A Geek With Guns

People often believe we live in a free country where the freedom of speech is respected. It’s not true, the United States censors people all of the time but isn’t as blatant about it as some states. Instead of outright censoring political dissidence the United States uses various laws and procedures claimed to be in place for safety reasons to determine who can and can’t speak as on blogger found out:

The North Carolina Board of Dietetics/Nutrition is threatening to send a blogger to jail for recounting publicly his battle against diabetes and encouraging others to follow his lifestyle.

Chapter 90, Article 25 of the North Carolina General Statutes makes it a misdemeanor to “practice dietetics or nutrition” without a license. According to the law, “practicing” nutrition includes “assessing the nutritional needs of individuals and groups” and “providing nutrition counseling.”

Steve Cooksey has learned that the definition, at least in the eyes of the state board, is expansive.

When he was hospitalized with diabetes in February 2009, he decided to avoid the fate of his grandmother, who eventually died of the disease. He embraced the low-carb, high-protein Paleo diet, also known as the “caveman” or “hunter-gatherer” diet. The diet, he said, made him drug- and insulin-free within 30 days. By May of that year, he had lost 45 pounds and decided to start a blog about his success.

But this past January the state diatetics and nutrition board decided Cooksey’s blog — Diabetes-Warrior.net — violated state law. The nutritional advice Cooksey provides on the site amounts to “practicing nutrition,” the board’s director says, and in North Carolina that’s something you need a license to do.

Isn’t that a nice little scam to censor speech? First you require anybody practicing dietetics or nutrition to be licensed and then you make the act of providing nutritional “counseling” without said license illegal. Since counseling is a pretty good catch-all term that can be applied to any advocacy you can effectively prevent individuals from speaking about a topic unless they’re approved by the state.

If you’re being attacked by a police officer defending yourself will likely lead to your death. What happens when a police officer tries to stop a fellow police officer from attacking an innocent person though? The defender is deemed “psychologically unfit” to be a police officer:

So why aren’t those good cops busy tasering their off-base colleagues? Or at least giving them a good thumping?

The answer, it appears is “Regina Tasca.” She’s a Bogota, New Jersey, police officer who responded to a medical call to transport an emotionally disturbed young man to the hospital. As per protocol, she called for backup. Two officers from Ridgefield arrived on the scene, and proceeded to whomp on Kyle, the guy they were supposedly helping.

[...]

Even worse, Kyle was never charged, nor arrested, for any offense. Tasca says it’s because he never threatened, did not have a weapon, and indeed never resisted and was not violent. Eventually Tasca was able to pry the punching Ridgefield Park officer off Kyle, as seen in a picture taken by the Kyle’s mother, who also later commended Tasca in a phone call.

You know what comes next, right? Yeah. After physically intervening against two violent colleagues-in-blue, Tasca’a job is at stake. She faces a departmental trial on charges that she’s “psychologically unfit” to be a police officer.

I suppose that could be true. It all depends on what you’re looking for in your police officers — and what kind of cops you’re trying to screen out.

I think the last line is telling, the cop that was actually trying to defend the innocent person is being considered “psychologically unfit” which leads one to ponder what kind of psychological profile police departments are looking for. Perhaps they want the violent bullies patrolling the streets and beating on bystanders.

How many people do you know that have spent time in one of the state’s cages? How many of those people were later found innocent of any wrongdoing? How many of the people found guilty were actually guilty of a crime involving a victim? The state loves to throw innocent people into cages and it’s always good to read stories about payback:

Venus Green, who was 87 when she was handcuffed, roughed up and injured by police, will receive $95,000 as part of a settlement with Baltimore City. The city chose to settle the case instead of taking a chance in front of a jury.

“We thought we would have a difficult time in front of a city jury, or any jury,” Baltimore City solicitor George Nilson said.

[...]

In July 2009, Green’s grandson, Tallie, was shot and wounded. Tallie said he was shot at a convenience store, but police insisted it happened inside Green’s house and that the shooter was either Tallie or Green.

