VA-ALERT: VCDL Update 8/6/13

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VA-ALERT: VCDL Update 8/6/13
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Not yet a VCDL member? Join VCDL at: http://www.vcdl.org/join
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VCDL's meeting schedule: http://www.vcdl.org/meetings
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Abbreviations used in VA-ALERT: http://www.vcdl.org/help/abbr.html
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1. Gun-control fail: firearms sales soar, crime drops in Virginia
2. VCDL ad in NRA special section in the Washington Times
3. Alabama now honors Virginia CHPs!
4. Orange County - watch for permits not being issued in 45 days per the law
5. FREE Firearm Safety Training Course at Porter Library in Stafford on Saturday
6. Judge keeps gun ban intact for man who videotaped police
7. Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV): Obama can't help us pass gun background checks
8. Eric Holder blasts 'Stand Your Ground' laws at NAACP event
9. College girls, bottled water and the emerging American police state
10. Debunking the 'stand your ground' myth
11. Black woman stands her ground, kills white man
12. Blacks benefited more than others from Florida's stand your ground law
13. [FL] Mom gets 20 years for firing warning shots
14. Justice Department places 'hold' on Zimmerman trial evidence

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1. Gun-control fail: firearms sales soar, crime drops in Virginia
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Thanks to member Clayton Rhoades for the link:

From timesdispatch.com: http://tinyurl.com/kuksmvh

Va. gun crime drops again as firearm sales soar
BY MARK BOWES
Richmond Times-Dispatch

Gun-related violent crime continues to drop in Virginia as the sales of firearms continue to soar, a pattern that one local criminologist finds interesting “given the current rhetoric about strengthening gun laws.”

Major gun crime collectively dropped for a fourth consecutive year statewide, while firearms sales climbed to a new record in 2012 with 490,119 guns purchased in 444,844 transactions — a 16 percent rise over 2011, according to federally licensed gun dealer sales estimates obtained by the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

The proliferation of guns occurred as the total number of major reported crimes committed with all types of firearms in Virginia dropped 5 percent, from 4,618 offenses in 2011 to 4,378 last year, according to Virginia State Police data.

Looking back over seven years, total firearm sales in Virginia have risen a staggering 101 percent from 2006 to 2012, while gun-related crime has dropped 28 percent during that period.

“This appears to be additional evidence that more guns don’t necessarily lead to more crime,” said Thomas R. Baker, an assistant professor at Virginia Commonwealth University’s L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs who specializes in research methods and criminology theory.

“It’s a quite interesting trend given the current rhetoric about strengthening gun laws and the presumed effect it would have on violent crimes,” Baker added. “While you can’t conclude from this that tougher laws wouldn’t reduce crime even more, it really makes you question if making it harder for law-abiding people to buy a gun would have any effect on crime.”

But Josh Horwitz, the leader of a national gun-control group, does not find the comparison of gun crime to legal gun sales particularly significant, and views any perceived correlation between the two sets of data as essentially meaningless.

“Guns sold incident to a background check are less likely to be involved in crimes than guns sold without a background check,” said Horwitz, executive director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence. “So the real question — which I don’t think we really know — is what’s the level of gun sales without a background check?

“In other words, if people who buy those guns and have a background check, and keep those guns and don’t sell them, then you would not expect that those guns would affect the crime rate,” Horwitz said. “The important analysis is not the total number of guns sold with a background check, but rather the number of guns sold without a background check.”

Virginia State Police conduct instant background checks on everyone seeking to purchase a gun through a federally licensed firearms dealer in Virginia. The state had 1,605 registered gun dealers in 2012, up from 1,435 in 2011. But many of those are what the gun industry describes as “kitchen table” dealers, small-time operators who sell relatively few guns from their homes.

Several bills proposed during the last session of the General Assembly that would have required background checks for private sales or transactions, including at gun shows, were defeated.

At the request of The Times-Dispatch, Baker last year examined six years of data compiled by Virginia State Police through the Virginia Firearms Transaction Center that detailed the number of gun transactions for every federally licensed firearms dealer in the state. It included the number and types of guns they sought to sell based on requested background checks of the purchasers.

Baker then compared the data with state crime figures for those years.

The newspaper recently obtained updated firearm transaction figures and gun crime data for 2012 to compare them with the years originally reviewed by Baker. The new figures show a continuation of a pattern of increased gun sales not contributing to an increase in gun-related crime.

But Baker cautioned against drawing any conclusions that more guns in the hands of Virginians are causing a corresponding drop in gun crime, as some academics and gun-rights supporters have argued.

“To substantiate (that) argument, you would need to eliminate a number of other factors that could potentially explain away the relationship of more guns, less crime in Virginia,” Baker said. “Only if the relationship remained after controlling for additional factors could a researcher be more comfortable making the claim that more guns lead to less crime. But what the data does show is that the ‘more guns, less crime argument’ is certainly possible.”

The total gun purchases cover all types of firearms, including pistols, revolvers, shotguns and rifles. Pistol sales, excluding revolvers, jumped 19.9 percent last year — the most of any firearm category — from 175,717 in 2011 to 210,789 last year. Rifle sales were close behind, rising 19.8 percent from 135,495 in 2011 to 162,391 in 2012.

Total gun-related crime includes offenses committed with all types of firearms, including guns whose type was unknown. Handgun-related offenses account for the majority of violent gun crimes committed in Virginia.

