Category: Crime

If you’re into collecting and shooting firearms, it’s a very good idea to not also be into drugs. That link is to an article and video of another “arsenal” seizure in Upper Darby, just outside of Philadelphia. If it wasn’t for the drugs and explosives, the news media wouldn’t have gotten their “Look! Dangerous gun owners!” story. It’s quite possible the drugs were the guy’s tenant, but that’s immaterial if he had functioning explosive devices.

I am disturbed by two things here. One is that apparently being denied entry into the home was grounds for a warrant? I mean, clearly he had something to hide right? So much for the fourth amendment.

The other thing is that he’s being charged under Title 18 § 2716 “Weapons of mass destruction” of the Pennsylvania Consolidated Statues. This is a poor drafted law for a number of reasons, first is that it defines biological agent as:

“Biological agent.” A natural or genetically engineered pathogen, toxin, virus, bacteria, prion, fungus or microorganism which causes infections, disease or bodily harm.

Technically it would be illegal to culture strep or staph under this law, which is something labs do all the time. Home brewers can also end up doing it on slants used for culturing brewer’s yeast.

“Nuclear agent.” A radioactive material.

My smoke detector is a weapon of mass destruction under this definition. But I suspect this fellow falls under this definition:

“Bomb.” An explosive device used for unlawful purposes.

If I were this guy, I’d get a good attorney. This is bad law, and I’d like to see it modified. Even though I think the state can make it illegal to house explosives in a residential area, this was a case of the police finding the guy’s guns, and looking for any excuse to charge him with something, because clearly he was a menace to society, or something.

Jeff Soyer responds to a statement by Peter Hamm of The Brady Campaign on the Castle Doctrine law in Mississippi: “Do we want to kill every 16-year-old kid we find stealing a car stereo?”  Jeff’s response:

Actually, yes we do. Here’s why: Because after a few of these teen thugs are removed from the scene, their peers will get the message that stealing is wrong. They’re not getting that instruction from their parents or prosecutors or judges so it’s left to us — the law abiding members of society and the victims of these criminals — to educate them ourselves.

Further, if they (the miscreants) don’t get that message, they continue to steal and emboldened by toothless laws tend to move-up to more serious crimes such as assault, muggings, and home invasions — often resulting in the death of their victims (us!).

This isn’t something I can get behind.  Even under castle doctrine laws, it’s illegal an immoral to execute someone (and that is what you are doing, make no bones about it) for stealing your property.  I am entirely in favor of people being able to use, and using deadly force to protect themselves and others.  If you confront a car stereo thief, and he threatens you with a weapon, you are within your rights to use deadly force on your attacker.  If he runs away with your car stereo, that’s a job for the police.

In order to enjoy the benefits of living under government in a peaceful society, we largely agree to surrender our right of retribution to the state, and to rely on it to punish people who take our property.  We retain the right and means of self-defense as a people.  Seeking retribution for petty crimes is the proper role of the police and the court system, not of individual citizens.  I admire Jeff’s clear thinking on a great many issues, but if we are to convince our fellow citizens that castle doctrine is not “vigilantism”, then we must not feed that fire by actually advocating that.

This one comes to us from No Looking Backwards:

“Once again, an illegal gun has struck down an innocent family man, and once again a young man may pay for his actions for the rest of his life”

That’s from Suffolk County DA Dan Conley. Bruce says “Uh-huh. The gun did it.” Read the whole thing.

SayUncle is correct to point out that machine guns are just as illegal here as they are in Mexico, yet they keep blaming American gun laws for violence in Mexico.   This is ridiculous, but it is a response to something ridiculous that our government is doing.

The War on Drugs has already ruined Colombia.  It seems it may ruin Mexico too.  In short, we’re bitching at the Mexicans because they aren’t doing enough to stop the flow of drugs into the United States, and the Mexicans are bitching at us because we’re not doing enough to stop the flow of guns into their country.

Both governments need to start facing reality that where there’s demand, the is always going to be someone willing to be there with the supply, and that market is guaranteed to be violent, no matter what laws you pass.

