Liberty Notes

By K. L. Jamison Esq.

January 2005

We have three years to prepare for Hilary Clinton's presidential bid in 2008.

We must also prepare for an unfriendly Republican presidential candidate. Everyone who is currently on the short list is anti-gun. The leading contender appears to be Senator McCain. He repeatedly sponsors legislation to ban gun shows. He was mentioned as Kerry's running mate; then suddenly he was franticly campaigning for Bush. My guess is that a deal was made that McCain would campaign for Bush now, and Bush would campaign for McCain in 2008. This would also be consistent with the President's reputation for repaying loyalty. This forces us to consider what we should do if neither presidential candidate is good for us. We would vote Libertarian, as we have before. As a practical matter, we would need to increase our strength in both houses of Congress.

Derek Ward finally launched his coup against me. Participants were required to provide their own pitchforks and torches. This seems inappropriate, but one seldom gets choices in these matters. Derek is now president, and has directed that flogging continue until morale improves.

Sheila Stokes-Begley brought muffins to the Board meeting. We elected her Vice-President anyway. She is now in a secure location.

I have been elected President of Missourians for Personal Safety, the umbrella organization for Missouri gun rights groups. There will be another rally in Jefferson City this year. We will be celebrating the one year anniversary of License to Carry. After ten months of LTC, there have been none of the horrors the prohibitionists predicted. There are many demands to "fix" LTC. The plain truth is that "It ain't broke, so don't fix it." There remains the funding glitch, however, everyone in the affected jurisdictions can get an out of state license which must be honored in all of Missouri.

Our efforts to date have given us a pro-gun majority in the Missouri legislature. However, many legislators are quite new. Others are weak reeds and may feel the urge to compromise. In the Army we were taught that when we won a victory, to immediately prepare for counterattack. Good advice.

Archeologists have found the stone toilet Martin Luther sat on while planning the Protestant Reformation. Luther was troubled by constipation and did most of his work sitting on this toilet. I am not clear on the religious meaning of this discovery. It does demonstrate an efficient use of time.

There is some confusion over LTC recognition and reciprocity. In reciprocity states, they will recognize Missouri’s license if an agreement is struck to that effect. In our recognition system, ALL licenses are automatically honored. Recognition is clearly the superior system. In order for Missouri licenses to be honored in a reciprocity state, the respective attorney generals must usually hammer out an agreement to do so. Some states may honor Missouri licenses without an agreement; some have already done so. The bulk of the states require that Missouri’s attorney general approach them on the subject first. This is true in most cases; while we have recognition, they have reciprocity.

There has been a claim on the internet that a Moslem chaplain at a prison admitted that his faith demanded killing or enslaving all non-Moslems. I checked my copy of the Koran and found Surah (essentially "Chapter") 109 THE UNBELIEVERS verse 6 "You shall have your religion and I shall have my religion." This would seem to indicate a certain tolerance. I am sure that certain Islamo-fascists would read it otherwise. I asked a Moslem client if there are verses to justify random violence against non-Moslems. He consulted Islamic scholars and the consensus was that there are not. There are verses which indicate that if attacked Moslems should kick ass and take names. Doubtless terrorists twist these verses to justify their own demons. We have seen such Elmer Gantry characters in Christianity. The Koran establishes rules for war to protect the innocent and prevent atrocity. These rules are flouted by the terrorists.

The murder of several deer hunters by another hunter armed with an SKS will be used against us. The prohibitionists are dancing in the blood claiming that this indicates hunter blood lust, and demanding laws against "high powered assault weapons". A group of hunters confronted an Asian-American who was using one of their tree stands. According to the group, the intruder started to leave, took the scope off of his SKS rifle, turned and shot at the group, killing six and wounding two. They say that only one of the group had a rifle, the others had left theirs’ in a nearby cabin. The man with the rifle was shot first. The shooter claims that the group made ethnic slurs against him and shot first. The one rifle recovered from the group had been fired, but, this was a hunting trip. There are some things which need to be explained. If the shooter planned to kill the group, taking off the telescopic sight was an odd first step. However, it could have made quick snap shots easier. Only one rifle in the group of hunters seems odd, but, they left their cabin to tell a man to get out of their tree stand, there was no reason to believe that they needed their rifles. The strangest thing about the incident is that it happened at all. Experienced hunters have never heard of anything similar anywhere in the country.

Amnesty International is opposed to TASER stun guns because some officers or officials have used them to torture prisoners. Of course, it would never occur to government employees to torture prisoners without stun guns. In further foolishness, Amnesty International opposes the sale of stun guns to civilians because they may use them to abuse women and other misuse. From my domestic violence practice, I am not sure that violent persons have been waiting for stun guns to begin abusing women. Amnesty International does not consider the defensive use of stun guns.