Although overall gun-related crime dropped 5 percent last year, murders and non-negligent manslaughter deaths committed with firearms rose 6 percent from 190 in 2011 to 201 last year. But killings with handguns dropped 3 percent. Killings involving firearms of unknown type increased 42 percent, from 62 in 2011 to 88 in 2012.

Robberies accounted for the largest drop in gun-related crime, falling 11 percent from 2,935 offenses in 2011 to 2,508 last year. Robberies involving handguns dropped 7 percent from year to year.

In his earlier analysis, Baker said that because rifles and shotguns are used far less often to commit violent crimes, one could argue that the purchase of those types of weapons is falsely inflating the total gun purchases in relation to total gun crime.

So Baker examined the relationship between handgun purchases and handgun-related crime, and found handgun purchases increased 112 percent from 2006 to 2011, but violent crimes committed with handguns fell by nearly 22 percent.

That trend continued last year. Total handgun purchases in Virginia (pistols and revolvers) increased 17 percent from 221,720 in 2011 to 259,814 last year. But violent crimes committed with handguns fell 2.3 percent, from 3,154 offenses in 2011 to 3,080 in 2012.

The same general pattern holds true even if all crimes reported to police where the gun type was unknown are assumed to be handguns.

The total number of gun crimes involving handguns and firearms of unknown type combined dropped 3 percent in 2012, from 4,055 offenses in 2011 to 3,927 in 2012. From 2006 to 2011, crimes involving handguns and unknown firearms dropped 24 percent.

Baker said stricter gun-control measures recently enacted in New York and elsewhere to ban certain types of firearms based on their design characteristics, prohibit the sale of magazines over 10 rounds, limit to seven the number of bullets that can be carried in those magazines and require owners of so-called assault-style firearms to register them with the state “will make things more difficult for the law-abiding.”

“Background checks are the only law that could make it harder for criminals to acquire guns,” Baker said. “All the other laws, given effective background checks, will likely do little to actually reduce crime.”

New York expanded the state’s mandatory background checks for firearm purchases to include all private sales or transfers, except those to and between certain family members.

Although expansion of background checks is the main goal of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, Horwitz said his group supports the tighter controls on firearms that were enacted into law in Colorado and New York after the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Connecticut that killed 26.

He acknowledged that those measures — aside from the background checks — will not affect the gun-related crime rate.

“It won’t reduce crime,” Horwitz said. “The point is that it decreases the lethality of crime.”

He was referring to so-called assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.

“Look, people will commit crimes,” Horwitz said of some gun owners who buy weapons legally. “It’s not like people won’t, right? And I think the point being is that when that happens, the lethality is reduced. Of course, some of those guns (bought legally) are going to get transferred to the illegal market. Not all of them, but some of them.”

VCU’s Baker views gun violence as a societal problem that goes much deeper than the instrument used to carry it out. “I think if we truly want to reduce crime and gun violence, we need to focus on the root causes of crime, as opposed to the tools occasionally used by criminals.”

Philip Van Cleave, one of Virginia’s most outspoken gun-rights supporters, said the Virginia data show that the growing number of firearms in the hands of law-abiding citizens is “irrelevant to crime” and may actually help to lower it.

“We had a big spike in guns, and the vast majority of those extra guns are going to decent people,” said Van Cleave, president of the Virginia Citizens Defense League. “That’s not going to affect crime and, in fact, all those extra guns can actually work to lower crime because those are going into the hands of (concealed) permit holders or people using them to defend their homes.”

Although some guns are still ending up in the wrong hands, Van Cleave believes the decrease in gun-related crime could be related to police doing a better job of getting gun-toting criminals off the streets and an increased fear among criminals that those they victimize could be legally armed.

“Criminals don’t want to get shot by law-abiding citizens that they don’t know has a gun when they try to attack them,” Van Cleave said. “It’s a very tricky situation for a criminal, because if you attack somebody with a gun, that’s a very personal thing you’ve done to them. So the criminal not knowing how the person is going to react actually works in our favor.”


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2. VCDL ad in NRA special section in the Washington Times
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VCDL's ad is the bottom half of Page 8:

http://media.washtimes.com/media/misc/2 ... tguide.pdf


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3. Alabama now honors Virginia CHPs!
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As of August 1st, Alabama now honors Virginia CHPs. However, we do NOT honor theirs. We will continue to work to fix Virginia so that we honor all other CHPs.


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4. Orange County - watch for permits not being issued in 45 days per the law
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If you live in Orange County and are getting a new CHP or renewing an existing one, be aware that the Circuit Court Clerk, Teresa Carroll, told a CHP applicant that the 45-day time limit on CHP issuance doesn't start until the judge signs the CHP! I have been in telephone tag mode with Ms. Carroll. Hopefully we can clear this up so that VCDL doesn't have to seek a Writ of Mandamus against her.

She's claiming that a judge told her that the 45-day count doesn't begin until he signs the CHP. That is baloney. My voicemail to her said that the judge has no say in issuing a temporary permit on the 45th day and his interpretation of when the 45-day clock starts ticking is totally wrong. I said that SHE will be held accountable for her actions, not the judge.

The member just got his permit, way after 45 days were up.

Let me know if you have any such problem with Orange County as soon as it happens, so we can move on the Writ.


