Monday, August 19, 2019

Red Flag Laws = No Quarter Given Nor Expected

h/t Silicon Graybeard














I'm shocked! Shocked I say, to hear that the state that gave us deputies too cowardly to protect schoolkids has now turned their efforts to violating the rights of the wrong people as a matter of course:
This story didn't make the two local papers or any other local source I see, so we go to the AmmoLand newsletter today.  A St. Cloud (Florida) man had his firearms confiscated and his rights revoked because he has the same name as someone else.
Carpenter was shocked and confused.  What seems to have happened next is he dove right into the hornet's nest.  An innocent man who believes in the goodness and fairness of the system would do that.
Figuring it was a mistake, Carpenter called the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services to clear things up since he has never committed domestic violence against anyone. The representative told him he had to get a form from the Clerk of the Courts saying that there weren't any actions against him.
Of course they did.  When he went to the Clerk of the Courts, he was told there was an injunction against a Jonathon Edward Carpenter - a resident of a different address.  Carpenter told the agent he was not that person, had never lived at that address and had never been accused of any domestic violence.  That person directed him to the Osceola County Sheriff's office to clear things up.  Still thinking the state was just confused rather than malevolent, he went to the Sheriff's office.  He thought he could clear things up.

Not quite.

RTWT

This is just one of the first such instances.
It's nowhere near the last.

There's a fair and simple solution to this sort of nonsense:

Such "good faith" mistakes (which actually show nothing but contempt and malice towards the accused) should subject the clerk of any court and any sheriff responsible for enforcing same so implicated to full civil liability and penalties.

If any injury to defendant results, they should all be subject to criminal penalties as felony conspirators to the deprivation of civil rights, and that criminal prosecution should be automatic and mandatory, or else the district attorney deficient be added to the list of defendants.

In any case where resistance is offered because TPTB are in the wrong, full immunity from prosecution should be guaranteed. If anyone dies, the police responsible should face mandatory trial for murder.

When they have skin in the game, it will be a fair contest.
And when you see cops and legal apparatchiks wearing barrels and living in cardboard boxes when they screw it up like this, they might, y'know, pull their heads out of their asses long enough to check their info before they go swinging their executive branch dicks around, and end up getting them chopped off.

A moot law is no law at all, and one's original, natural rights take full precedence, and it's going to need to start costing them cops' lives to find this out. Since that's the only way they pay attention, I say "Game on".

They dealt the cards, let them play that hand, and see how long before their officers getting shot simply for getting out of the car at the wrong house is a commonplace occurrence, and they decide that lemon ain't worth the squeezin'.

"Just following orders", as a legal strategy, pretty much ran out of gas in 1946 at Nuremburg.

Red flag laws violate pretty much every tenet of common law in place since Magna Carta, and anyone killed for enforcing them deserves the full faceful of buckshot they've got coming.
Unfortunately, it's going to be the only thing to give them pause to engage their brains before enforcing such medieval Trial By Ordeal.

Or hopefully, wisely choosing not to.

32 comments:

T-Rav said...

I won't cry for them if it happens. However, I can't be as confident as you are that it *will* happen.

I guess that's how these things work; there's no precedent for them happening until there is.

Anonymous said...

Our Sheriff - and many others in this state - has gone public to say he will not enforce an unconstitutional law such as this is. I rely on him being an honorable man. And a sensible one.
T'was a "Red flag law" at play in Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1775 as I recall.
Boat Guy

John said...

Abolish the FBI and the CIA. Shoot anybody carrying those credentials. Arrest George Soros and the entire Rothschild family. Then abolish the Federal Reserve. Term limit Senators, all Judges, and Congresscritters. That's a good start. These fake CIA shootings have got to stop. There is no middle ground and I'm not playing "Red Flag".

Aesop said...

Take a breath, John.
Nobody got shot this time.

Next time...not so much.

Anonymous said...

Sheesh. I gotta ask "John" ( as I'd ask the gun-grabbers) "Just exactly how do you propose to accomplish all of these things?" You gonna do it? Got a plan, do ya?
And yeah ... " Next time ...not so much" Time to review Bracken's " Dear Mr. Security Agent"
BG

Anonymous said...

