18 September 2006

 K. L. Jamison

It is a good day for Liberty.

We have one year and two months before Hillary Clinton begins her campaign for president.

A rapper known as “C-Murder” is under house arrest awaiting a second trial on a murder charge. If a man came to me with a murder charge, and he was named “Murder”, or any variation thereof, I would charge more.

Astronomers have declared that Pluto is no longer considered to be a planet. It is now merely an object orbiting the sun to no particular purpose. I know some people like that.

I was called by a Jackson County man who was charged with carrying a concealed weapon. This has become less common in my practice; the really unusual thing is that he was charged with carrying a handgun in his glove compartment, which is specifically not a crime anymore. He was arrested in December of 2003, while the law was still in litigation. However, the car carry provision was never challenged. He was not formally charged for at least six months, after the Supreme Court found the law constitutional. The real problem was that he called me three days before his trial was scheduled to start. I spoke to his lawyer who confirmed the sequence of events and said that he could get a plea to something minor. Of course he could, the man did not commit a crime major or minor. I learned later that the man had pled to a minor charge because he did not want to roll the dice on a felony.

A man in the St. Louis area called me to report that he had been arrested for “brandishing a firearm in an angry and threatening manner”. This one is a problem. He was pulling out of a parking place when another driver almost hit him. They pulled back, tried again, and again almost hit. The other driver began screaming curses, the caller reports having given him the finger and driving off. The other driver followed him, which was alarming. Stopped at a crossing the other driver reportedly approached his car screaming curses and pounding on his door. He opened his glove compartment and indicated his gun. The guy ran off, just far enough to call the police and report a lunatic brandishing a gun. The police found a gun which indicated to them that the rest of the story might be true as well. The man’s wife reported that the incident happened at an intersection covered by traffic cameras. The camera did not show any such incident. This may have been due to a stress-induced mistake. The real problem is that people who carry guns cannot give people the finger, or anything similar, and they MUST carry cell phones and use them whenever the gun is used no matter how minimally. This is a swearing contest, so to speak, and the man is reluctant to roll the dice. His lawyer tells me that the local police do not care what the law says, if anyone carries in a car, they will be arrested. It looks like a fertile field for lawsuits.

These cases demonstrate that people who carry guns must have better manners than anyone else, especially in the presence of people with no manners. Secondly, everyone who carries a gun must carry a cell phone and must be the first one to call the police if the gun is used or even referred to, no matter how minimally.

A man has been sent to the Western Missouri Mental Health Center after three years in an isolation cell in the City jail. He was homeless before his incarceration for random attacks on people, which he continued when he was jailed. He is thought to be insane. There is no room in the mental health system for such persons, so he was sentenced to the municipal jail which is hardly a treatment plan; I feel my sanity slipping when I must visit a client there. The triumph is that he will be in Western Missouri Mental Health for 30 days observation. After that he may be released, to socialize with the rest of us in the only way he knows how, or some long term treatment plan may be found, perhaps election to the City Council. It is said that half the inmates of the city jail have mental problems, and they are going to get out.

Kansas City has revised its decision that it was unnecessary to have an evacuation plan. The City now has a plan which claims that it can evacuate the downtown area in 1.96 hours. This seems remarkably precise for a plan which must be carried out, if at all, under extreme stress and threats from some quarter. I am constrained to point out that it takes better than two hours for the City council to decide when to have a meeting at which to discuss what consultants to hire to advise an evacuation.

A client is an expert in cleaning up contaminated sites. I quizzed him about lead contamination at shooting ranges. He agrees that if children were to eat bullets, they would have serious medical consequences. However, they are not likely to eat bullets. The claim is that run off from ranges contaminates the soil, leading to health problems. He says that in order to have health consequences, a child would have to eat contaminated dirt ten hours a day, 365 days per year. This seems unlikely, but the opposition does not deal in likely, they will scream cancer, and toxic and dead children. We will not scream. We will simply say they prefer superstition to science.

President Bush came to Kansas City and our Gary was one of the people who was introduced to him as he came off the plane. The photo is on page A-4 of the 9 September, 2006 Kansas City Star.

I have a new dog, a black Labrador female named Max; just Max, not short for Maxine. People object that Max is a male name. I say that this is America and Max can have any name I say, and it is easy to spell. I took Max to Congressman Sam Graves picnic; Max, an aggressively friendly dog tried to jump on the Congressman. Assaulting a Congressman with a canine has to be some kind of crime. Fortunately Sam is one of us and loves dogs.

As of July 2006 there are 27,700 Missouri LTC’s, and thousands of out of state licenses.

The leading candidates for president in 2008 are Republicans ex-New York Mayor Gulianni, and Senator McCain, and Democrat Hilary Clinton. All of these people hate us. We need to have a Congress that will be on our side, men like Sam Graves in the 6^th District and Jacob Turk in the 5^th District and Senator Jim Talent.

