Archive for the 'Gun Control' Category

Recall the case of the NJ security guard arrested for carrying PD ammunition?  Well, there’s a development.

New Jersey prosecutors dropped a felony charge against a security guard who was pulled over for driving with tinted windows and then charged with violating gun laws, prosecutors informed Newsweek on Friday. Roosevelt Twyne’s case illustrates how the state’s intricate gun restrictions can ensnare residents, multiple experts said.

Roselle Park police officers stopped Twyne, 25, in early February as he was returning home from work in his personal vehicle because, they said, he was driving with tinted windows. Twyne, a black man who works for the Brinks armored car company, was also transporting a handgun he believed he was legally permitted to carry for his job under the state’s restrictive licensing laws.

However, officers charged him with two gun-related offenses: One violation of the state’s firearm transport ban and another pertaining to hollow point bullets. The latter charge was dropped after Union County prosecutors decided the ammunition Twyne was carrying was not illegal. Until Friday, prosecutors were seeking an additional charge on the transport ban.

“I was simply a block away from getting home after work,” Twyne told Newsweek. “I never thought I would be arrested, charged and have my life turned upside down over New Jersey’s convoluted gun laws, especially when I was a fully licensed, trained security officer.”

The prosecutor’s office said Friday it concluded that his alleged breach of the law was not intentional.

“This Office has elected to exercise its prosecutorial discretion and has administratively dismissed all charges pending against Mr. Twyne,” the office said in a statement to Newsweek. “It is not in the interests of justice to continue his prosecution.”

They should have said that there was no “breach of the law” and that their police officers are idiots and they should try to improve hiring practices to focus away from sociopaths.

Instead, they said they are electing to exercise “prosecutorial discretion.”

Like I said before, New Jersey is a hell hole.  I wouldn’t travel there (or even fly over the state) if it was the last place on earth.

From Ammoland.

Every one of these bills is as affront to good men in Virginia, but this one stands out to me.

SB 64 – makes a group of two or more individuals brandishing with the intent and purpose of intimidating others a felony.

Of course, it’s up to the LEOs whether you’re intimidating others, or maybe it’s left up to the one making the call to the LEOs.  After all, calls to the police render and report a perfect state of mind, just like when a person makes a red flag call, there is never a mistake.  Because women.  Or children.  Or something.

So the Virginia legislature is telling Virginians that Richmond rally day was a once in a lifetime event for them.  The elitists won’t allow that any more.

And note the word “brandishing.”  This is problematic, because there is no distinction between open carry and brandishing.  They want it that way.  It’s legal to openly carry in Virginia, but if you do it along with someone else, it’s “brandishing.”  And you know they’ll prosecute it that way.

Jeff Minick.

As I write these words, a reproduction of the 1897 Sears Roebuck Catalogue, published in 1968 by Chelsea House, sits at my elbow.

The fat catalog is a casual reader’s delight and a historian’s treasure trove. Here are medicines like laudanum, herb tea, and castor oil. Here are tools, bobsleds, gasoline stoves, windmills, bicycles, clothing and footwear, valises, books, clocks and watches, fountain pens, banjos and snare drums, furniture and cutlery, buggies and wagons. (The price of most surreys is under $100, a belt is fifty cents, a child’s high chair a dollar, a ball room guide for gentlemen twenty-five cents.)

And in the Sporting Goods Department we find 28 pages of guns, ammunition, and accessories.

Here we have weapons ranging from the Daisy Air Rifle to “Our $1.55 Revolver,” from shotguns for $7.95 to Marlin Repeating Rifles. Sears, Roebuck & Company also sold ammunition, pistol holders, reloading tools, and cleaners for these weapons.

No one was monitoring these sales. The government had no part in regulation. No one conducted background checks on the buyers. Indeed, Sears brags that it is “the headquarter for everything in guns,” that their prices are below all others, and that “we will send any revolver to any address.”

Yikes, right? Even a common laborer, for three or four days wages, could order a Saturday night special from Sears. With guns and ammo so easily available, we might guess that the streets of every American city and town were running red with blood every day of the week. Mass murder surely occurred on a weekly basis. Assassination and terrorist attacks must have happened so regularly that no one blinked an eye.