Aesop - true enough - THIS time - but it has already happened at least once up in murderland. You might want to take a look at how this is panning out for the victim in this in terms of his inability to legally carry AND all the hoops (time, money, inconvenience) he is going to have to go thru to get his rights - and property restored.

FredLewers said...

Well... A cold blooded man with nothing to lose will probably plan a lot better and execute said plan much more ruthlessly than a hot tempered reactionary.

FredLewers said...

It's almost time to bury a few guns and a lot of ammo in the backyard. And then go hunting in a top heavy canoe with 'those particular guns'

Anonymous said...

Don't try to fight the bureaucracy by yourself. Their obstinacy and indifference can and will infuriate the most even tempered person. Lose your temper and the Deputy will be happy to arrest and/or cite you. (See! He is violent and unstable, even if he is the wrong person, he needs his guns seized!)

KEEP YOUR COOL.
Bring a buttoned down friend
Call a lawyer.

Take down names.
Demand that their supervisors get involved.
All the way to the Sheriff himself.
Call the gun organizations you belong to, and ask for help.

IMO the deputy was probably an idiot that they didn't trust not to shoot his own partner, so they thought putting him/her in this desk job would prevent trouble.

Let your lawyers make the threats. Deprivation of civil rights. Personal Liability. False swearing of an oath?
(Deputy, do you own or rent? Got a boat or motorcycle? Is your pension through the Department? Just estimating assets available for any judgment...)

RE

Ten captcha? Really?

Anonymous said...

Aesop,

I'm doing research for a novel about a Marine who falls in love with the Navy and Navy life. Could I pick your brain for a bit on the subject?

-Mary Anne-

Anonymous said...

https://www.change.org/p/everytown-for-gun-safety-demand-a-national-firearms-act-in-2018-like-we-did-in-1934?source_location=topic_page

This kind of thing can't go on!

Aesop said...

@Mary Anne,

Post a point of contact, and I'll e-mail you.

@Anonymous 8:37P

I have zero control over what and how many hoops Google decides you must jump through.
Other than the blogs front-page caveats about manners and decorum (jackholes need not apply), posting is unrestricted here (so far). But Blogger undoubtedly has their own idea of what spambots they wish to curtail.

TCK said...

I wonder how many people are still dumb enough to think that the traitors with badges are going to be on their side if the balloon goes up.

Krnxnsl Mqzgtr said...

I see a business opportunity for attorneys in this: "Own guns? Protect yourself with a legal name change."

Pick out a name that doesn't exist anywhere in your state, or maybe, the country - something unpronouncable with all consonants and no vowels - copyright it so no one else can use it and do the legal name change. Obviously there are multiples of "Jonathan Carpenter" but the only "Bxrdmnzw "Kmqdzpwr" would be you.

As for pronunciation, it's "Fred Smith" Or, maybe, "Harvey Jones." (George Bernard Shaw came up with "GHOTI" - pronounced "fish" - GH as in "touGH," "O" as in "wOmen," and "TI" as in "transiTIon." So spelling has nothing to do with pronunciation.)

Anonymous said...

Aesop,

I don't blame you for the excessive captcha. Just thought you and your commenters should know.
I came for the 2014 Ebola updates. Thank you for the interesting information.

RE

Only two this time!

Anonymous said...

Friend's name was spelled "GRBVCZK". If you weren't a friend he told you it was pronounced "SMITH".

Turns out it's perfectly phonetic if you are familiar with Polish (IIRC).

Anonymous said...

I've told this story in numerous places, but here goes again.

Back when I lived in NJ my wife worked with a guy who owned guns. His brother was going thru a messy divorce, and she said she was afraid he'd give his brother a gun so he could shoot her. Two uniformed cops showed up at his door and took every weapon he owned, even his bow and arrows. They told him "You don't have a choice, we're taking them. You'll have to go to court to get them back." All because some twit was "afraid".

That's a red flag law, and how it will work. Except for one thing, Mr Po-lice-man. We DO have a choice, as noted above. Because this WON'T be happening here:

“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?... The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If...if...We didn't love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation.... We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.”

― Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn , The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956

Mark D

Anonymous said...

"Two uniformed cops showed up at his door and took every weapon he owned, even his bow and arrows."