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5. FREE Firearm Safety Training Course at Porter Library in Stafford on Saturday
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There is scheduled a FREE firearm safety training course THIS Saturday,
August 10th, from 9 AM to 5:30 PM at the Porter Library (2001 Parkway
Boulevard Stafford, VA 22554).

Pre-registered participants have priority over walk ins. There are 40
seats available. So if you want a refresher or know someone who wants
to take a firearm safety class but just cannot afford it, this is it.

Register at 4permits.com and in your email put 'August 10' for the class
date. You will receive a confirmation email and further instructions in
response.


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6. Judge keeps gun ban intact for man who videotaped police
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Mental health laws must be tightly controlled when they are used to disarm someone. While we don't want someone who is truly mentally insane to have a gun, drive a car, or even be out in the general public, we must be constantly on the watch for abuse of those laws for the purpose of stripping someone of their right to keep and bear arms.

Member Frederick Bram emailed me this:

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I don't know if you heard about this yet; here is a link to a story about a man who recently had his gun rights stripped from him in Front Royal because he was videotaping police. (It's more complicated than just that, but I think it deserves notice.)


From nvdaily.com: https://tinyurl.com/lh3wnmq


Judge keeps gun ban intact for man who videotaped police
by Joe Beck
July 16, 2013

FRONT ROYAL -- Andrew Studds left a courtroom Tuesday still banned from owning a gun after he tried to persuade a judge that an involuntary hospitalization for mental illness and two subsequent misdemeanor firearms violations should be no barrier to regaining his Second Amendment rights.

Warren County General District Court Judge W. Dale Houff rejected Studds' petition after a brief but contentious hearing. Studds represented himself.

Houff said Studds had failed to provide character witnesses and fell short of other requirements in the state law governing reinstatement of gun ownership for those with criminal records or undergoing treatment for mental illness.

The judge also cited Studds' recent guilty pleas to possessing a gun after an involuntary commitment for mental illness as another cause for concern.

"I don't think I can put a gun in your hand," Houff told Studds.

Studds, 27, insisted he has never been a danger to anyone, and the county should have found alternatives to the involuntary commitment to a mental hospital that was ordered for him in January 2012.

In an interview after the hearing, Studds vowed to continue trying to regain his gun ownership rights. He said he planned to contact the National Rifle Association, the Virginia Citizens Defense Organization and other gun ownership advocacy organizations for help in finding a lawyer.

Studds said the burden of proof should rest with the state, not him, in determining whether he can own a gun again under the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

"It's the Bill of Rights, not the bill of needs," Studds said.

Front Royal police confiscated Studds' Taurus handgun in early May after they arrested him. The arrest was sparked when Studds videotaped police making traffic stops near his residence at the time on Cherryvale Avenue. Studds was also carrying a holstered handgun on his hip at the time of the videotaping on April 25.

Studds has argued that he was exercising his First Amendment rights through the videotaping and his Second Amendment rights in carrying the handgun.

Police did not arrest Studds immediately, but a subsequent investigation revealed he had undergone a mental evaluation at Northwestern Community Services in Front Royal and was later admitted involuntarily to the Poplar Springs Hospital in Petersburg for several days.

Studds said he also owned several other guns in addition to the Taurus seized by police. He turned the other guns, which included a shotgun, pistols, an AK47 and AR15, over to family members for safekeeping, he said.

Studds said he contacted four law enforcement agencies a few months after his release from Poplar Springs to ask whether he could resume carrying a handgun under the permit that had been issued to him a few years ago.

Officials from all four agencies - the Front Royal police, the Warren County Commonwealth's Attorney Office, the Warren County Sheriff's Office and Virginia State Police -- told him he could carry a gun again, Studds said.

Studds said he would not have been carrying a gun with him during the videotaping incident if any of the authorities he contacted had told him it was illegal to do so.

"I guess it's my fault I trusted the police," Studds said.

Studds said the chain of events leading up to his involuntary commitment began when he voluntarily went to Warren Memorial Hospital in January 2012 for "a depression problem."

After his mental health evaluation on Jan. 17, he ended up briefly in the Warren County jail before being taken to Petersburg, Studds said.

Studds told Houff that county authorities overreacted in seeking an involuntary commitment for him.

"The night I was detained at the hospital, the county did not explore lesser restrictive alternatives than detention," Studds said, adding that, "I never presented a danger to the public."

After reviewing the state law, Houff told Studds the ban on gun ownership would remain intact.

"I don't think there's any way I can grant the petition," Houff said, referring to the request Studds submitted to him.

Studds said afterward that Front Royal police had destroyed the Taurus handgun since confiscating it, but Sgt. Jason Ryman said the gun is still being held as evidence. Ryman said he was unsure what would be done with Studds' gun. Confiscated firearms are typically sent to the state crime laboratory after a case has been decided, Ryman said.

Outside the courthouse, Studds said his mental health is fine since finding the right treatment for his depression.

Authorities were placing him in danger by denying him the right to carry a gun in what he sees as a world fraught with dangers, Studds said.

"Shame on them if I find myself in a crossfire and can't defend myself," he added.


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7. Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV): Obama can't help us pass gun background checks
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Member Bill Hine emailed me this:

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From washingtontimes.com: https://tinyurl.com/ldessgo


Sen. Joe Manchin: Obama can’t help us pass gun background checks
by Ben Wolfgang-The Washington Times
July 17, 2013

Sen. Joe Manchin still believes the Senate can pass expanded background checks for gun purchases, even though public passion on the issue has died down in the months since the Newtown, Conn., school shooting.

