Reader Jon W. writes:
Recently, I was an earwitness to the discharge of multiple firearms associated with the end of a police pursuit, just 100 yards from where I live. The calm of a quiet afternoon was interrupted by the frantic pop, pop, pop-pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop,…(15 shots at least) then the following pop-pop-pop…pop-pop….pop-pop-pop, etc. The first pops were the perp who jumped from his crashed vehicle and began firing at the local Seminole County deputies who were chasing him. The second group was the deputies firing back, critically wounding the perp. One deputy suffered a minor wound to his ankle and was released from the hospital the same evening. It could have been much, much worse . . .
The video below was made by a guy who happened to be there at the moment.
So what’s the point of all this? Well, it seems this fleeing perp had just been released from prison on September 1st for convictions of selling or manufacturing marijuana, and, ta-dah, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. And yet, less than a month later, he has another firearm, and is back to his old criminal habits.
Now he’ll add three counts of attempted murder of law enforcement officers,to his rap sheet, and again, another count of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. I’m guessing that he didn’t pass a NCIS background check. And he probably didn’t exploit the “gun show loophole” either.
Oh, a police search found $25,000 of methamphetamine and heroine in the perp’s car, too.
But could he buy a book?
Why would he buy a book when they’re going to throw the book at him?
Probably like the last 10 plus times, very softly.
Because sometimes Ralph you need a place to store your ill gotten arms
He got a copy each of “Making Methamphetamine For Dummies” and “Gats for thugs 101”
If POTUS had a son, he would look like this misunderstood individual.
A book on how to clear a jam while running? Call me kinda impressed.
>drug “offender”
The guy was kidnapped by government gangsters for a non-crime, deprived of his 2A rights, then assaulted again by the same gangsters seeking to kidnap him once more.
Thankfully he was able to defend himself. Aim higher next time.
Can`t tell if sarcasm or just stupid. The fact that there are people that believe this just makes me nervous for the future of our country.
Just stupid. Go back and read, if you can stomach the mind-numbing stupidity, some of ST’s previous posts. He’s a troll.
The irony of bootlickers on a pro-2A site calling other people trolls. 🙂
Oh honey. I see the vagisil is having no effect on that annoying irritation you have been experiencing these past months. Is it possible your boyfriend is being a bit rough? Have you seen your gynecologist lately? I am only concerned for your welfare.
Shush now, don’t be mad you caught the clap from the camp whores, and AIDS from the drill sarge.
Camp whores? No sweetie, I don’t believe your mother was present. Don’t forget your meds today honey.
He’s absolutely correct. The real criminals are the police and the politicians. The politicians make the absurd and idiotic laws to punish peaceful behavior they choose to dislike and the police enforce them.
The aggressors here are the cops and this guy was just defending himself.
Awesome bob. Next time you see your shrink, have him increase the dosage
You probably carry concealed. I’m sure you would step up when you see someone threatening someone else’s life and everyone would agree that you were right and just.
Would you forcefully detain someone you see smoking marijuana? If not, why not?
Bob, please try to remember the voices you keep hearing are not real
The stupid is strong with this one.
Using that reasoning, no authority is legitimate. We have a Constitution, and the inalienable right to smoke herbs is found nowhere in it.
Should Mary J be legal? Probably. But its not now, so to engage in its use and sale is to disregard the rule of law solely *because you want to*. That is the very definition of a criminal.
Add to that a willingness to commit violence against others (especially the non-combatants in traffic), and you are officially a violent thug. You’re going to do what you feel like doing and hurt anyone who gets in your way.
There is absolutely NOTHING morally superior about that. Despite the philosophical window-dressing, you’re just a common thug.
So where does it say in the constitution that the government can kidnap and cage people who smoke leaves and sniff powder?
Alcohol prohibition created all the violence in those days. Funny how all the violence stopped after they made alcohol legal again. Same thing will happen with drug legalization. Google Portugal if you want a concrete example, they legalized and now kids use them less.
Oh, did you notice that they changed the constitution in order to make alcohol illegal? Seems they had a bit more respect for it back then…
>Add to that a willingness to commit violence against others
Literally the definition of law enforcement.
