Gun Free Zone

I have several people, including Miguel, send me various versions of this story.

St. Louis prosecutor ordered crime lab to reassemble Patricia McCloskey’s gun
Assistant Circuit Attorney Chris Hinckley stated in charging documents that the gun was “readily capable of lethal use”

The gun Patricia McCloskey waved at protesters was inoperable when it arrived at the St. Louis police crime lab, but a member of Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner’s staff ordered crime lab experts to disassemble and reassemble it and wrote that it was “readily capable of lethal use” in charging documents filed Monday, 5 On Your Side has learned.

In Missouri, police and prosecutors must prove that a weapon is “readily” capable of lethal use when it is used in the type of crime with which the McCloskeys have been charged.

Assistant Circuit Attorney Chris Hinckley ordered crime lab staff members to field strip the handgun and found it had been assembled incorrectly. Specifically, the firing pin spring was put in front of the firing pin, which was backward, and made the gun incapable of firing, according to documents obtained by 5 On Your Side.

Firearms experts then put the gun back together in the correct order and test-fired it, finding that it worked, according to the documents.

Their attorney, Joel Schwartz, confirmed to 5 On Your Side that the McCloskeys intentionally misplaced the firing pin on the gun and that it was in that condition when Patricia McCloskey waved it at protesters and turned it into their former attorney Al Watkins.

“It’s disheartening to learn that a law enforcement agency altered evidence in order to prosecute an innocent member of the community,” Schwartz said.

The McCloskeys claim the rendered the gun inoperable so they could use it as a prop during a lawsuit against a gun manufacturer.

I looked up the Missouri statute 571.030 – Unlawful use of weapons.  This is what is says:

571.030. 1. A person commits the crime of unlawful use of weapons if he or she knowingly:

(1) Carries concealed upon or about his or her person a knife, a firearm, a blackjack or any other weapon readily capable of lethal use

3. Subdivisions (1), (5), (8), and (10) of subsection 1 of this section do not apply when the actor is transporting such weapons in a nonfunctioning state or in an unloaded state when ammunition is not readily accessible or when such weapons are not readily accessible.

5. Subdivisions (3), (4), (5), (6), (7), (8), (9), and (10) of subsection 1 of this section shall not apply to persons who are engaged in a lawful act of defense pursuant to section 563.031, RSMo.

Jumping over to 563.031:

563.031. Use of force in defense of persons. — 1. A person may, subject to the provisions of subsection 2 of this section, use physical force upon another person when and to the extent he or she reasonably believes such force to be necessary to defend himself or herself or a third person from what he or she reasonably believes to be the use or imminent use of unlawful force by such other person

I am not a lawyer.  I will fully admit that.  But my dad was a lawyer and he wanted me to follow in his footsteps, and he taught me to think like a lawyer.

Lawyer think is very different than regular people think.

For regular people, the argument “they assembled the gun incorrectly and it didn’t work so when they used it to warn off trespassing rioters it’s wasn’t readily capable of lethal use, therefore not guilty.”  Boom, slamdunk.

If we are lucky, a judge might agree to that and dismiss the case.

I also agree that rendering an inoperable gun operable by the crime lab is some evidence tampering fuckery, but that is part and parcel for being a prosecutor.

There are no more unethical scum in the legal field than prosecutors.  It takes being a prosecutor to strike a plea deal that lets a pedophile who raped 60 kids off with a warning but will hammer an honest, tax-paying, citizen to the fucking wall with a maximum prison sentence for inadvertently violating some minor statutory regulation.

Steal a bunch of guns and sell them illegally on the street, misdemeanor.   Get caught carrying but forgot to renew your concealed carry permit, 10 fucking years.

Don’t tell me that they took that job because they are interested in justice.  They take too much pleasure in building a reputation for being a hardass, which necessarily requires them to collect scalps.  Being soft on good people who screw up a little bit doesn’t net them the reputation that they want.  Ruining peoples’ lives does.

Prosecutors are lazy bullies, they love to torture the weak.  They love to kick the shit out of scared citizens who try to be law-abiding but screw up because they are compliant and want to be good law-abiding citizens.  Actual factual hardened criminals don’t cower before prosecutors, so they get no pleasure out of it and try to make those cases disappear with plea deals as fast as possible.

But I digress…

There is more to this situation than the above, regular people argument.

Part of the problem is “readily capable of lethal use” is not defined.