We might guess so, but we would be wrong.

In 1900, the number of murders and “non-negligent homicides” in the United States was approximately 1 in every 100,000 inhabitants (This figure and the others in this paragraph include all murders, not just those by firearms.) In 1980, that figure was close to 11 murders per 100,000 people. Since then, that figure has declined to between 4 and 5 murders per 100,000. (For a deeper analysis, see here.) Bear in mind too that unlike today, a gunshot wound in 1900 frequently resulted in death.

These statistics contrasted with the easy availability of guns should raise some questions. Why in 1900, when firearms were so readily accessible, were murders so infrequent? Why are murders today quadruple what they were in 1900? Based on what gun-control activists tell us, shouldn’t we expect the exact opposite?

He has his answers, but in my opinion they are all connected and symptomatic of the higher order issue, which we all know as a rejection of God and His law.  It’s a cultural issue, not one of hardware.

Recall that one crud, vulgar, obscene Putnam County Sheriff’s Deputy violated a man’s rights guaranteed under the second and fourth amendments by an illegal and unconstitutional detention?

Also recall that we covered the violation of the fourth amendment by Putnam County Deputies about three weeks ago?

The lawyer in these cases has a new video up with more than we linked in the last video.  Watch it entirely.

His name is John H. Bryan, and he’s doing God’s work.  His web site is thecivilrightslawyer.com, and he has a new post up on the current status of the open carry case.

The judges in this case were very dismissive of the Fourth Circuit decision in Black because they just don’t care about the constitution, but I hope he carries this all the way to the Supreme Court if needed.

Further, I’ll say one more time, it never even needed to get to the point of citing Black.  West Virginia is not a “stop and identify” state, and this wasn’t a “Terry Stop.”  The state courts should have struck this all down and reprimanded the Sheriff’s department.

I’ll also say once again that Sheriff Steve Deweese should resign in shame, and remember his contact information: sdeweese@putnamwv.org.

Also remember this man.  prosecutingattorney@putnamwv.org (Mark A. Sorsaia, Office of the Prosecuting Attorney, Putnam County Judicial Building).

The deputies, crooks and thugs they are, are merely following the leadership set before them.  Followers always behave like their leaders.  To the Sheriff, you need to get up in front of your church, beg for forgiveness, ask to be placed under the discipline of the leaders of your church, resign your post, and do something you’re qualified to do, like dig ditches while serving your time in prison.

Jacob Sullum writing at Reason.com.

The allegations against Kevin Morgan were alarming. They described just the sort of circumstances that Florida legislators had in mind when they approved that state’s “red flag” law in 2018, three weeks after the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.

Morgan’s estranged wife, Joanie, claimed he was depressed, suicidal, and obsessed with the apocalypse, which he thought was imminent. She said he was stockpiling food, gold, guns, and ammunition in anticipation of the end times; that he talked about seeing, hearing, and wrestling with demons; and that he had performed a ritual that involved rubbing “oils” on their children and the walls of their house. She reported that he was abusing the drugs he had been prescribed for chronic pain, had talked about dismembering his former wife, had intimated he would do the same to her if she ever disrespected him, and had threatened to kill her with succinylcholine, a paralytic agent used during surgery and intubation.

Oooo … sounds awful, doesn’t it?

On the strength of such claims, Joanie Morgan obtained a temporary domestic violence protection injunction, an involuntary psychiatric evaluation order under the Florida Mental Health Act (a.k.a. the Baker Act), and a temporary “risk protection order” under the red flag law, which authorizes the suspension of a person’s Second Amendment rights when he is deemed a threat to himself or others. All three were ex parte orders, meaning they were issued without giving Kevin Morgan a chance to rebut the allegations against him.

But when it was time for a judge to decide whether the initial gun confiscation order, which was limited to 14 days, should be extended for a year, Morgan got a hearing, and the lurid picture painted by his wife disintegrated. By the end of the hearing, in an extraordinary turn of events unlike anything you are likely to see in a courtroom drama, the lawyer representing the Citrus County Sheriff’s Office, which was seeking the final order, conceded that he had not met the law’s evidentiary standard, and the judge agreed.

But why?