I do like how your respect for supposedly civil society is little more than a total outsourcing of all your morality to the government.
This should put the knife in the idea that any felon should get their gun rights back.
Why?
Had this same idiot done the same things and NOT had a gun people would be talking sh!t about police shooting at him. And even without “getting his gun rights back” he still got a gun.
How often must it be pointed out that the right to self-defense is a natural right that the government CANNOT take away? The best they can do is that if you are convicted of a crime they can ATTEMPT to restrict your ability to obtain certain weapons you might desire for the best ability to exercise that right.
What the perp did not have the right to do was to use a weapon in the commission of a crime and therefore it was appropriate at that time for anyone in the vicinity to perforate the S.O.B.
Your lack of logic and especially judgment is highly disturbing. Deal with realities and not absurd theories. You take away rights and privileges from people who show themselves unworthy of them. Prison is not where a debt to society is magically paid off and they become super citizens. Ever look at the recidivism rate? As pro-gun as I am, common sense gun laws are not and should not be the domain of only liberal, leftist politicians. Common sense says the mentally disturbed and felons are not responsible. With rights come responsibilities that we as gun owners should recognize.
Did you really intend to write this: “You take away rights and privileges from people who show themselves unworthy of them. ”
That is the entire argument of the gun-grabbers, who have peremptorily determined no one should be allowed to possess a firearm. By what/which constitutional authority are fundamental, inalienable, natural and civil rights denied any free person? Who decides who and which? You may think someone you admire is OK to make that decision, but what about the fact I think the focus of your admiration is a complete dolt, even an “NRA terrorist”, and I have the votes to make my opinion law? “Common sense” means no one in their right mind wants complete strangers, who just may be wannabe killers, walking around with a firearm, having the potential to kill 5,6,7, 14, 33 people in about 4 seconds. “Common sense” dictates that all firearms be confiscated so that no more school shootings can happen with legally owned guns. “Common sense” dictates that every owner, firearm, bullet and casing should be identifiable so that the owner can be held accountable for death and injury to the innocent public.
And the beat goes on.
Nice try. Your attempts at common sense will go unnoticed here….you’ll possibly be labeled a Fudd
The biggest threat to our gun rights are the couple of stridently vocal bad apples among us who advocate for crazy ideas (like arming felons). That kind of talk will turn people who are otherwise neutral on gun rights away form us entirely.
If the second amendment does not protect all persons, at all times, who determines what is a “reasonable” limit on the right to protect oneself with a firearm? The problem with compromise of inalienable rights is that there is no logical stopping point. And we need to admit that. We need to accept that “the constitution is not a suicide pact.” We need to come to grips with the idea that we can never “win” the argument that the second amendment prohibits the government from implementing onerous restrictions. We will be fighting this battle forever, because “reasonable” is determined at the ballot box and in the courts. We have the recent SC decisions allowing marriage between any two consenting adults. What prevents polygamy? Once marriage has no immutable moral imperative, then we are only choosing what we like as acceptable. Same applies to limits on gun possession. When we agree that there are some “common sense” limits, we are agreeing that limits are negotiable; negotiations without limits, decided only buy the majority decision of the public.
If I believed your simplistic attitude was correct, I STILL would not think restricting the perp’s rights was the correct answer, why not just shoot him?
Do you even fully understand what the term “felon” encompasses? Do you really support the barring of the right to keep and bear arms from people who write bad checks for amounts over $100? If so, it is your lack of logic and especially judgment that is highly, HIGHLY disturbing.
Actually, I do. In my own business, I have had people write me bad checks. Checks, it turns out, that had been stolen. Was writing bad checks their only crime? Nope. In fact, when they were caught, my charges were plea bargained away because of all the other nasty stuff the authorities had on them. People don’t commit crime in a vacuum. Evil people exist in this world. My right to live in a just and peaceable society trumps their right to guns which they will use to commit more crime.
David B,
Once that felon is out on the streets, he can easily acquire a club or hammer from any number of sources for $10 or less … and with either item have no trouble at all severely injuring or killing someone.
If the felon is so dangerous that we don’t trust him with a firearm, then we don’t trust him with a club or hammer either and he should still be locked away in prison where he cannot harm the good people of our nation.