“Police kept questioning him. They wouldn’t let the ambulance attendant treat him,” Green said. “So, I got up and said, ‘Sir, would you please let the attendants treat him? He’s in pain,’” Green said.
Green said the officer said to her, “Oh, you did it, come on, let’s go inside. I’ll prove where that blood is. You did it.”

Police wanted to go the basement, where Tallie lived, but Green refused on the basis that the police did not have a warrant.

[...]

A struggle ensued between a male officer and Green.

“He dragged me, threw me across the chair, put handcuffs on me and just started calling me the ‘b’ name. He ridiculed me,” Green said.

An officer went into the basement and Green locked him inside.

“She locked the door, the basement door. She basically took matters into her own hands,” Nilson said.

“This was my private home, and if I latched it, that was my prerogative because he had no search warrant to go in my basement. So, I had to right to latch it,” Green said.

Venus Green is awesome. Since she was on her way to a cage for a crime she didn’t commit it is only fitting that she tossed her aggressor in a cage as well.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is following in the footsteps of every government agency before it by continually expanding its power:

A new program in Houston will place undercover TSA agents and police officers on buses whose job it will be to perform bag searches, watch for “suspicious activity” and interrogate passengers in order to ‘curb crime and terrorism’.

Democratic Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee unveiled the program, labeled Bus Safe, during a press conference on Friday. According to a Metropolitan Transit Authority of Houston (METRO) press release, agencies involved in the scheme will, “ride buses, perform random bag checks, and conduct K-9 sweeps, as well as place uniformed and plainclothes officers at Transit Centers and rail platforms to detect, prevent and address latent criminal activity or behavior.”

If you still don’t believe the United States has become a police state you’re not paying attention. It seems you can use any mode of transportation without worrying about some government goon treating you like a potential criminal.

We hear numerous stories about police officers who are gunned down but what we don’t hear much about is this disturbing trend:

Ten times more civilians were killed by cops than cops were killed by civilians in 2008, but you won’t find that information in Tuesday’s New York Times story on the “disturbing trend” of officers killed by perps.

[...]

There’s arguably an even bigger problem with the Times’ story, and that’s the absence of any data about how many civilians the cops have killed, even though that information is widely available, as demonstrated by the Advocacy Center for Equality and Democracy:

• From 2003 to 2009, 4,813 people died in relation to an arrest in “all manners of deaths.” Each year ranged from 627 (2003) to 745 (2007). Source – Andrea M. Burch, U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics,Arrest-Related Deaths, 2003-2009 – Statistical Tables, November 2011.
• Of those, 2,913 (about 6 in 10) were reported as “homicide by law enforcement.” Each year ranged from 375 (2004) to 497 (2009). See Burch.
• In the only year in which the NYT article and the Bureau of Justice Statistics report overlap, 2008, law enforcement killed roughly 10 times the number of people during arrests (404) than officers killed (41). See Burch.
• Since 2001, at least 500 people have been killed as a result of being tasered by officers in the United States alone.

To serve and protect…

Last night I reported about the murder of Jody Lynmarvin Patzner Jr., the 22 year-old gunned down on his bicycle. The police have arrested a suspect in Patzner’s murder and if the suspect is indeed the murdered this story will certainly be yet another demonstration of how futile gun control is:

The man suspected of gunning down Jody Lynmarvin Patzner Jr. in a robbery attempt on a Minneapolis street Monday night was the subject of a mental health commitment hearing three years ago after he was found carrying a pistol without a permit, according to court records.

In Minnesota you first offense for carrying a firearm without a permit is a gross misdemeanor while a second offense is a felony. Furthermore anybody who has been found mentally incompetent to stand trail is a prohibited person [PDF, Page 11]. The suspect in Patzner’s murder wasn’t charged for carrying a weapon without a permit because he was ruled mentally incompetent to stand trial:

His past includes proceedings in 2009 and 2010 in which court officials and county social workers determined he was mentally ill but not so dangerous that he should be locked up, according to records.

“The defendant is not at risk of imminent harm to self or others,” Judge Richard Hopper determined in a June 10, 2009, court order that found the man incompetent to stand trial on the weapons possession charge.