But the West Virginia Democrat conceded Wednesday that President Obama probably can’t help him win over skeptical Republicans and Democrats from gun-friendly states.

“The president is not from a gun culture. The president doesn’t come from it. That’s not where they are,” he said during an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program. “For the president to try and go out to convince [senators] — this is one time he might not be the person” to persuade senators who remain on the fence, or previously have opposed the bill.

Earlier this year, after the White House’s call for stricter gun laws, Mr. Manchin teamed with Sen. Pat Toomey, Pennsylvania Republican, to put forward a bill implementing expanded background checks for all gun purchases.

The measure, overwhelmingly popular with the American people, failed to clear the Senate in an April vote.

Since that vote, the National Rifle Association has launched attack ads against Mr. Manchin and other supporters of the legislation.


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8. Eric Holder blasts 'Stand Your Ground' laws at NAACP event
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Facts don't matter to the gun-haters. Florida's stand-your-ground law wasn't even invoked in the Zimmerman case, but Eric Holder wants to get rid of it anyway.

Stand-your-ground wasn't invoked because Zimmerman was pinned to the ground having the stuffing beat out of him. He could not retreat if he wanted to.

Member Bill Hine emailed me this:

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From washingtontimes.com: https://tinyurl.com/mjuy7mb


Eric Holder blasts ‘Stand Your Ground’ laws at NAACP event
by Associated Press
July 16, 2013

ORLANDO, Fla. — Attorney General Eric Holder on Tuesday strongly criticized stand-your-ground laws that allow a person who believes he is in danger to use deadly force in self-defense.

Holder said he was concerned about the case of Trayvon Martin, in which George Zimmermann was acquitted of second-degree murder and manslaughter charges, and said the Justice Department has an open investigation into what happened.

But he added: “Separate and apart from the case that has drawn the nation’s attention, it’s time to question laws that senselessly expand the concept of self-defense and sow dangerous conflict in our neighborhoods.”

In an address to an NAACP convention, Holder said it’s time to question laws that “senselessly expand the concept of self-defense.”

The attorney general said the country must take a hard look at laws that contribute to “more violence than they prevent.”

Such laws “try to fix something that was never broken,” he said.

Florida is among the states that have stand-your-ground laws, and the issue played a role in the prosecution of Zimmerman, whose acquittal has spurred calls for the U.S. Justice Department to file criminal civil rights charges against the former neighborhood watch volunteer.

Legal experts say a federal case would be a difficult challenge, with prosecutors having to prove that Zimmerman was motivated by racial animosity to kill Martin, who was 17 when he was shot during the fight with Zimmerman in February 2012.

On Monday, Holder had called the killing a “tragic, unnecessary shooting death” and urged the nation to speak honestly about complicated and emotionally charged issues.

On Tuesday, Holder seemed to be shifting away from the Martin case to one of those issues — the debate over the stand-your-ground laws.

“There has always been a legal defense for using deadly force if — and the ‘if’ is important — no safe retreat is available,” Holder told the NAACP.

“But we must examine laws that take this further by eliminating the common sense and age-old requirement that people who feel threatened have a duty to retreat, outside their home, if they can do so safely,” he said.


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9. College girls, bottled water and the emerging American police state
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Member Diane Weber emailed me this:

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From rutherford.org: https://tinyurl.com/k9ddvdd


College Girls, Bottled Water and the Emerging American Police State
by John W. Whitehead
July 08, 2013

What do college girls and bottled water have to do with the emerging American police state? Quite a bit, it seems.

Public outcry has gone viral over an incident in which a college student was targeted and terrorized by Alcohol Beverage Control agents (ABC) after she purchased sparkling water at a grocery store. The girl and her friends were eventually jailed for daring to evade their accosters, who failed to identify themselves or approach the young women in a non-threatening manner.

What makes this particular incident significant (other than the fact that it took place in my hometown of Charlottesville, Va.) is the degree to which it embodies all that is wrong with law enforcement today, both as it relates to the citizenry and the ongoing undermining of our rule of law. To put it bluntly, due in large part to the militarization of the police and the equipping of a wide range of government agencies with weaponry, we are moving into a culture in which law enforcement officials have developed a sense of entitlement that is at odds with the spirit of our Constitution—in particular, the Fourth Amendment.

The incident took place late in the evening of April 11, 2013. Several University of Virginia college students, including 20-year-old Elizabeth Daly, were leaving the Harris Teeter grocery store parking lot after having purchased a variety of foodstuffs for an Alzheimer’s Association sorority charity benefit that evening, including sparkling water, ice cream and cookie dough, when they noticed a man staring at them as they walked to their car in the back of the parking lot.

According to a local newspaper account:

Daly said she and her friends were “terrified” when a man and woman in street clothes began knocking on her car windows in the darkened Harris Teeter parking lot… When Daly slipped her keys into the ignition to crack the windows, a male agent yanked at the door handle, banged on the window and yelled at the women to exit the vehicle… When he began to yell, other men positioned themselves around the car and the woman yelled at Daly to “go, go go,” court records state. One drew a gun. Another jumped onto the hood of the car as Daly and her friends dialed 911 to report the incident, according to the records. The women apologized repeatedly minutes later when they stopped for a car with lights and sirens on, prosecutors said. Daly’s passenger said she was handcuffed without explanation and did not get one until a Charlottesville police officer arrived.