Once a person is out of prison, do they not have a right to life? If the answer is “no”, then they might as well still be in prison since they have no right to life anyway. If the answer is “yes”, then they also have a right to defend their life. But how can we say that they have a right to defend their life if we deny them the most effective tools available to defend it? It is no different than saying that you have a right to defend your life … but we are going to make you walk around in handcuffs all the time because we don’t trust you.
Thank you.
The best response I have for that is “Huh? Do what? You can’t be serious.”
So basically you’re anti-gun. You’d fit in better at the Bloombergites, since you like to parrot their lines.
Because I don’t want criminals who commit crimes that hurt real people to have guns, I am somehow anti-gun? Owning guns is the right of law-abiding honest citizens. Ever notice that criminals that commit crimes do not have access to guns in prison? More guns equals less crime, right? Wrong. More guns in the right hands equals less crime.
What you are saying is actually quite racist. You would arm the Klansmen who felt threatened by shotgun owning blacks so that they, while burning crosses and lynching blacks, could defend themselves in the commission of their crime? Tell me you see your tortured logic.
No, you flatly stated that people who write bad checks and other non-violent crimes should have all of their rights suspended, including the right to keep and bear arms (which, as outlined in the 2nd Amendment, says “shall not be infringed” not “shall not be infringed unless they write a bad check”) as if they were violent felons because of your personal anecdotes. I’m not the one with the tortured logic here. You are in the same kettle as the anti-gunners, your statement I quoted above is directly attributable to anti-gunners. You do not support liberty, you support tyranny of the feels.
Way up in your ivory castle stocked with Whole Foods organic groceries, it must be hard looking down on us common people who live among the hoi-poloi and face reality every day.
And the final resort to ad hominem attack. Thank you for showing everyone your true colors.
do you know what ad hominem means?
“My right to live in a just and peaceable society”
Did a unicorn fart out this Utopian right you think you have?
Where in the real world do you think such a right exists? The world is a dangerous place full of uncertainty. The only way free men exercise freedom is to recognize such in others.
You are as much as, if not more so, of a fantasist and Statist as the anti’s.
Ok I buy that concept that prison is unfortunately not paying your debt to society in full but in the cases where it is (obviously NOT this case!) rights should be restored absent the person being on parole/probation where in many cases their 4th amendment right is forfeited for the time being but usually not forever (unless its some serious offense, usually federal). Equal protection under the law, isn’t that what the 14th amendment is about? Yeah yeah I know public safety exemptions but they are way to broad in case law and in the minds of those who would love to grab our guns. Writing a bad check is a felony, should that be a life time ban on firearm ownership and what I would say is the de facto right to self defense? Hell no! How could anyone argue a public safety risk for someone who wrote one bad check or used falsified car insurance, or got popped with a small amount of drugs. We’ve got more felonies than misdemeanors these days and its insane, I’m fine with violent felonies making a person a prohibited person for life absent them showing they are a good citizen that is reformed and not a threat anymore such as a person who was convicted of 2nd manslaughter for say killing a guy who raped and murdered his young child because a crime of passion doesn’t always characterize a persons “threat” to society as a whole. All these drug offenses have created a ton of prohibited persons, and its not just prohbiting firearm ownership, it means you aren’t allowed to touch a firearm or even hold a cartridge for one. I read a story about a guy who was a banker who got locked up for fraud or some serious financial crime, he paid his debt in prison AND in restitution but he was screwed as a prohibited person for life absent spending $50-100K to possibly get his 2A rights restored. He married a women who’s family was very much into hunting, three gun, IPSC, and other firearms activities and at dinner on Friday everyone would talk about their plans and the family tried real hard to accommodate him for activies not firearms related but it still hurt him that he was not able to participate with his wife and her families activities when he had previously been a hunter himself. It just seams soo soo wrong. I’d be willing to compromise, maybe after a felony you can still own long guns or you can still own long guns and handguns but you can’t carry concealed and must carry open and only in certain areas…I know many don’t like compromise but that’s how it works in law making whether we like it or not.