My friend had his home invaded this morning, so I asked him to write it up and e-mail it to me. Here’s the story:

This morning, approximately 10:30am, we were awoken by a large amount of noise emanating from our living room. We sleep with the door closed in order to keep the cats, so it wasn’t immediately obvious what was going on. It seemed like far too much noise to be the cats simply misbehaving.

As we slowly came to, we could hear someone very obviously running around in our apartment. He kept saying to the cats, “It’s okay, it’s okay!” We first thought it might be one of the apartment workers, come to check it out for whatever reason, though that didn’t make a lot of sense as they’re supposed to give prior warning.

We began to search around for clothes, as we sleep nude, but before we could find anything, our bedroom door opens and in comes a man. He’s covered in blood, and collapses onto our bedroom floor. We start yelling at him, asking him what the fuck he’s doing in our apartment.

He first tells us he’s been in a car accident, and the police are here. This leads us to wonder why he’s in our apartment, on our bedroom floor, when the police are present. He then begins asking us to hide him from them. He pulls out a handful of crumpled up bills, whatever he had in his pocket, offering it to us to protect him from them. At this point we begin to continually yell, “GET OUT!” at him. Then, he does the unthinkable, sending us over the edge.

“I am a firm believer in Jesus Christ and -”

That was all it took. We immediately scream at him, “WE’RE NOT!” and are provoked into action. No Christian on the lam is going to invade my apartment, by Darwin! I reach over to the side of the bed and grab my sword, a cheap $20 katana I bought from Amazon a few years ago.

He begins to back off a bit, but is continuing to plead. I advance, in something of an iaijutsu pose, sword sheathed at my side. Every time he stops backing up, I draw the sword, just far enough from the scabbard to smash the butt of the hilt into him. He is bleeding all over our apartment now.

Christina, meanwhile, runs to the sliding balcony door and sticks her head out, yelling to the police, “He’s in here! He’s in here!” They approach the apartment, yelling at him to come out with his hands up. He looks at me pleadingly, and I give him another jab.

Finally, he gets to the threshold of the apartment, and refuses to budge any further. My repeated strikes with the hilt are no longer incentive enough to get him to leave, so I take the next step, and begin to draw my weapon. I hold the sword in front of me and begin to slowly unleash it from its scabbard, steel blade glinting in the sunlight sneaking in from the blinds. He panics, and begins to run around in a little circle, not sure whether to take his chances with the fully nude hairy man drawing a sword with his best Full Metal Jacket style war face on or with the police outside. After hesitating for a moment, he makes his choice.

The next sound heard is the electric rip of the police tasers, a noise made famous by YouTube “Don’t Tase Me, Bro!” videos. The guy is outside of the apartment now, screaming, and we scramble to throw on some clothes. By the time we exit the apartment there’s no one immediately in sight, but rounding the corner of the building I see police running around searching for him. Helicopters are now buzzing overhead, searching. I yell to a plain clothes officer that he was hiding in our apartment, telling him what number, and we go back inside to calm down the cats.

A little while later, two officers show up and take our statement. They take DNA swabs of the blood smeared on the walls and floor, pictures of our apartment and my sword laying on the ground where I had dropped it when I put my clothes on. The officer we’re with is informed that they have apprehended him after he was bitten by one of the canines they had tracking him. We each hop into a different cruiser and are driven into the trailer park next door where we both make positive IDs on him as he is treated for his dog bite wounds.

Apparently, from what the police gathered from reports of other witnesses, he got into a major car accident on the main road that our apartment complex is on. For whatever reason, he fled the crime, on foot, and ran into our complex. According to the police, he was in a garage door installation truck, and they think he used one of his tools to unlock our door and get inside based on what one of the witnesses saw.

I’m quite proud of myself for not freaking out under pressure. Unless, of course, you consider attacking a guy with a sword while you’re naked freaking out.

I don’t really know what would have freaked me out more, the katana or the sight of my friend naked. Given the choice, I think I’d take the taser as well.

UPDATE: Here’s the initial story from the media.  No mention of a naked, sword wielding man yet.