Therefore it was illegal for the suspected murder to own or carry the murder weapon. Once again gun control has failed as a person who is ineligible to own a firearm in the state of Minnesota managed to obtain a firearm in the state of Minnesota.

Whether or not the suspect is the murderer has no bearing on the fact he was able to get a gun even though the law forbid him from doing so. According to advocates gun control laws are the cure to the problem of bad people getting weapons. Every time there is a murder with a firearm the gun control advocates crawl out of their deep holes and demand a new piece of legislation be introduced, a piece of legislation they claim would have prevented the murder in the first place. Reality is not kind of gun control advocates though, as the laws they introduce to be the cure all are proven entirely ineffective. I don’t think they realize the fact that people willing to commit murder have no problem violating laws against possession of weapons.

I’m not sure if journalism can get much more shoddy than the coverage the shootout that just occurred in Greenland, NH:

The body of a man suspected of killing Greenland’s police chief and wounding four other officers was found dead inside his home early Friday morning, police said.

[...]

Greenland Police Chief Michael Maloney, 48, who was with the department for 12 years, was shot and killed trying to gain entry to the home while serving a drug-related warrant, Delaney said. He was set to retire in one week.

Maloney and four officers from the Attorney General’s drug task force arrived at the home at about 6 p.m. when Mutrie opened fire.

At first I thought this post would be discussion how the war on drugs has needless claimed more victims and caused the police to insert violence into an otherwise non-violent situation (manufacturing, possessing, and selling unapproved drugs is not a violent action). Unfortunately I ran into a bit of a problem since news articles didn’t go into any detail about the drug-related offense. Finally I came across this:

The Portsmouth Herald reported in February 2011 that Cullen Mutrie, 29, was a resident of the home on 517 Post Road and had been arrested and charged with possession of anabolic steroids.

The newspaper reported that the steroids were found in the home when officers went to confiscate guns after Mutrie was arrested on domestic assault charges. According to a police affidavit, the steroids were found in Mutrie’s living room on July 24, 2010, but were not verified by the state crime lab until Jan. 18.

A domestic violence charge lead to a drug charge. Domestic violence is, oftentimes, a violent situation and therefore intervention is justifiable. With that said domestic violence situations are one of the hardest situations to figure out because it is often an emotionally charged he-said-she-said argument. Sometimes a husband beats his wife, other times the wife beats her husband, and in other cases yelling and screaming leads to one party making false accusations against the other. Needless to say I have zero details on what happened and therefore can’t no comment on it.

What is interesting is the fact the police apparently confiscated Mutrie’s firearms yet he still had firearms to shoot the police with when they arrived to arrest him this time around. Apparently confiscation doesn’t actually work, who would have guessed? Likewise it should go without saying that Mutrie surrendered his firearms peacefully otherwise he wouldn’t have been at home when the police came to arrest him for the drug charges. Therein lies the key, this situation would have been unlikely to happen if it wasn’t for the drug charges so ultimately this case still boils down to the fact violence was used to enforce a decree against non-violent action.

The worst part about the war on drugs isn’t the cost, it’s the fact violence is being initiated against non-violent individuals. Manufacturing, selling, and using drugs are nothing more than commerce. People want the drugs so a market develops and that market is fulfilled legally or not. Since the state uses violence to enforce its decree prohibiting some drugs the obvious response to drug manufacturers, sellers, and users is to use violence to defend their business. In this way the war on drugs should really be called the initiation of violence against drug market actors. I realize that’s quite a mouthful but it would be far more accurate.

Many people seem to believe that the state is the only option for delivering community security. These are usually the same people who believe the state must build the roads, deliver the mail, deliver water, and provider fire services. In truth the state is needed for none of these things and one community has turned to volunteers to provider community security:

Redlands volunteers now outnumber paid officers five to one and, even with a 25 percent reduction to their police force in 2007, their violent crime rates have decreased steadily.

And it doesn’t cost tax payers a dime.

“Our volunteer program is completely self-sustainable,” Martinez says. “They raise their own money, they buy their own cars. None of the money comes out of the general fund.