I am with you David. We look like idiots if we try to defend this guys right to own a firearm after a stunt like this. Makes no sense that people on one hand were calling (rightfully) for the woman’s permit after she was trying to shoot the tires from a fleeing suspect who was shoplifting, and now defending this criminal’s right to own a gun after putting the public at great risk and shooting a cop. I am all for certain former criminals to be allowed to vote and to own a firearm, but at the least get through probation first and show the public your not the same person.
Well, it is certainly harvest time; I see straw men everywhere.
First: the woman who shot at a shoplifter without justification should be held criminally liable for her actions. (And apparently, she will be.) Part of that liability is not only losing her license, but possibly jail time. But once she’s made whatever recompense is required, she should be free to reapply for her license.
Second: the thug in this story had already served his time.
Third: the shooting of the cop was a new crime, and I don’t see anyone here advocating for him not being held liable for that new crime. Part of the consequences of that new crime would be more jail time – where he would not be able to avail himself of his gun rights.
Aren’t you proving the point?
Restrictions on gun possession are OK, so long as they are restrictions we like?
I think the proposition is that 2A provides for no limits, for any reason. If that is so, where in the Constitution (legislation contrary does not amend the constitution) is the authority to limit ownership? “Common sense” is the mantra of the grabbers. Do we want to be in that band?
Right, because writing a bad check is totally the same.
The liberal one-two punch. He’s a ‘non-violent’ drug offender, so he gets released from prison. Then he goes and buys a gun and commits a crime to show the ‘guns are outta control’ in this country.
And if we legalized drugs and ended this stupid war on drugs, what he had in his car would have been worth about a buck 95. And there goes his incentive to shoot anybody!
Actually, there goes his job as a drug dealer, also.
Or he could’ve gotten a job as a drug dealer and actually made tax money for the state, rather than cost it.
The assumption that organized crime did not exist before the prohibition and restriction of various items is fallacious. There will always be organized crime and a black market. If drugs were legal this suspect would likely simply work other parts of said black market. Organized crime also deals in sex trafficking/slavery, extortion, murder-for-hire, piracy, counterfeiting, as well as good old fashioned robbery et al. Those things do not magically disappear if we end the war on drugs.
Or is it your opinion that we should allow those other things to be legal and taxed as well? Don’t be ridiculous.
The constant parroting for the end of the war on drugs is NOT related to the second amendment.
Actually, it kind of is. The connection is the question of the role of the State in determining individual behaviors that do not impact others’ lives.
Your supposition that he would be involved in other crime if drugs were legal is just that…supposition. It sounds good, but has no rational basis. Unless you can somehow magically prove that a “criminal gene” exists, and trumps all other behavioral influences (both genetic and environmental), there is no way you can say that his involvement in crime is predetermined.
I get it, though…you’ve drunk the Kool-Aid. He is “the other,” so he is “a really bad guy.” He just is bad, and a criminal, and violent…so that is sufficient justification to crap on his life for the entirety of his life.
Step back and examine the level to which you have been subjected to programming…
That guy sounds like a true entrepreneur and job creator! He manages a product, goes away, and in a month is back up to moving $25K worth of product along with managing to subvert laws that were meant to make his job harder? That guy has some serious moxie.
Wrong tone for this site, half the guys in the comments support drug felons having guns after release.
Wrong yourself. The Second Amendment has no provision or authority for the government to determine who may or may not exercise their right to keep and bear arms. The Second Amendment is a PROHIBITION against the government doing anything of the sort.
“A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” Twenty seven words. No “but”, no “except”, no weasel words at all, and no mention of convicted felons.
If you concede the authority to the government to compile, maintain and enforce a list of persons who in the government’s opinion should be denied their natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms, how will you keep YOUR name off that list?
Constraint of 2A is accepted by most 2A supporters, that is POTG. The contention is about just how far to go with constraints. “Common sense dictates…..whatever your favorite restriction happens to be.” Different from gun-grabbers only in degree, but with no reliable way to prevent further erosion when the other side sufficient votes.
You’re the guy that shows up at Alcoholics Anonymous meetings with a couple 12 packs, a few double deuces, and some cold wine coolers. Because everybody can handle alcohol, right?