A new gun shop, Moore Outdoors, is at 14115 Earthworks Dr, Smithville Mo 64089 (816) 532-BANG (2264). This is south of Smithville on the east side of 169 Hwy by Conoco and In-a-Tub. He carries camping equipment as well as firearms, so this might be a good place to shop before the meteor strikes, the zombies attack, and Kansas City carries out its precisely timed evacuation.

In the “Road Warrior” movie a member of a refugee group wants to negotiate with marauder leader “Humungus” claiming, “He’s a reasonable man”. “Humungus” uses members of their group for hood ornaments, yet the character claims that he is “reasonable” when all evidence is to the contrary. Simply wishing or hoping that someone must be reasonable does not make it so. We are constantly presented with politicians we are told are “reasonable”, and what they find reasonable is to make hood ornaments of our rights. That’s why we keep track of these people.

I remember a “Three Stooges” episode in which the Three are dressed as Hitler, Tojo and Mussolini at a peace conference. “We want peace”, declares Moe/Hitler. “Yeah”, joins in Curly/Mussolini, “A piece of this country, a piece of that country . . .” This is the approach many have to our rights, a piece here, a piece there.

There has been much controversy over how to deal with the millions of aliens who are illegally in this country. The scope of the problem is indicated by the constantly escalating estimates of how many millions are here. Regardless of what action is taken, in my opinion, millions of aliens, chiefly Mexicans, will remain in this country. There is no economic opportunity for them at home and they cannot be blamed for wanting a better life. There are repeated proposals that would put these aliens “on a path to citizenship”. This causes some agitation as citizens can sponsor other relatives. However, the “path to citizenship” begins with “permanent residency” takes five years to travel by law, and there is government paperwork and a citizenship test at the end. I find it a simple test, but many native Americans could not pass it. The permanent resident of Mexican nationality could apply for a spouse and unmarried children, if willing to wait seven years and sixteen years respectively for them to arrive. The new Mexican-American citizen can then apply for immediate family members; a wife is eligible for an “immediate” visa, as the government defines these things (I have one client facing a processing time of over a year for his wife’s visa). Other relatives face a delay of from thirteen (13) to eighteen (18) years depending on how immediate the government defines their immediate family relationship to be. None of this seems to be a good thing, no matter what one’s opinion of immigration might be. As an immigration attorney, I should rejoice in complexity, but I do not know a single immigration attorney who rejoices in red tape. The Chinese claim that in every crisis there is an opportunity. The opportunity here is that we have time to educate the new residents in the value of gun ownership. Mexico has a tradition of revolution against tyranny, largely unsuccessful. However, their peasant militias threw out two European powers. We can build on this, and I think we have to. If some of our people would help teach English classes, teach citizenship classes and encourage these new residents to come out to shooting events we may end up with a float in the Cinco de Mayo Parade, and a voting block that is for us instead of against us.

At a gun show I overheard a man refuse to join the NRA on the grounds that it “only supported republicans” and his union told him that was a bad thing. On the other hand, if all the Democrats had won, he wouldn’t have been standing in a gun show getting a good deal on a semi-automatic carbine. On yet another hand, what he was told is not true. The NRA has supported Democrats; I have seen it, I have sat on committees that gave NRA endorsements to Democrats. WMSA has supported Democrats; I have handed them the check.

A judge just ruled that the Democratic machines in St. Louis and Kansas City can have one more chance at election fraud. This makes the Talent race that much more difficult. It means that we have to ask people to Vote Freedom First. No matter what economic, social, religious, or scientific issues they might have, we have to vote our Liberties. If we can keep the opposition on the defensive for just two more years we may be able to generate enough momentum that they cannot stop us. The claims that re-electing Senator Talent will mean the end of our financial interests are not credible. We heard these claims when President Reagan first ran, when he ran for re-election, when Bush One ran, when “W” first ran, and when he ran for re-election. Our economic abilities are intact. However, when anti-gun politicians were elected, our rights took hits from which we have not yet fully recovered. One more “Freedom First” vote may convince politicians that anti-gun policies are practical and political losers. The WMSA endorsements are at www.WMSA.net. Tell your friends, one more “Vote Freedom First”.

I saw a Chinese movie “Mountain Patrol”. It concerned a group of Tibetans who formed a volunteer militia to protect a sacred antelope herd from poachers. The volunteers took casualties from the poachers, and the harsh Tibetan wilderness, but were successful in protecting the herd and getting international bans on the pelts, which discouraged poaching. Confronted with success, the Chinese government controlled it, took it over and disbanded the volunteer militia; it can’t have mere citizens being successful.

The Great Rivers Habitat Alliance (see www.grha.net) is an NRA supported conservation program to preserve hunting habitat near St. Louis.

Many claim that gasoline prices are dropping only because of the coming election. If the price could be dialed up and down at the will of politicians I doubt they would have allowed it to approach $3 a gallon in an election year. They were afraid to deal with gun issues, much less gas prices.

We shall overcome.