The program even includes an air support unit, complete with 30 volunteer pilots and a prop plane.

There is a video at the link. Some people will point out that the volunteers are volunteering for the Redland Police Department (RPD) but that’s irrelevant as RPD doesn’t provide any funding to the volunteer organization, they raise their own money and buy their own equipment. If RPD went away the volunteers would still be able to function (except the state wouldn’t allow them to because they wouldn’t be volunteering for the state and therefore would be restricted in what they could do).

The hardest part about implementing a police state is getting the people to fully submit to it. Sure we see mindless submission to the state left and right but if the state inconveniences the populace too much the populace will eventually give the state a jolly old send off. What you really need to do is get people used to the police state while they’re still young, which is what Texas has been doing:

He is looking down on a courtroom full of teenagers and their parents who are facing “Class C” misdemeanour offences for skipping school.

At the truancy courts of Dallas in Texas, absence from class or repeated late arrivals are punishable with fines of up to $500 (£316).

“A Class C misdemeanour is the lowest level of all the criminal offences, it would be the equivalent of a traffic ticket or not abiding by a stop sign on the street,” says Judge Sholden, who can also hand out sanctions like essays and book reports in his sentence.

The use of the court system to correct student behaviour is a popular policy used in schools across Texas.

A recent study put the number of Class C tickets issued to young people at around 300,000 per year.

Using the judicial system to punish students for skipping class? If that doesn’t scream police state what does? But wait, there’s more:

“I ran into a mother recently whose daughter wrote her name on a school desk in highlighter and she was given a felony conviction for that.

Felony. Conviction. Because a girl wrote here name on her desk with a highlighter she is barred the right to own firearms and vote (unless Texas expunges juvenile convictions, including felonies, when a kid becomes and adult but that is becoming rare). Back in my day (now I’m sounding old) we were merely made to clean off the graffiti and sent on our way. Instead of ruining the life of a student for nothing more than easily washed off graffiti we simply had to correct our wrong, which is how it should be.

Of course this kind of school disciplinary system has two benefits to the state; it gets students used to the police state and raises money. If skipping class can net you a fine of $500, how much money do you think is brought in through fines in the Texas school system? I’m guessing it’s quite a bit. After all, fines exist for the sole purpose of raising money for the state.

I’m guessing this method of dealing with transgressions by school kids will spread beyond Texas, it’s just too authoritarian not to.

All of you who have been demanding Zimmerman’s arrest can finally breathe a sign of relief, he has been charged with second degree murder:

A Florida neighbourhood watch volunteer has been charged with second-degree murder over the shooting of unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin.

George Zimmerman turned himself in on Wednesday and is now in custody, special prosecutor Angela Corey said.

[...]

“Today we filed an information charging George Zimmerman with murder in the second degree,” Ms Corey told reporters.

“I can tell you we did not come to this decision lightly. Let me emphasise that we do not prosecute by public pressure or petition,” Ms Corey added, in a reference to the intense media scrutiny that has surrounded the case in recent weeks.

I wonder if Corey is being less than honest as I’m assuming the charges had, at least, something to do with the public outcry. Let’s face it, the chances of an LA Riot occurring in Florida if Zimmerman wasn’t charged was pretty high. With that said I fully admit that I have no grounds for my claim nor am I claiming that to be the sole reason Zimmerman has been charged. As I’ve been stating we really need to just put the evidence available before a jury.

My fear that a fair trial may be impossible considering the strong emotions felt by the public regarding this case still hold. It could make Corey’s career if she successfully prosecutes Zimmerman because nothing builds a career like ruling in favor of public opinion in a high profile case. Furthermore, if Zimmerman is ruled innocent it will likely lead to violence as people unhappy with the verdict, those demanding Zimmerman be lynched, lash out. From what I can see it’s in the best interests of everybody besides Zimmerman to rule him guilty. This all depends on the evidence presented through as Zimmerman may very well be guilty as hell.

The coverage of this case is likely to be phenomenal so should remain well informed as things unroll. In fact this case as the potential of being the next O. J. Simpson trial (although I hope it isn’t, that coverage was just insane).