“They were showing unidentifiable badges after they approached us, but we became frightened, as they were not in anything close to a uniform,” stated Daly. “I couldn’t put my windows down unless I started my car, and when I started my car they began yelling to not move the car, not to start the car. They began trying to break the windows. My roommates and I were ... terrified.”

It wasn’t until police arrived with flashing sirens and lights that Elizabeth finally learned the identity of her attackers – they were ABC agents. Likewise, it wasn’t until the arrival of the police that the ABC agents were able to delve into the contents of the girls’ groceries, revealing their suspected contraband to be cans of LaCroix sparkling water.

Despite the fact that Daly and her friends did exactly what any young woman should do when confronted by threatening individuals in a dark parking lot, they were handcuffed and forced to spend the night in jail, with Daly being charged with three felonies—two counts of assaulting a law enforcement officer and one count of eluding police—carrying a potential of fifteen years in jail.

In justifying the agents’ actions, ABC officials point to a protocol that relies on agents having “reasonable suspicion and/or probable cause to approach individual(s) they believe have violated the law.”

Either ABC officials are being deliberately disingenuous or they don’t understand that there is a distinct difference between reasonable suspicion and probable cause, the latter of which is required by the Constitution before any government official can search an individual or his property. Then again, this distinction is often overlooked by many law enforcement officials.

In the context of police encounters with citizens in public places, probable cause is required in order for police to conduct surveillance or search an American citizen. The standard of probable cause requires that government agents and/or police have reliable evidence making it probable, i.e., more likely than not, that a crime has been committed by the person to be searched.

Reasonable suspicion, in contrast, requires less in terms of evidence and allows an officer to rely upon his experience and instincts, which, as we have seen, can often be wrong. Yet even at the lowest “reasonable suspicion” standard, an officer must have specific articulable facts supporting his belief that criminal activity is being engaged in – mere hunches or “good faith on the part of the arresting officer” is never sufficient.

While this particular incident did not end in senseless violence, it very easily could have if Daly had confronted her pursuers with any of the legally available non-lethal weapons young women are encouraged to carry today as a defensive measure.

Indeed, as incidents across the nation make clear, law enforcement officials are increasingly responding to challenges to their “authority” by using their weapons. For example, in Long Beach, California, police responded with heavy firepower to a perceived threat by a man holding a water hose. The 35-year-old man had reportedly been watering his neighbor’s lawn when police, interpreting his “grip” on the water hose to be consistent with that of someone discharging a firearm, opened fire. The father of two was pronounced dead at the scene.

These are not isolated overreactions on the part of rogue officers. As I document in my new book, A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, they are emblematic of a growing tension over the use of militarized police to perform relatively routine tasks, resulting in situations fraught with danger to both civilians and police alike. From full tactical SWAT teams executing no-knock search warrants on the homes of law-abiding citizens over nothing more than a suspicion that the occupant owns a gun to the unlawful arrest and forced institutionalization of decorated military veterans over Facebook posts critical of the government, the events described above are becoming all too familiar in cities and towns across the country.

Moreover, in light of shooting incidents across the country involving unarmed citizens and heavily armed police, increasing numbers of Americans are understandably concerned about whatever factors, whether it’s an arsenal of militarized weapons and an increasing reliance on lethal weapons or insufficient training in nonviolent conflict resolution, are contributing to a seemingly “trigger happy” tendency on the part of some law enforcement officials.

This begs the question, what constitutes a threat to an officer or resisting arrest?

Among the charges levied at Daly were that she allegedly assaulted an officer and attempted to elude police, never mind that the “assault” constituted her car brushing against plainclothes, unidentifiable officers who had been banging on the windows and climbing on her car. It is particularly telling that ABC officials believe “[t]his whole unfortunate incident [involving Daly] could have been avoided had the occupants complied with law enforcement requests.”

The key word here is comply meaning to obey, submit or conform. Increasingly, law enforcement officials operate under the assumption that their word is law and that there is no room for any form of disagreement or even question. Anything short of compliance is now perceived as resistance and a potential threat.

For example, Miami-Dade police slammed a 14-year-old boy to the ground, putting him in a chokehold and handcuffing him after he allegedly gave them “dehumanizing stares” and walked away from them, which the officers found unacceptable. According to Miami-Dade Police Detective Alvaro Zabaleta, “His body language was that he was stiffening up and pulling away… When you have somebody resistant to them and pulling away and somebody clenching their fists and flailing their arms, that’s a threat. Of course we have to neutralize the threat.”

This mindset that any challenge to police authority is a threat that needs to be “neutralized” is a dangerous one that is part of a greater nationwide trend that sets law enforcement officers beyond the reach of the Fourth Amendment. It also serves to chill the First Amendment’s assurances of free speech, free assembly and the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

It’s bad enough that the police now look like the military—with their foreboding uniforms and phalanx of lethal weapons—but they function like them, as well. No longer do they act as peace officers guarding against violent criminals. And no more do we have a civilian police force entrusted with serving and protecting the American people and keeping the peace.

What we are dealing with is a militarized government entity that has clearly lost sight of its overarching duty: to abide by the dictates of the U.S. Constitution and act as public servants in service to the taxpayers of this country rather than commanders directing underlings who must obey without question.


