So the Cult Coalition to Stop Gun Rights Violence is having his weekly fit about this:
Pretty much everything in 18 USC § 922 regarding penalties for firearm violations is up to 10 years and/or up to $250,000 per violation.  Baby boy up there bought 6 guns and resold for profit them without a license. The article in the Chicago Tribune tells us that this was not Mr. Lewisbey only infraction but that he had a long running operation selling to prohibited persons and add to that he went over state lines to do his mischief which is also a Federal no-no if I am not mistaken. The guns he bought and resold alone could bring him up to 60 years and tack extra 20 for the other 2 “small” incidents and we have a nice sentence of 80 years. And even if you want to call the 6 guns as one incident and ignore his long and proven story of gunrunning, you are looking at 30 years …if the Federal prosecutor wanted to nail his hide.

But instead, he gets a deal for 16 years and 8 months so the lawyers can probably go golf practice or some other crap like that. And of course we get CSGV (in full display of ignorance) crying “Moar Tougher Laws!”

And, of course, we can expect Mr. Lewisbey to be back in the streets sometime in the next 5-10 year or so if he behaves in the Fed pen.

Lord, give me patience.

Twitter is rife with crude jokes — but Miami police say a teenager crossed the line when he tweeted the department that “I’m bout to rape a lil girl.”

“You guys I’ve been out here taking little girls and I hear no sirens? Um my avi doesn’t scare you?” the user @5kurrr wrote to Miami’s Twitter page, @MiamiPD.

Cops were not amused. The 15-year-old Miramar boy was arrested and charged with making a false police report, a first-degree misdemeanor, police said Friday.

via Twitter rape joke to Miami police leads to Miramar teen’s arrest – Miami-Dade – MiamiHerald.com.

Here is a copy of the complaint/arrest affidavit. My question: Is there a legal basis or guidelines in which a police department decides which Twitter post is a report? I can see it as evidence, but as the actual definition of police report? I see it as a ripe and fertile space for abuse but I might be wrong.

In any case, I leave the forum open to those who may have an answer.  Until I have a clear answer, I am not planning on Twetting, Facebooking or doing initiating any kind of content with a Law Enforcement agency via Social Media. You never know how it will be treated.

And yes, the little jackass was a jackass and you just don’t play stupid games with stuff like that.

I’d bet he calls his car “The Unicorn.”

Via Illinois Gun Owners Gun Rights

At least for those who are fans or even watched Rocky Horror Picture Show once or twice. It only took 5 years 😀

Well played…

Hat Tip to Bayou Renaissance Man.

Some sites have responded by devoting substantial time and effort to monitoring and editing comments, but we’d rather put our resources into the journalism that brings readers to National Journal in the first place. So, today we’ll join the growing number of sites that are choosing to forgo public comments on most stories.

via Why We’re Changing Our Comments Policy – NationalJournal.com.

I had been noticing that more news websites were suddenly without comment sections or did not have them to begin with. It seemed silly since a good and active comment section meant more hits which means a site for profit can earn more income, but I went Occam and figured it was just plain stupidity rather than an active way to suppress the free flow of ideas. It seems now that it was that indeed.

It is quite indicative that certain political inclinations define debate as a monologue on their side which everybody is allowed to shut up and take it. That places like Gun Controls Organizations like Moms Demand, Brady, etc will ban anybody who even hints at supporting the Second Amendment is not new and we get our good kicks out of it. But when News organizations, alleged bastions of Free Speech decide that contrary opinions and even hateful speech is a no-no just because it hurts their pretty ears and make writers feel unloved, what we are seeing is an attempt to return to the old days of having to send letters to the editor via Pony Express and a basically unchallenged propaganda machine that sides with one political side of the equation.

But as with Dead Tree Media, this strategy will also fail and bring less revenue, something that very few News organizations can afford. I really do not mind seeing them collapse and fade away as they have failed their readership by not doing what they are supposed to do in an era where information comes from many sources and can be fact-checked by thousands of people.

The era of monopolized media enterprises is over. The Robber Barons of The News are as much gone as the old owners of railroads. Just as the car killed the locomotive, the Internet killed the newspapers and its culture of controlling the masses.

Hat Tip Legal Insurrection.

28-year-old Henry Magee is no longer charged in the shooting death of Burleson County Sheriff’s Deputy Adam Sowders.

A grand jury decided there wasn’t enough evidence for him to stand trial on the capital murder charge.

McGee admitted to shooting Sowders before sunrise on December 19th while the deputy and other investigators were serving a no knock search warrant for drugs at McGee’s mobile home near Snook.

Magee’s Defense Attorney Dick DeGuerin says his client thought someone was breaking into his home and fired to protect his pregnant girlfriend and himself.

via Man Charged With Killing Burleson County Deputy No Billed by Grand Jury.

This is a case you probably did not hear about and will not receive much publicity, but it is a tectonic shake in the legal system.

Henry Magee had a marijuana hydroponic mini lab, there is no doubt as the evidence presents it. He also had guns which the police informant said at least one was stolen.  But after the raid, the amount of pot found did not even come close to the six-foot tall plants that the informer said ( barely inches tall) and the guns were all legally owned.  The police applied and got a warrant on the unconfirmed information given by an informant who had been arrested and was obviously trying to make some sort of deal. The police seems to be  immune from doing due diligence and conform that the place was indeed a dangerous place ran by a dangerous man. The raid occurs and one officer dies when the homeowner uses his firearm to fend off what he thinks is a break in.

Now, this happened in Texas where they are not shy of sending people to prison or to the Needle Room. That a Grand Jury returned with a No-Bill for murder of a police officer is monumental and is announcing that raids of this style are losing favor among the population.

Police officers are told many times never to trust informants as they are unreliable and will lie to get themselves out of a situation. yet, too many investigators fall prey of a sweet-talker who like a great seducer, tells them exactly what they want to hear. Couple that with a department who convinced the local politicians of the need for a SWAT team with all the guns, gadgets and tacticool clothing which need to be funded every year and the only way to guarantee that funding is to show they are using it a lot.

Beside the militarization of the police force, we are also seeing an increased use of unnecessary escalation of violent methods to “control” arrested suspect. It is a brave new world with cameras in every corner and every phone and which will share the video of a bad arrest all over the internet before the cop has time to start the paperwork.

Police, as any big enterprise has a tough time changing the status quo. But they must change training and fast or risk having more officers killed and counties sued. Politicians will also turn on them the second they feel police actions are costing them votes. If push comes to shove, they will even come up with legislation to reduce qualified immunity making the job of policing much harder.

So, we need to bring back the concept of Peace Officer rather than Law Enforcement Officer. Make sure SWAT teams are used for the truly dangerous customers and not to check and make sure barber shops are violating state code. Also, SWAT commanders and the entity or subject that requests a SWAT raid, must be held responsible for botched raids or ones performed at the wrong address. If innocent people die, they both should be brought up on charges and prosecuted: One for not doing due diligence on researching the intended target and the other for going along without checking if everything was on the level and making sure a raid was needed in the first place. In the above case, they could have waited for the house to be alone and enter to secure the evidence while having Magee arrested anywhere else. Both the narcotics detective and the SWAT commander should have been the ones having their rights read on the way to local jail and charged at least with Manslaughter.