This is exactly why you should not have "all your eggs in one basket", no matter what type of eggs they are.
I highly suspect I am not the only person who has firearms and other items stashed somewhere other than my house.

Anonymous said...

@Anonymous 6:37:

It's NJ, they know exactly what you own, and you'll get your shit pushed in if they don't find every item on their list. In his case the bow and arrows was just a bonus, I'm sure they considered him lucky they left his kitchen knives. AFTER they destroy your house looking for it they'll haul you off to jail if they don't find it. Probably even if they do.

Mark D

Anonymous said...

@Mary Anne

So it's definitely fiction then...

Anonymous said...

"It's NJ, they know exactly what you own, and you'll get your shit pushed in if they don't find every item on their list."

Mark D,
And what happens if, when they arrive, they are met with respect and...silence? What laws require that your guns have to be spoken of, or that the lists the government holds require each gun to be presented? Or found?

There is nothing.

...Thank you for your service, officers, but I do not discuss matters regarding 2nd Amendment issues. Sorry.

Anonymous said...

@Anonymous 9:07:

I believe you misunderstand.

They will arrive at your home with a list of guns you own. Remember, confiscation requires registration. If they don't find the guns on the list, you're leaving in handcuffs. If they find guns not on the list, you're leaving in handcuffs. That's if you're lucky, you may very well end up leaving on a stretcher with a sheet over your face.

Remember, this is NJ, where a guy was convicted of owning an "assault weapon" (A Marlin .22 with a tube magazine which could hold over 15 rounds), the judge said "When dealing with guns, the citizen acts at his peril. In short, we view the statute as a regulatory measure in the interests of the public safety, premised on the thesis that one would hardly be surprised to learn that possession of such a highly dangerous offensive weapon is proscribed absent the requisite license."

So a Marlin .22 is a "Highly dangerous offensive weapon" in NJ.

Mark D

T-Rav said...

What about buying the guns out of state, not registering them, and putting them in a cache somewhere?

A Texan said...

Ah, New Jersey. The PRNJ, where I grew up and now would only recognize the geography. I left that putrid shithole of Leftist tyranny a bit less than 19 years ago, and I'm not sorry in the least.

I do have a rather entertaining story about leaving. Keep in mind that in my single days in the early '90s, after Flim Flam Florio jammed the NJ AWB down everyone's throats, I decided that if "they" don't want me to own something, then that is EXACTLY what I'd like to own, even if I had no particularly great interest before. So a friend and I made several trips over the years to the Forks of the Delaware gun show in Allentown. I enjoyed the "Welcome to Pennsylvania sign on I-78, mainly because Gov. Casey (the present Senator's father, who actually had some principles unlike his son) added to the sign, "Where America Begins" - to the great annoyance of the thug, Florio. Anyhow, whilst there on those numerous occasions, a few 20- and 30-round magazines for ARs, SKSs and Ruger Mini-14s happened to fall into my bag and get transported back to the PRNJ.

Fast forward to when the wife and I were making good on our escape from there. I have never trusted movers to take anything firearm-related, no matter how well packed or hidden, so I packed everything into the vehicle that my wife and I would be driving to Texas (my folks drove the other car). As we were going over the Delaware Memorial Bridge we were listening to some music...and then passed the "Welcome to Delaware" sign on the bridge. I casually said to my wife (then of about 18 months), "Hey, now you don't have to worry about bailing me out of jail" and got the expected open mouth and pie-eyes. Of course (and as planned - this was a GREAT teachable moment) she asked me what I was talking about. So I explained the NJ AWB to her, with a focus on the ban on magazines capable of holding more than 15 rounds. She asked, "How many of them do you have?" I said, "I don't know exactly, but it is somewhere around 200 years worth in Rahway State Prison." She turned white and (VERY) uncharacteristically silent for about 30 seconds. Then she asked if Texas had any laws like that. "No, babe, Texas is in America."

Screw NJ - I've been back 4 times, and the last time I carried a S&W J-frame just because I wasn't going to be unable to defend myself or my family...and I wouldn't dump any brass anywhere, either if I needed to use it. Didn't tell the wife until (you guessed it) we left the state via the Delaware Memorial Bridge. :>)

DAN III said...