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10. Debunking the 'stand your ground' myth
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Member Mark Colleluori emailed me this:

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From washingtontimes.com: https://tinyurl.com/mozasph


KOPEL: Debunking the ‘stand your ground’ myth
Anti-gun advocates mislead on Trayvon case to erode right to self-defense
by David Kopel -The Washington Times
April 2, 2012

Whatever happened on the night that George Zimmerman shot Trayvon Martin, we know one thing for sure: The gun prohibition lobbies and their compliant media friends have been deceiving the public about Florida’s laws. Among the many deceits is the claim that Florida’s “stand your ground” law affects the legality of whatever Mr. Zimmerman did.

The assertion that Florida law allows shooting whenever someone believes it to be necessary is a flat-out lie. The actual law of Florida is that “a person is justified in the use of deadly force” if “(1) He or she reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the imminent commission of a forcible felony” (Florida Statutes, Section 776.012).

The second part of the law provides special provisions for self-defense against violent home invaders or carjackers. Neither of those is relevant to the Zimmerman case.

If the factual claims of Trayvon’s supporters are true, Mr. Zimmerman criminally attacked Trayvon and killed him, while having no reasonable belief that Trayvon was perpetrating a forcible felony, or imminently about to kill or gravely wound Mr. Zimmerman. So Florida’s self-defense laws simply would not apply, since Mr. Zimmerman would have no right under Florida law to use deadly force.

Florida’s rule that deadly force may be used to prevent “imminent death or great bodily harm” or “the imminent commission of a forcible felony” is the norm throughout the United States.

Like the majority of American states, Florida does not mandate that victims of a violent crime attempt to retreat before they defend themselves. The retreat rule is irrelevant, regardless of whether you believe Trayvon’s advocates or Mr. Zimmerman’s advocates.

According to one side, Mr. Zimmerman was the criminal aggressor. Thus, he would have no self-defense rights at all. According to the other side, Trayvon attacked Mr. Zimmerman, knocked him to the ground, got on top of him and continued the attack. So Mr. Zimmerman would have had no ability to retreat. Either way, the retreat rules for lawful defenders have nothing to do with this case.

Despite what the gun prohibition lobbies claim, the no-retreat rule has deep roots in traditional American law. At the Supreme Court, the rule dates back to the 1895 case of Beard v. United States, in which the great Justice John Harlan wrote for a unanimous court that the victim “was not obliged to retreat, nor to consider whether he could safely retreat, but was entitled to stand his ground, and meet any attack upon him with a deadly weapon, in such a way and with such force as, under all the circumstances, he, at the moment, honestly believed, and had reasonable grounds to believe, were necessary to save his own life, or to protect himself from great bodily injury.”

The great progressive Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes also expressed the unanimous opinion of the court “that if a man reasonably believes that he is in immediate danger of death or grievous bodily harm from his assailant he may stand his ground and that if he kills him he has not succeeded the bounds of lawful self-defense. … Detached reflection cannot be demanded in the presence of an uplifted knife” (Brown v. United States, 1921).

Even among the more restrictive states, such as New York, retreat is not required before using deadly force in the home, to prevent a burglary, robbery, kidnapping, rape or other forcible criminal sexual attack. Thus, whether you are in Lake Placid, N.Y., or Lake Placid, Fla., and someone attempts to rob you when you are walking down the street, you have no duty to retreat before using deadly force to thwart the robbery.

Anti-gun lobbyists assert that Florida law prevented Mr. Zimmerman from being arrested. This too is false, since he was arrested and taken into custody at the police station.

The relevant Florida law is that a law enforcement agency “may not arrest the person for using force unless it determines that there is probable cause that the force that was used was unlawful” (Florida Statutes Section 776.032). This simply restates the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which, by its express language, forbids arrests without probable cause.

A grand jury will eventually report its determination about whether Mr. Zimmerman’s actions should result in a criminal prosecution. Professional demagogues and racists, such as Al Sharpton, may try to prejudge the grand jury’s investigation, but responsible citizens should not.

In the meantime, it’s time for Mr. Sharpton and others to stop their false claims that Florida’s self-defense laws are unusual, or that there is anything in those laws that prevents justice from being done in the Zimmerman case.


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11. Black woman stands her ground, kills white man
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Stand-you-ground protects innocent people of all races. In item #12, below, John Lott says that it benefits blacks more than many others.

Mark Shinn emailed me this:

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From speroforum.com: https://tinyurl.com/l9jkgyq

Black woman stands her ground, kills white man
by Martin Barillas
September 18, 2012

Houston area investigators are looking into a stand-your-ground case where after a minor fender-bender, a 22-year-old white male was shot and killed by a 23-year-old black woman. During a morning commute, Crystal Scott and Jonathan Ables were in an accident and pulled into a Shell gasoline station to survey the damage.

According to Scott, Ables exited his truck and ran toward her driver-side door. Scott said he yelled and then hit her door and tried to open it. Fearing for her life, Scott pulled her pistol and shot Ables once through the driver’s window and struck him in the chest. Ables died at the scene.

A Harris County Sheriff’s spokesman, Sgt. Felipe Rivera said “From what we understand it was maybe just a minor accident,” while adding, “The information we’re getting is that it appeared to be a minor accident that turned into road rage.”

Nonetheless, the victim’s girlfriend, Evelyn Bautista, claimed that Ables was not aggressive. “He’s just a regular guy,” she said. Ables’ family members also claim that it is hard to believe that he deserved his killing.