In the affidavit supporting her petition, Montgomery said she responded to a complaint from Joanie Morgan alleging that her husband had violated the temporary domestic violence protection injunction by returning to the house in Citrus Springs they used to share and retrieving clothing, medications, “several firearms,” and his Ford Mustang. Montgomery paraphrased the claims Joanie Morgan had made in her petitions for the injunction and the Baker Act examination: that “the respondent has had a decline in mental stability over the last four months” and “has displayed irratic [sic] behaviors to include making threats to dismember a former paramour and threats to kill his entire family while yielding [sic] a vial containing a paralytic agent.” She added that “the respondent has purchased several firearms and ammunition during this time period.”

He purchased several firearms.  Horrible man, but let’s continue to see just how horrible he really is.

At this point, Montgomery later testified, she had done no investigation beyond talking to Joanie Morgan and reading her petitions. Montgomery said she subsequently discovered there was no basis for the claim that Kevin Morgan had violated the injunction by visiting the house. “I determined that it wasn’t him that had gone to the house,” she said. “It was actually a pool maintenance worker that had been by the house.” Furthermore, “the firearms had been transferred prior to his risk protection order” in response to the domestic violence injunction, meaning there were no guns for Morgan to retrieve from the house.

Montgomery did read the Baker Act petition that led to Morgan’s court-ordered psychiatric evaluation, but she did not mention the outcome of that evaluation. On September 13, 2018, police handcuffed Morgan and took him to The Centers, a mental health facility in Ocala, where he spent the night. The next day, a psychiatrist determined that he did not meet the law’s criteria for involuntary treatment. A discharge form dated September 14, 2018, described Morgan as “alert and oriented” and “calm and cooperative.” It explained that “Kevin was evaluated by the psychiatrist and it was determined that Kevin does not present as a danger to himself or others.”

Joanie Morgan’s testimony was tearful, highly emotional, scattered, and frequently vague. She reiterated her earlier allegations and added a few more. But when Blackstone asked whether she had any evidence to corroborate what she claimed her husband had said and done, she admitted that she did not.

There were no witnesses to confirm his alleged threats and no photographs of oil on the walls, of the hypodermic needles he allegedly had stashed away to inject the succinylcholine, or of the food, gold, weapons, and ammunition he allegedly had accumulated in preparation for the end times. Nor had police ever visited the house to confirm any of those details. Blackstone also noted that, despite Joanie Morgan’s portrait of her husband as dangerously deranged, she was planning to build a new house with him on property they had purchased together in April 2018, and she had left her children overnight with him that August, in the midst of his supposed breakdown, to attend a conference in Tampa.

Joanie Morgan’s mother, Susan Harper-Clements, tried to back up her daughter’s portrayal of Kevin Morgan as dangerous, but the evidence she offered fell notably short. For example, she mentioned “conversations” after the 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas. “Kevin had told me that the NRA…was all into this gun thing and that you couldn’t even buy the bullets you wanted, because people were stockpiling,” she said. “And he said, ‘When they’re all through with this, you won’t be able to buy guns and ammunition.'” On cross-examination, Blackstone noted that such comments hardly proved homicidal intent. “He has never threatened anyone in your presence, has he?” he asked. “No,” Harper-Clements replied.

Kevin Morgan’s demeanor at the hearing was as Montgomery and the staff at The Centers had described it: calm, polite, and cooperative. He denied seeing demons, making threats, or obsessing about the apocalypse. He denied that he had recently been stockpiling guns, saying he had acquired his collection of roughly 40 rifles and handguns over the course of more than two decades. The only guns he had acquired recently, he said, were three black-powder pistols he had bought the previous spring and summer—antique replicas ill-suited for the end times.

What about the mostly empty vial of succinylcholine that his wife had presented to sheriff’s deputies as evidence of Morgan’s deadly designs? Morgan recalled that his wife, a nurse who had worked at two local hospitals, had once accidentally brought home just such a vial, saying she had put it in her lab coat pocket after participating in the treatment of a patient who had suffered a cardiac arrest. Morgan, who also has a nursing degree, had managed the emergency room at one of those hospitals, but he left that job in January 2015 because of a disability caused by spinal stenosis. After that, he no longer had access to drugs such as succinylcholine. Given the expiration date on the vial that his wife gave to police, Morgan said, it was clear he could not have been the person who had obtained it.