If you are a manufacturer or dealer and want to display your new gun at SHOT show or NRA AM, you can’t just put the firing pin spring in front of the firing pin and call it good.  You have to remove the firing pin or striker completely or grind it down so that it’s too short and dull to work.  Trust me.  I have done this first hand.

Courthouses are secure locations.  I do not know if Missouri states by law what constitutes as inoperable for a firearm, but if this gun wasn’t rendered inoperable enough to be brought into a courtroom than that could be an argument that the gun was “readily capable of lethal use.”

Now for even more legal mind fuck arguments.

The prosecutor could claim that the intent of Patricia McCloskey is what matters.  She waved that gun about to defend herself.  Why use it if she knew it was inoperable?

If she really was in fear for her life than having a working gun was vital.  Pulling out a non-functioning gun is useless because she wouldn’t have been able to actually defend herself if she had to.  The only reason for pulling out an inoperable gun was to intimidate people with it.

If a judge doesn’t dismiss this and the prosecutor manages to stack the jury in her favor during the voir dire process with likeminded people, they might buy that argument and the McCloskeys could be fucked.

This is not the slam dunk that you think it is.  This is the vaguery that prosecutors love to roll around in like a pig in shit that gives them the advantage.

This young lady has a beautiful voice and the Dad of the year.

I am actually embarrassed to say I found this one out over at Wirecutter’s.

From Summit News:

And here is the link to Broward County Emergency Order 20-22 (page 5) and down below, a nice screen cap for Internet memory.

Right out of the box, the obvious thought is this is something that is pretty much doomed to be ignored by a lot if not most people.  My thought is gonna be the Karens and Kens roaming then neighborhoods, peeking  in windows to make sure you are complying with the order and not trying to murder the old geezers in the zip code and the inevitable calls to 911 and the confrontations between busybodies and people that just want to be left alone inside their homes. 

Not gonna end up well.

I’m getting really fucking tired of the whining about anonymous federal LEOs “kidnapping peaceful protesters” for things like smashing windows and trying to set a federal courthouse on fire when they are the same fucking people who have repeatedly said that they want anonymous federal LEOs to kick in your door, flashbang your family, shoot your dogs, and arrest or kill you because you didn’t register or surrender whatever arbitrary firearm or accessory they decided to ban.

From Bloomberg:

Philadelphia’s Top Prosecutor Is Prepared to Arrest Federal Agents
After Trump said he would send agents to more cities, Philly’s district attorney lays out how he might criminally charge federal officers.

In one of those cities, the city prosecutor has already preemptively warned Trump’s police forces what he will do if they bring the same tactics to Philadelphia:

“My dad volunteered and served in World War II to fight fascism, like most of my uncles, so we would not have an American president brutalizing and kidnapping Americans for exercising their constitutional rights and trying to make America a better place, which is what patriots do,” said Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner in a statement. “Anyone, including federal law enforcement, who unlawfully assaults and kidnaps people will face criminal charges from my office.”

First of all I’m getting really fucking disgusted with the rhetoric implying or calling federal Leo’s Nazis.  It is absolutely grotesque.

Also, a lawful arrest in which a person is then taken and arraigned before a judge is not kidnapping.

But here we have a local prosecutor who wants to violate the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution to engage in political resistance.

These cities and states are getting dangerously close to secession.

I think the only thing that has stopped them is the sweet, sweet federal money they use for everything else.

And a complicit weak-ass prosecutor and an absent ATF?

The five young men, identified by authorities as 19-year olds Byron Burke, Jalen Green, Tre’von Williams, and 18-year olds Dishon Kinney and Kenyon Peters are now facing charges of breach of trust, with Kinney and Peters facing criminal conspiracy charges as well.

UPS’s security team notified the Lexington County Sheriff’s Department that guns were being stolen from incoming trucks. LCSD says Kinney and Peters devised the plan and that all five men sold the guns or gave them away while on company time.

If I’m reading South Carolina law correctly buying, selling, or giving away a stolen handgun is a felony offense in South Carolina, punishable by up to five years in prison. However, at the moment the five suspects have been charged with “breach of trust,” which is only a misdemeanor offense if the property in question is valued at less than $1,000. Presumably prosecutors can add up the value of all of the stolen firearms, which should make their charges a felony, but it looks like this case offers plenty of opportunities for a plea bargain to reduced charges. Despite the seriousness of the offense, there’s a good possibility that most of men arrested will suffer few consequences for their actions.

.  Five UPS Workers Busted In Gun Theft Ring

Damn! And after all these years, I was convinced it was the NRA driving to the bad parts of town and tossing guns from the back of a truck to small children and drug dealers.