Bautista believes Ables was merely attempting to exchange insurance information with Scott. “I’ll leave it up to God. I’m not one to judge. It’s just unfair that they took him away from me like that,” she wept. “I just want justice. That’s it.” Bautista was first apprised of Ables’ death via social media.

Ables’ sister-in-law, who has insisted on anonymity, said official investigators have already sided with Scott. “If you don’t even contact the victim’s family, that just shows how you’re already siding on one side, you don’t even care what the other people are feeling to even tell them,” she said. “If she feared for her life or something, why didn’t she just drive off? Why’d she have to attack him? I don’t understand,” she added.

Scott retained legal counsel soon after the incident. Attorney Letitia Quiñones claims her client has a concealed weapon permit and reacted properly in the face of danger. “[She] got involved in road rage with an individual who wrecked her car, followed her into a gas station and jumped out of his car and began attacking her car,” she said.

“She did only what anybody in that position would be. She was in fear of imminent bodily injury or death and she ended it herself,” said Quiñones. Alleging that Ables broke the driver’s side window of Scott’s car, Quiñones cited this as evidence of the ferocity of the attack. Quiñones said that Scott is traumatized by the incident.

Bishop James Dixon, Scott’s pastor, said of the encounter, "There was a car accident and they pulled over into the Shell station to talk about it." Dixon said, "This was a normal morning for her into work. It's unfortunate that her morning did not proceed as planned."

“All we know is, she said it was self defense, and I really don’t want to go into details,” said Dixon. “She’s a wonderful young lady, and she’s a church member at Community Faith Church, where I pastor, along with her mother. She’s just a good values-based person, a hard working young lady.”

An eyewitness, who appeared on camera but has requested anonymity, said that he did not hear any threat in the seconds before Scott killed Ables. The witness was pumping gas and standing 15 feet away from Ables when a bullet ricocheted past him and struck his car. The bullet left a noticeable impression on the witness’s car.

As for Scott’s version of events, the witness said that if Ables had shouted or banged on the car, he would have heard it. “What drew my attention was the gunshot,” said the witness. “I just want to be sure that I do everything in my power that everything is fair. I care about it being fair,” he said. The Harris County sheriff’s department has not yet responded to Spero News’ request for any security footage of the shooting.


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12. Blacks benefited more than others from Florida's stand your ground law
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Timothy Wise emailed me this:

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From johnrlott.blogspot.com: https://tinyurl.com/mbxjvzb


Blacks benefited more than others from Florida's Stand Your Ground law
by John Lott
July 18, 2013

From the Daily Caller:

African Americans benefit from Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” self-defense law at a rate far out of proportion to their presence in the state’s population, despite an assertion by Attorney General Eric Holder that repealing “Stand Your Ground” would help African Americans.

Black Floridians have made about a third of the state’s total “Stand Your Ground” claims in homicide cases, a rate nearly double the black percentage of Florida’s population. The majority of those claims have been successful, a success rate that exceeds that for Florida whites. . . .

But approximately one third of Florida “Stand Your Ground” claims in fatal cases have been made by black defendants, and they have used the defense successfully 55 percent of the time, at the same rate as the population at large and at a higher rate than white defendants, according to a Daily Caller analysis of a database maintained by the Tampa Bay Times. Additionally, the majority of victims in Florida “Stand Your Ground” cases have been white.

African Americans used “Stand Your Ground” defenses at nearly twice the rate of their presence in the Florida population, which was listed at 16.6 percent in 2012.

Holder also makes the claim: “These laws try to fix something that was never broken." It is something that he has a hard time justifying, but he really just asserts the claim here and offers no evidence.


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13. [FL] Mom gets 20 years for firing warning shots
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As VCDL has said many times before: DO NOT FIRE WARNING SHOTS!

Got that Mr Vice President???

A warning shot got a Florida woman into serious trouble that could have been avoided. A Florida one-size-fits-all law that gives the judge no discretion, gave this woman a mandatory TWENTY-YEAR sentence!

Member Mark Shinn emailed me this:

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From cbsnews.com: https://tinyurl.com/6mtryqn


Fla. mom gets 20 years for firing warning shots
May 12, 2012

Updated on July 15, 2013 to reflect more of the testimony and aftermath of the case.

(CBS News) JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - A Florida woman who fired warning shots against her allegedly abusive husband has been sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Marissa Alexander of Jacksonville had said the state's "Stand Your Ground" law should apply to her because she was defending herself against her allegedly abusive husband when she fired warning shots inside her home in August 2010. She told police it was to escape a brutal beating by her husband, against whom she had already taken out a protective order.

CBS Affiliate WETV reports that Circuit Court Judge James Daniel handed down the sentence Friday.

Under Florida's mandatory minimum sentencing requirements Alexander couldn't receive a lesser sentence, even though she has never been in trouble with the law before. Judge Daniel said the law did not allow for extenuating or mitigating circumstances to reduce the sentence below the 20-year minimum.

"I really was crying in there," Marissa Alexander's 11-year-old daughter told WETV. "I didn't want to cry in court, but I just really feel hurt. I don't think this should have been happening."

Alexander was convicted of attempted murder after she rejected a plea deal for a three-year prison sentence. She said she did not believe she did anything wrong.

She was recently denied a new trial after appealing to the judge to reconsider her case based on Florida's controversial "Stand Your Ground" law. The law states that the victim of a crime does not have to attempt to run for safety and can immediately retaliate in self-defense.

Alexander's attorney said she was clearly defending herself and should not have to spend the next two decades behind bars.

