhood. He comes over for Packer parties from time to time and he’s a nice, easygoing guy.
His thoughts were basically that bad cops have bad superiors and work in a bad environment entirely. He thought that most rogue cops weren’t rogue so much as the dumber and meaner ones in a badly managed department.
Guy used to work for Milwaukee PD before moving to the suburbs.
Has anyone above this particular cop made any sort of disapproving public statement? They should learn that this makes them suspect by their silence. Perhaps they need to be taught this lesson.
i strive fairly consistently through my assiduous commentings to communicate to the piggy piggy pension slut law enforcement community that they have something of a p.r. challenge on their hands
this is a thankless task and I am but a wee lonesome pikachu but the first step towards turning the situation around will be for them to realize they have a problem
but no they persist in the delusion that most people think they’re all mostly brave and stalwart first responder heroes and “there’s just a few bad apples”
part of the problem is that law enforcement people are generally kinda dim to start with, so they are very susceptible to delusion
In Barak Obama’s America that’s an armed insurrection requiring that Posse Comitatus be suspended immediately! imediately! immediately!
Resisting arrest? WTF? Usually, they charge you with “disorderly conduct” when
you aren’t being obsequiousthey don’t like your attitude.I imagine such things are as strange and foreign to Obama as dog-eating in Indonesia and hearing the beautiful Muslim call to prayer would be for the average American, Ernst.
zing!
That cop looks like he was a few cheeseburgers short of a happy meal, so he decided to make up the difference in cheese puffs.
No safe State exists any more.
No state is ever safe; the trick is keeping the authorities in check. I’ll be curious to see what becomes of this. Our media machinery may be feeble by comparison to that of the Progressive Behemoth, but it’s plenty powerful enough to make life interesting for a small-town mayor and police chief.
The guy in the boonie hat looks like he was a few cheeseburgers short of a happy meal as well. Active Duty Soldier? God help us!
This video is precisely why I hate open carry “activists”. They sound like whiney bitches as they’re being arrested and the optics are invariably horrible.
So you’re starting a program to train our human-rights activists to be as photogenic as the other side? Maybe next time the Master Sergeant should just take a shit on the cop’s cruiser. Then the media will love him!
“Do not go gentle into that good night.”
If complaining about a LEO’s appalling ignorance of the law and scorn for a citizen’s rights sounds like a “whiney bitch,” then I’ll have some more of that, if you please.
Better that than “Thank you sir, may I have another.”
Your varmint rifle slung over your shoulder while walking through the Texas brush, hardly qualifies as open carry activist, does it? So, what do you do with your rifle if you’ve come off the trail?
[…] h/t Protein Wisdom […]
The rudely displaying was probably “oh my god I can see that thing, and it’s not just a regular rifle either, it’s one of those scary ones, one of those unnecessary assault kind, how rude! I must stop him immediately.”