At least one LTC trainer is recording the make, model and serial number of guns used in the training course. The argument is that this reduces the trainer’s liability if the student chooses to carry a gun other than the one he used in the course. I do not follow this reasoning. It provides a record which is accessible to the sheriff. It may actually be a liability problem. If the student uses a gun he/she did not train on it may be taken as negligence on the student’s part. The trainer may be blamed for not training on the gun actually carried. I am not certain. Certainly the opposition will make some sort of problem out of any action or no action. If the records only show that the student passed, it would seem that there is less for the opposition to work with.

I’ve read a federal civil rights case George Jones v City of Chicago, 856 F.2d 985 (Fed. App. 7th Cir. 1988). A twelve year old girl was raped and murdered. A brain-damaged witness said the assailant was named George, a light-skinned African-American involved in gangs. Chicago detectives focused on a nearby high school honors student, the son of a police officer, a dark-skinned African-American, not involved with gangs, but he was named George. Obsessed for some reason with this George, the detectives manipulated identifications, concealed evidence in favor of their suspect, and did a nice job of framing an innocent party. A forensic examiner falsified a report, and the prosecutor lied to the jury. When another detective exposed the frame to the defense, the charges were dropped. George was upset and sued. This demonstrates that we cannot assume that being innocent is enough, and the system cannot be relied on to play fair.

The annual Gun Rights Rally will be on 10 March, 2005 in the Rotunda of the Capital Building in Jefferson City. This is a close as we could get to the one year anniversary of the Supreme Court decision on LTC (26 February). Specific times and bus schedules will be posted later. We need to ward off attacks on LTC, and there are some other areas of firearms law we need to reform. The general theme will be a birthday party for LTC. There may be funny hats and noisemakers, and this is Jefferson City, there are always clowns.

The January, 2005 issue of Small Arms Review has an article on the measures the 101st Airborne Division took to institute gun control in Iraq; and we know how that worked out.

A federal law allows law enforcement officers to carry concealed in all fifty states. Retired officers who have qualified may also carry. Mayor Dailey of Chicago and other prohibitionists are doing their Chicken Little dance claiming that we are all going to be killed and the city will be sued. This does not make a great deal of sense. If we are all killed, who will file the lawsuit? The claim that a police officer becomes less trustworthy if he leaves his jurisdiction or retires is an insult to all law enforcement officers, and to my intelligence.

On 7 December, 1941 the Japanese Ambassador to the United States delivered an ultimatum to Secretary of State Cordell Hull. The gist was that if the United States did not conform to Japanese demands, a state of war would exist. This ultimatum was delivered some time after the bombs began to fall on Peal Harbor. Secretary Hull replied, "I have never seen a document that was more crowded with infamous falsehoods and distortions on a scale so huge that I never imagined that any government on this planet was capable of uttering them." Today we are confronted with a gun prohibitionist movement which demands that we conform to "reasonable" demands regarding "safety" or they will take all of our guns. However the bombs are already falling. The prohibitionists have tried vast gun restriction schemes at the federal level, and when we regained our strength there, they moved their schemes to the state level. In the past we made compromises, and the prohibitionists demanded more. Prohibitionists have lied, faked news stories, buried pro-gun news and have engaged in "infamous falsehoods and distortions on a scale so huge" that I cannot imagine any media outlet accepting them. But accept them they do. Our movement has proved that the book ARMING AMERICA was a fraud, that a CNN reporter faked a story on the power of "assault weapons", this past year has proven that License to Carry does not result in wholesale slaughter. One would think that prohibitionists have completely shredded their credibility. Yet, the media continues to reprint their press releases as fact, and their fantasies as editorials. So WMSA continues to have work.

For the last two years Mary Ann Bradfield has been our NRA-ILA liaison. She recently had to resign due to family demands. She has done good work for us getting the LTC and industry protection law through the legislature. She worked to have a good relationship with local groups. She will be missed in her capacity; however she now lives in St. Louis and may continue to be active. Her successor is Joel Partridge and we look forward to working with him in this legislative session.

I listened to an audiobook of DEFYING HITLER. The work was written in 1940 by a man who grew up as the nazi movement gained power. A court official he was appalled at the case of a Jewish man who was killed by nazi thugs. This killing was justified by many of his colleges. The dead man’s home was invaded by nazi thugs, he defended himself, and a mob of nazis killed him while the police took no action. The author protested that the man was defending himself, but was told that Jews did not have the right to defend themselves against nazis. Actually this is the law in Great Britain today; a citizen is not allowed to defend himself against criminals.

When entering the Cass County Courthouse I saw a man being handcuffed. In passing I got the impression that he was being arrested for "illegally bringing ammunition into the courthouse". I was late for my own case and could not get details. Checking the statute, I see that weapons are barred from courthouses, but ammunition is not defined as a weapon. If anyone has heard of a similar charge, please let me know.

We shall overcome.