Alexander's case has drawn support from domestic abuse advocates - and comparison to the case of neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman, who has claimed self-defense in his fatal shooting of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin.

According to a sworn deposition taken in November 2010, Marissa Alexander's husband, Rico Gray, 36, said that on August 1, 2010, he and Alexander began fighting after he found text messages to Alexander's first husband on her phone. The two were already estranged - according to her father, Alexander had been living at her mother's since the birth of the couple's daughter nine days earlier, and Gray, a long-haul trucker, said he spent the night before in his tractor-trailer. Gray began calling her names, saying "If I can't have you, nobody going to have you," and blocking her from exiting the bathroom.

Alexander pushed past Gray and went into the garage where she got her gun from her car's glove compartment.

Gray told prosecutors in the deposition that Alexander came back into the house holding the weapon and told him to leave. He refused, and what happened next is somewhat unclear. In his deposition, Gray said "she shot in the air one time," prompting him and the children to run out the front door. But when Gray called 911 the day of the incident, he said "she aimed the gun at us and she shot."

In August 2011, a judge rejected a motion by Alexander's attorney to grant her immunity under the "Stand your Ground" law. According to the judge's order, "there is insufficient evidence that the Defendant reasonably believed deadly force was needed to prevent death or great bodily harm to herself," and that the fact that she came back into the home, instead of leaving out the front or back door "is inconsistent with a person who is in genuine fear for her life."

Alexander's case was prosecuted by Angela Corey, the Florida State's Attorney who is also prosecuting George Zimmerman. Alexander was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, and because she discharged a firearm during the incident, the case fell under Florida's "10-20-life" law, enacted in 1999, which mandates a 20-year sentence for use of a gun during the commission of certain crimes.

Corey initially offered Alexander a three year deal if she pleaded guilty to aggravated assault, but according to CBS affiliate WTEV, Alexander did not believe she had done anything wrong, and rejected the plea. Her bet did not pay off: the jury in the case returned a guilty verdict in less than 15 minutes.


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14. Justice Department places 'hold' on Zimmerman trial evidence
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The Justice Department has no jurisdiction in the Zimmerman case, but when has that stopped the current administration? (The feds do have jurisdiction when a police officer violates a civil right under the color of law. Zimmerman is not a police officer, hence is outside the fed's reach. There is also the constitutional protection against double-jeopardy now that a jury has found Zimmerman to be not guilty.)

EM Dave Van emailed me this:

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From dailymail.co.uk: https://tinyurl.com/mkc8fs7

Justice Department places 'hold' on Trayvon Martin trial evidence, including George Zimmerman's gun - which Florida law says must be returned to him
by David Martosko
July 18, 2013

The U.S. Department of Justice, overseen by Attorney General Eric Holder, has ordered the Sanford, Florida police department to keep possession of all the evidence from George Zimmerman's second-degree murder trial - including the exonerated neighborhood watch volunteer's gun. [PVC: I'm not so sure that Eric Holder can "order" local police departments to do much of anything.]

Sanford police confirmed on Thursday that the DOJ asked the agency not to return any pieces of evidence to their owners. Zimmerman was expected to get his firearm back by month's end.

The development is a sign that the criminal section of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division is seriously investigating Zimmerman to determine if federal civil rights charges should be filed.

Zimmerman was acquitted of murder and manslaughter on Sunday in a Florida courtroom, but civil rights violations provide an exception to the U.S. Constitution's protection against double jeopardy after a defendant has been found 'not guilty' in a state or local jurisdiction.

That's because if Zimmerman were tried in federal court, he would be charged with violating Trayvon Martin's civil rights, not causing his death.

WESH-TV in Orlando reported Thursday afternoon that police had confirmed the evidence 'hold,' meaning that everything related to the trial, from Zimmerman's gun to the Skittles and Arizona-brand watermelon fruit juice cocktail Martin was carrying when the pair's altercation began, will remain in the hands of law enforcement.

The DOJ did not immediately respond to questions about whether it will take custody of the evidence, or when that might occur.

But Holder himself confirmed on Tuesday during the NAACP's annual convention that the Justice Department still has an open investigation into Zimmerman's actions on Feb. 26, 2012.

'I am concerned about this case,' Holder told the assembled black civil rights activists, 'and as we confirmed last spring, the Justice Department has an open investigation into it.'

'While that inquiry is ongoing, I can promise that the Department of Justice will consider all available information before determining what action to take.'

Comedian and HBO host Bill Maher drew boos from audience members on Tuesday during a taping of The Late Show With David Letterman, by saying that 'the Florida state law is that he can get his gun back. I say that if he gets a gun, Casey Anthony gets a baby.'

Anthony was acquitted in 2011, also in Florida, of killing her two-year-old daughter in 2008.





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VA-ALERT is a project of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, Inc.
(VCDL). VCDL is an all-volunteer, non-partisan grassroots organization
dedicated to defending the human rights of all Virginians. The Right to
Keep and Bear Arms is a fundamental human right.

VCDL web page: http://www.vcdl.org [http://www.vcdl.org/]
***************************************************************************

[Taggure]

Item 9 is just un-called for that they have that kind of power. The Girls did no more then what they should have done and those ABC Agents need to be relived of thier position.

[GeneFrenkle]

Re: Orange county, we've never had an issue. It was always about two weeks or so end to end. I'm kind of surprised.

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