Okay, there’s much more at the link but I’ve heard enough, and congratulations to Jacob for doing such an outstanding job of reporting this.  Go read the rest of it here.

Let me tell you what happened in this case.  She got together with her mom, who clearly doesn’t like him very much, after the wife had an argument with him of some sort.  She was in too deep to back out, so they concocted this ridiculous set of tales.

So he was embarrassed, had his God-given rights violated, and had his belongings confiscated, all without even a hint of real investigative work by the police.

So goes red flag laws in America, the best thing since sliced bread according to nearly every politician on the planet.

Ammoland.

On February 8, 2020, armored car security guard Roosevelt Twyne was returning home from work when he was stopped by three Roselle Park police officers for alleged side-tinted windows on his vehicle.

Twyne advised and showed the officers that he has a New Jersey Permit to Carry a Handgun, and informed the officers that he was coming home from his employment as an armored car security guard and was, in fact, one block away from his home.

Twyne’s Permit to Carry a Handgun specifies the Smith & Wesson handgun that he was carrying at the time of the stop. Twyne also possesses a SORA (Security Officer Registration Act) Card, a New Jersey Firearms Purchaser Identification Card, and lawfully purchased/registered his handgun with a New Jersey permit to purchase.

The New Jersey State Police Firearms Information FAQ website specifically states:

“Ammunition lacking a hollow cavity at the tip, such as those with polymer filling, are not considered to be hollow point ammunition. An example of this can be seen with the Hornaday Critical Defense #ad / Critical Duty, Car-Bon PowRball / Glaser Safety Slug and Nosler Inc. Defense ammunition.” (Emphasis added.)

Roselle Park Police Officer Louis Plock, nonetheless, arrested and charged Twyne under NJS 2C:39-3F(1) (possession of hollow nose ammunition) for possessing the above-mentioned Hornady Critical Duty ammo.

Plock also charged Twyne with unlawful transportation of a weapon under NJS 2C:39-9D. This statute, however, specifically exempts people who are licensed or registered under chapter 58, and Twyne’s New Jersey Permit to Carry a Handgun was issued pursuant to chapter 58.

These are 4th-degree felony-level crimes with potential 18 months imprisonment for each.

Because of the arrest, Twyne is presently suspended from his employment.

New Jersey is a hell hole and it would be better for the United States if it fell into the Atlantic Ocean.

As to the issue of what ammunition he was carrying, the law specifically stipulates that he could legally carry it.  Nonetheless, cops being what they are, he has been charged.

But let’s wait.  Consider the utter stupidity of this.  The law reading like it does is like saying this.  “We want your ammunition to be less likely to stop an intruder or someone assaulting you, and more likely to over-penetrate and harm some innocent bystander.”

Because we don’t care.  As I said, New Jersey is a hell hole.  To New Jersey pols who made this decision, and all New Jersey cops who supported it or arrest people because of it, drop dead.

PJM.

Right after Beto introduced Biden at the rally on Monday, the former VP effectively endorsed O’Rourke’s gun confiscation plan in all of its divisive glory.

“I want to make something clear. I’m going to guarantee this is not the last you’ve seen of this guy. You’re going to take care of the gun problem with me, you’re going to be the one who leads this effort,” the establishment Democrat declared.

To me, a “gun problem” is a broken firing pin or charging handle.

David Codrea.

The first thing that’s obvious is we’re not talking about one of those “white right-wing nationalists” we’re constantly being warned are the greatest threat we face. If the killer had been one, and if he had social media posts brimming with sentiments that allow “progressives” to dismiss anyone to the right of Bernie Sanders as a Nazi, it would be headline news. It certainly would not have taken this long to release who he was, and odds are good some of his more egregious posts would have survived, at least in screenshot form. As it is, the victims are being blamed for racism, and that’s in spite of a corporate “code of conduct” policy that is now being alleged to work every bit as well as its “security safeguards.”

