Under a Gibbous Moon

In a statement as to why guns are bad, Mayor Richard Daley characterizes firearm owners thusly, ”If you have the right to have 30, 40 or 50 guns and all the ammunition, and you get drunk some weekend, and you’re going to have some fun in the home, you better be careful.”

He then claims to be fighting for the victims of crime at the same time he is working to disarm them. I think James over at Hell in a Handbasket knows plenty of people who would disagree with ole’ King Richard.

California has moved closer to destroying the last vestiges of gun rights to be found in the golden state. In a narrow victory, Assembly Bill 1934 passed the Senate Public Safety Committee, removing one of the last obstacles before it moves to a full vote.

In a complete lapse of common sense, California State Senator thinks that open carry is dangerous because it will all “gang-bangers” to carry weapons. Apparently, he thinks that if open carry is banned, then the criminals will disarm and everything will be roses.

It seems that California is home to the rare, law abiding criminal.

A fourteen year old boy was killed after the loaded .30-30 rifle that he kept on a peg in his bedroom (to shoot coyotes from his window) was knocked off, causing it to fire.

The family has decided that, instead of taking responsibility for negligence, they are going to sue everyone. They are suing the rifle manufacturer, claiming the safety was defective, Wal-Mart for selling the rifle, and the ambulance company for failing to save the boys life.

Hanging a loaded weapon by a shoulder strap on a peg in the wall is far and away not a safe way to store a firearm, particularly a loaded one. Allowing a fourteen year old to fire a rifle from his bedroom window strikes me as a lapse in judgement as well.

Firearms are weapons and need to treated with respect, not hanging from a peg on the wall. There are no such thing as accidental discharges, only negligent discharges.

I was reading this article (sorry I couldn’t seem to access the original). It’s about two off duty police officers shooting a man who had a pellet gun (to be fair, the man was running around and shooting it) that they thought was a rifle.

The police officers were working as private security for a bar at the time and in the middle of the article there is something that seemed strange.

What is known, he said, is that Messerschmidt and Palermo were approached by a woman who said two men in a car double-parked on south 33rd Street were causing problems and might be armed.

The officers approached the men, placed them in handcuffs and began to search the car for weapons. None were found.

So, while off duty, the walk up to somebody’s car, handcuff them, and then search them. I’m not sure that would have been legal if they were on duty. They seem to be on really shaky PC detaining and searching people on the say so of someone at a bar.

This video has to be seen to be believed.

So this state trooper, who appears to be off duty, cuts in front of Anthony Graber, approaches him with a drawn pistol and screaming at him. Several seconds into the confrontation he finally identifies himself (though he just says he’s the police, he doesn’t actually produce a badge).

The police try to claim that he was on duty and just plain clothes, though I doubt it simply because why wasn’t his badge at hand and why didn’t he use his lights instead of just cutting the motorcycle off.

Since all this conduct is caught on film, they decide to charge Grabder with “wiretapping” for recording the confrontation. They claim that a police officer, a public servant in the performance of his duties (supposedly), is entitled to privacy when has contact with the people he is supposed to be serving.

This just strikes me as a massive case of district attorney CYA. The big giveaway is when the anchor reports that the DA is speculating that Graber had a camera on his helmet to incite a police officer. Nothing quite like releasing a completely unfounded statement to the press that could prejudice the jury pool.