And your complete and total logic fail continues. Check out non sequitur for fun and games…
Half the guys on this site are also in favor of capital punishment and lengthy prison stays with no chance of parole. The argument being that if you are being allowed out of prison, you should be deemed safe to re-enter society. If you can’t be trusted with your full rights, why are we allowing you out of prison in the first place?
Cause we have to make room for all the low hanging fruit imprisoned by wimpy prosecutors seeking to advance their careers.
As to capital punishment, one would have to have an unfailing faith in the system and support for the state’s monopoly on taking life. On the one hand murderers, rapists, and those who prey on children have forfeited their right to life; on the other, I don’t trust the system enough to condone it. FBI recently got busted for falsifying evidence, and the DOJ… nuff said. Never trust the bastards. The best outcome is for violent offenders to be killed during the commission of their attack. Done and done.
you do realize that by opposing the death penalty you are drying-up a potential gold mine of body parts that could be used for good?
Just get the coroners mobilized quicker.
It’s ok, he’ll be back out in 3 on good behavior.
With a colostomy bag and a limp.
Forty three shots, only 9 hits, and none fatal? WTF?
Calling it now. Check up on this guy again in 2020. He’ll be in the news again, hopefully he’ll yet again fail to kill anyone before they drag him in for the third time.
When are we going to commit to putting violent career criminals away for a long time?
NCIS doesn’t run back ground checks for gun purchases.
What if the purchaser is Navy?
Still don’t think Mark Harmon would get involved. There’s no drama in that plot line.
It’s that durn NRA’s fault, I tell you.
2A is an absolute, inalienable right. No government has legitimate, moral authority to take away that right, or charge a person with a crime of possessing a gun. Every person (Supreme Court) is covered by the provisions of the constitution. This released criminal had the absolute RTKBA, and the absolute right to use that firearm to defend against any and all attackers. The most that could be charged against him (in a legitimate legal system) is possession of drugs, and fleeing arrest.
For all new readers of TTAG, the above commentator is using a blogging device called “trolling.” Most gun owners find his comments offensive, illogical, and dangerous. I refuse to be affiliated with his ilk.
EDIT: “Trolling” occurs when someone is faces with classic “argument”, and is not equipped to engage. “Trolling” is when someone writes commentary that is not just mindless pablum shouting the latest slogan concerning whatever it is the “offended” party endorses.
My comments are as legitimate as the next. If you feel it too difficult to contemplate a proposition and implications, OK. Just don’t whine about it.
Wrong…again….still.
Trolling does not mean “I don’t like what he said.” Nor does it mean “I have no intelligent argument against what he said, so I’ll just call him a troll.”
My suggestion to you: try to engage the discussion with some more horsepower. You have not offered a rational, reasoned reply in this entire comment section. All you’ve given is disrespectful nonsense and snark offered from a position of self-superiority.
What, precisely, about his comment do you disagree with and why?
Yes, you are. Because you lumped all felons, including non-violent felons, in with rapists, murderers, arsonists, etc. Not fun when the same gets applied to you, is it?
Why all the heat on me? I say don’t give felons/criminals the same rights we have I.e. guns and I’m lumped in with Pol Pot, Hillary Clinton, and Bobs-your-uncle. Really? I’m being unreasonable?
Rights aren’t ours to give or to take. Rights are an endowment by our Creator, and as such are unalienable. If a right can be legitimately given or taken by people, then it is not a right at all; it is a privilege.
So, like it or not, a felon who has served his time, and returns to free society, does so with all unalienable rights intact.
You contradict yourself with your own logic. Imprisonment in and of itself is depriving people of their “God given rights.” Obviously you can forfeit your life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. You give up your 2A (among others) rights if you fly commercial, go to a courthouse, or get stone cold drunk. Our rights are obviously dependent on certain factors. You’re not an island, Chip, and we POTG need to realize that.
“That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…”
Yes, there is a role for government, part of which is enforcing laws, which requires providing for punishment for crime.
Indeed. When a criminal puts an innocent person in jeopardy of his life, the criminal has forfeited his life by justifying the use of deadly force in self-defense by the innocent person.