If I didn’t know any better, if I was an alien from another planet and could only look at the facts to inform me, I’d readily conclude that there was a concerted effort to flush the news that’s not fit for consumption because it tells the wrong story, and the news that is allowed to be printed because it comports with the form, fit and function of the intent of the people who make these decisions.

If I didn’t know any better.

News from Colorado.

Domestic abusers are generally prohibited from possessing firearms, but in many states, ensuring these offenders turn over their guns is difficult. A new investigator in the Denver, Colorado, District Attorney’s office is trying to change that by removing guns case-by-case.

The investigator spends his days listening to 911 calls, scanning social media and talking to family members, looking for signs that someone who has been charged with a domestic violence-related offense and who has a restraining order against them, has a gun.

Prosecutors can use the evidence collected by the investigator to ask a judge for a warrant ordering the removal of the gun. Sometimes removal is worked out on the fly by the lawyers in court as a condition of bond release.

The Denver District Attorney’s Office says that in his first four months on the job, the investigator — whose name the office won’t release due to safety concerns — helped take 49 guns from 14 people.

The father of one of those people described his 47-year old son as troubled.

“Relationship breakdowns, bipolar, drug abuse, on his own, no job, despondent,” Tom said of his son. Guns & America agreed not to use the father’s last name or his son’s full name because a criminal case against his son is pending.

Those qualities made Tom think about descriptions of mass shooters he has heard on the news.

“He had a very extensive gun collection,” Tom said, explaining why he was so worried. “Which brings us to our conversation about guns.”

Last October, there was an incident. According to the police report, Tom’s son and his girlfriend had been fighting. He had left her dozens of voicemails, emails, texts and showed up at her apartment, which “alarmed the victim and terrified her,” according to the police report. Tom’s son was charged with harassment and stalking. A judge issued a restraining order against him, which meant he was no longer legally allowed to have guns.

At that point, Tom says the domestic violence investigator at the Denver District Attorney’s Office got involved, coordinating among the father, his son, and the police to get the guns shipped and legally transferred to Tom.

“It gave me some hope that there are ways of doing the right thing,” Tom said. “Those guns are now registered to me and my son cannot get a hold of them right now.”

What is rare about the investigator’s work is that it is active instead of passive, taking guns from people who are barred from having them before they use them to commit a crime.

“One of the key overarching firearm violence prevention strategies that we use in the U.S. is to prohibit the purchase and possession of guns among those deemed high-risk of committing violent acts,” said Hannah Laqueur, an assistant professor of emergency medicine with the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California, Davis.

Minority report.  Knowing all about who is going to commit violent acts before they actually do them.  And it’s a “key overarching feature of violence prevention” in the U.S.

Where the author got this very wrong is parroting the statement that this is rare.  It has quickly become the most abused nanny-state program in the country.  It essentially replaces the AWB, the lack of UBC, and the lack of gun permitting by the CLEO.  One by one, it’s the most effective gun control effort by the controllers by far, and they know it.  Florida has confiscated thousands of weapons since implementation of their red flag law.

I say again: Be careful what you say over social media.  Have control over your family.  Have children that obey.  Be a good husband and spiritual leader in the home.  Show you wife love, mercy, tenderness and care.  Lay down your life for her as Christ loved the church.

And never call the police for anything.  You are always in more danger when the police are around.

Recall that I had made a FOIA request to the city of Alexandria, Virginia, concerning an incident where a man with a gun stood “outside Del. Mark Levine’s window.”  The city of Alexandria has responded.

02/26/2020

RE: W014261-021820

Dear Sir/Madam,

This is to acknowledge receipt of your request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) dated 2/18/2020 referenced above. Based upon the information contained in your request, we have conducted a thorough search of the records held by the City and find that no police report for this event exists.

This letter is for your records and to inform you that the FOIA request file is now closed.

Sincerely,

David Lanier

Assistant City Attorney

So what the hell was that all about?  He clearly stated that he engaged the police and that the police responded and interacted with the man.  He also later stated that he wanted to press charges of some sort.

He can’t press charges without a police report.  What’s going on here?

UPDATE: David Codrea notes that “speculation that it may have been Fairfax County Police, not according to the news account quoting Alexandria police Lt. Courtney Ballentine. Someone is not being truthful and/or compliant here.”