ALCON,

The solutions expressed by the blog author require a attorney, lots of money $700+/hour, and a black robed tyrant adhering to the Constitution and the now defunk, Rule of Law.

The ONLY solution is the judicial use of hemp and rope upon the perpetrators of government tyranny.

Aesop said...

You only get the rights you defend.
One way, or another.

You wave a rope at them, and I'll shoot at the bastards, and we'll see which approach works better.

TANSTAAFL


Re: PRNJ
It seems to me to be the perfect place to get a few 80% 1911 receivers and AR lowers, and finish them out with the same markings and serial numbers as the registered ones. Disarmament vs. federal pokey is a tough call, but at that point, anything goes.
GovTrolls tend to be clipboard checkbox happy, and if they got everything on the list, and you don't keep the originals handy to find right next to the duplicates, they're not going to bring out a backhoe to find the guns they already found once, and don't know about, now are they?
Just saying.

Anonymous said...

"@Anonymous 9:07:

I believe you misunderstand

Well, I expect that I have. Are we a nation of laws? To what extent? Please cite me the New Jersey law that requires that I have to speak to Law enforcement, or further to respond to a "list" presented to me". I am probably required to suffer a search of my residence, but...what else? Federal law STILL allows the occasional sale of a firearm...so what if half a dozen are missing?

I don't believe that there is any relevant code that requires me to respond. If the situation devolves to extra-legal demands, well, that is another story entirely.

I was a large city Cop years ago. In this situation, if a homeowner graciously decided to become compliant, then we could proceed...if not, we needed a court order.

What, specifically, do red-flag laws require of a citizen? What tools do they give law enforcement? Specifically.

Anonymous said...

@Anonymous 8:46PM:

Assuming Federal Red Flag laws would work roughly as they do in NJ, it IS a court order (hence my acquaintance being told he didn't have a choice). Also, NJ cops are a perfect example of 80% giving the rest a bad name, so if you refuse to turn your guns (which they have their little list of) freely, they WILL search, they WILL find them, and they WILL destroy everything in the process. "Your honor, we suspected there was a hidden compartment behind the china cabinet so we pulled it off the wall, we didn't realize it was full of antique china. And how ELSE were we to check under the Mercedes in the garage besides jacking one side up until it flipped over?" And it'll be perfectly legal, see the legal opinion I quoted above.

Personally, I left NJ in the rear view mirror four months ago when I moved to PA. Two weeks after I moved here the local ambulance squad had a gun raffle as a fund raiser (including an AR-15 rifle). Such a thing would've caused the sheeple of NJ to retire to the fainting couch.

Mark D

elysianfield said...

Well, ladies and germs...the statute in question;

https://www.njleg.state.nj.us/2018/Bills/A1500/1217_I1.HTM

The bill does not say anything about talking to, or even presenting a weapon to, the law enforcement agency at the scene. Let them search, but mention to them that the security cameras might be recording the search.

Put a pot of coffee on, maybe a plate of donuts? Be as pleasant as you can be.
And be sure to thank them for their service when they leave.

Aesop said...

@Mary Anne

The email you posted doesn't work.
Tried twice.

carolinaTURTLE said...

Maybe science fiction? Perhaps something in a parallel universe? MaryAnne, that is a very intriguing concept for the many squids who frequent this blog. I did meet briefly a Marine who joined the Navy because he wanted to give the Navy SEALs a try. Other than that, it completely befuddles me why any marine would truly switch branches into the Navy...

Unknown said...

Nope. One goes for the head, not the body. The Chief, not the expendable beat cop; the Sheriff, not the deputy; the DA, the judge. Work upwards, finally towards the damn legislators who write or support such scurrilous 'law'.

The brutalized uniform will be given a lavish miles-long traffic snarling death parade (on the taxpayer's dime) and be hailed as a fallen hero. Meanwhile, Team Blue will go to war as if their brethren was an Archduke. It will be time for painful serious lessons learnt. Team Blue must learn to say, No, to their lordship. No, their paycheck and their pension is insufficient to warrant violation of civil rights when ordered to carry forward on unconstitutional edicts. However, if they show up with heavy armor SWAT APC, all order is lost. Actually, they would be reacting as planned. Let the festivities commence!

Your desire to go home at end of shift does in no way supersede my right. It's up to you how you want to play this.

Rick