No, you don’t. In the former two instances, rights are unconstitutionally and immorally infringed. In the latter, there is no true crime unless the “stone cold drunk” person harms another.
No, they are not. They are an endowment by our Creator, and are unalienable.
With respect to individual rights: yes, we are an island. Your rights do not trump mine, nor do my rights trump yours. We are each free to exercise our rights in the manner we see fit.
This is why Chip is right. A human right to self-defense applies even while incarcerated. By which moral authority does society have standing to proclaim a person “outlaw”? In the old, wild west, “outlaw” was a legal term meaning a person had no legal rights, and any other person could do whatever harm to the “outlaw” desired, up to and including killing (“Wanted, Dead or Alive). When we put people in jails, we make them “outlaw” by removing the means to defend their own lives by what ever means necessary. Guards provide no protection, which is why gangs inside prisons form. Society reduced to its meanest and base level. By which God do we put people in such conditions and call ourselves moral?
THANK YOU !!
“I say don’t give felons/criminals the same rights we have I.e. guns and I’m lumped in with Pol Pot, Hillary Clinton”
Well, yeah, because that’s exactly the kind of thing that the State worshipers you mentioned say. Who is doing the defining of “felons/criminals” these days? The State…by fiat. By the stroke of a pen, legislatures and at least one executive is (or is seeking to) create large swaths of prohibited persons by defining actions as felonies.
Consider, for example, that in CT right now…it is a FELONY to not fill out a form telling the State that you own specific guns and/or magazines. That’s just ONE example. Failing to fill out a form, or filling out of forms incorrectly, is defined as FELONIES in thousands of laws.
Filling out a form…felony…. Does that REALLY equal loss of ALL fundamental, natural human rights for the rest of one’s life? Think about what you are saying.
Freedom is messy. It is not “safe” and it is not a tool to be used to create a comfy existence for those that seek to grab power from others. Whenever one person starts talking about what freedoms another “should have,” that’s a power grab from that person’s individual sovereignty.
And, that’s immoral.
Chip, you got a standing ovation from me.
“methamphetamine and heroine in the perp’s car, too.”
So … Did they charge her with anything or was she just along for the ride?
“found $25,000 of methamphetamine and heroine”
These numbers are never accurate… See waht’s entered into evidence and compare for yourself… It’s usually 10x more than reality to make it sound like sending bullets flying in public is justified…
At least the narrator didn’t say ‘double rainbow’ and break into tears….
Thankfully I wasn’t the only one…
FWIW I think non-violent so-called felons shouldn’t lose their rights. But I also think if a violent felon ( as DeFacto) described
(especially one who uses a gun in commission of crime) does that lock it up and throw away the key. My own son falls into the idiot non-violent felon category(but I sure wouldn’t trust his drug-addled 38 yr old judgement)…
I don’t think non-violent crimes should be felonies.
Let’s save all that prison space for people who we actually need to keep separated from civilized society.
White collar crime and non violent crime can be handled through fines, probation, house arrest, and other measures. No need to lock them up.
See, this is why gun offenders should never be allowed to have drugs.
43 rounds fired, 8-9 rounds connected with the perp…. seems like the 10 round mag limit doesn’t pencil out in the real world…
Every Adult that is not complete mental ill should have an fundamental right as gun ownershit (voting, sells his ass, smoke weed) thats can t be limit (still unter scrict scrutiny)
To Danger ? Keep them im prison and put the key away ore put them on death row !!
No compromissed if sombody have saved his sentence on fundamental rights
Please tell me that English is your second language.
computer-generated responses.
anyone else read this, and other comments, and conclude it is computer-generated?
There should be a federal law that says if you shoot a police officer that you get executed. Truly, does anybody think that this person is socially redeemable? He is wasting space on this earth, we should remove him.
Absolutely not. Cops can be guilty of heinous crime and need killing just like the most viscous thug. You would go along with the State in murdering someone who lawfully protected their life from an out of control and unlawful cop? What about someone who defends their home against a home invasion only to discover they killed a couple swat guys who were at the wrong house?
No special class for cops. They are no more than civilians like the rest of us, their lives are worth no more or less, as long as they are moral and just.
Special rights for special people? What makes cops so special over you and me?
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