as “armor piercing ammunition.” If you have not already done so, all industry
employees, target shooters and gun owners should contact your Member of
Congress AND the ATF to oppose this unnecessary ban, which is
truly a solution in search of a problem and that raises serious
questions about executive agency attitude and overreach. Stopped cold on
Capitol Hill, this action appears to be the Obama administration’s
attempt to pursue gun control by other means.
Commonly available steel-core, “green tip” M855 and
SS109 rifle ammunition that is primarily intended and regularly used for
“sporting purposes,” like target shooting, has been exempt from federal
law banning armor piercing ammunition for decades. There is no question
that the 5.56 ball ammo has been in wide use by law abiding American
citizens for sporting purposes.
It is with the increasing prevalence of handgun versions
of rifle platforms, that ATF now apparently sees an opening to now ban
the widely used M855 and SS109 ammunition.
ATF’s proposed “framework” for applying the “sporting
purpose” exemption test rewrites the law passed by Congress to disregard
the manufacturer’s intention that a projectile or cartridge is
“primarily intended for a supporting purpose.” ATF inappropriately
places the focus on how criminals might misuse sporting ammunition in a
handgun.
Just as disturbing, language used by ATF in its long
white paper refers to criminals as a “consumer group.” The implication
that the industry purposely sells firearms and ammunition to criminals
is misleading and echoes the shopworn charges of the gun control lobby.
Manufacturers will face serious limitations in their
ability to develop and market alternative ammunition in other popular
hunting rounds, such as .308 rifle hunting ammunition, if ATF’s
so-called “framework” is adopted. This will have a detrimental effect on
hunting nationwide, especially in California where a total ban on
traditional ammunition for hunting is being phased in now.
and ask them to stop the Obama Administration from implementing this
unnecessary ban on commonly used ammunition for America’s most popular
sporting rifles.
OFF THE WIRE
Wait, I thought Guantanamo was in Cuba, not Chicago.
Exclusive: Secret interrogation facility reveals aspects of war on terror in US
‘They disappeared us’: protester details 17-hour shackling without basic rights
Accounts describe police brutality, missing 15-year-old and one man’s death
The Chicago
police department operates an off-the-books interrogation compound,
rendering Americans unable to be found by family or attorneys while
locked inside what lawyers say is the domestic equivalent of a CIA black
site.
The facility, a nondescript warehouse on Chicago’s west side known as
Homan Square, has long been the scene of secretive work by special
police units. Interviews with local attorneys and one protester who
spent the better part of a day shackled in Homan Square describe
operations that deny access to basic constitutional rights. Alleged police practices at Homan Square, according to those familiar with the facility who spoke out to the Guardian after its investigation into Chicago police abuse, include:
Keeping arrestees out of official booking databases.
Beating by police, resulting in head wounds.
Shackling for prolonged periods.
Denying attorneys access to the “secure” facility.
Holding people without legal counsel for between 12 and 24 hours, including people as young as 15.
At least one man was found unresponsive in a Homan Square “interview room” and later pronounced dead.
Brian Jacob Church, a protester known as one of the “Nato Three”, was
held and questioned at Homan Square in 2012 following a police raid.
Officers restrained Church for the better part of a day, denying him
access to an attorney, before sending him to a nearby police station to
be booked and charged.
“Homan Square is definitely an unusual place,” Church told the
Guardian on Friday. “It brings to mind the interrogation facilities they
use in the Middle East. The CIA calls them black sites. It’s a domestic
black site. When you go in, no one knows what’s happened to you.”
The secretive warehouse is the latest example of Chicago police
practices that echo the much-criticized detention abuses of the US war
on terrorism. While those abuses impacted people overseas, Homan Square –
said to house military-style vehicles, interrogation cells and even a
cage – trains its focus on Americans, most often poor, black and brown.
Unlike
a precinct, no one taken to Homan Square is said to be booked.
Witnesses, suspects or other Chicagoans who end up inside do not appear
to have a public, searchable record entered into a database indicating
where they are, as happens when someone is booked at a precinct. Lawyers
and relatives insist there is no way of finding their whereabouts.
Those lawyers who have attempted to gain access to Homan Square are most
often turned away, even as their clients remain in custody inside.
“It’s sort of an open secret among attorneys that regularly make
police station visits, this place – if you can’t find a client in the
system, odds are they’re there,” said Chicago lawyer Julia Bartmes.
Chicago civil-rights attorney Flint Taylor said Homan Square
represented a routinization of a notorious practice in local police work
that violates the fifth and sixth amendments of the constitution.
“This Homan Square revelation seems to me to be an
institutionalization of the practice that dates back more than 40
years,” Taylor said, “of violating a suspect or witness’ rights to a
lawyer and not to be physically or otherwise coerced into giving a
statement.”
Much remains hidden about Homan Square. The Chicago police department
did not respond to the Guardian’s questions about the facility. But
after the Guardian published this story, the department provided a
statement insisting, without specifics, that there is nothing untoward
taking place at what it called the “sensitive” location, home to
undercover units.
“CPD [Chicago police department] abides by all laws, rules and
guidelines pertaining to any interviews of suspects or witnesses, at
Homan Square or any other CPD facility. If lawyers have a client
detained at Homan Square, just like any other facility, they are allowed
to speak to and visit them. It also houses CPD’s Evidence Recovered
Property Section, where the public is able to claim inventoried
property,” the statement said, something numerous attorneys and one
Homan Square arrestee have denied.
“There are always records of anyone who is arrested by CPD, and this is not any different at Homan Square,” it continued.
The Chicago police statement did not address how long into an arrest
or detention those records are generated or their availability to the
public. A department spokesperson did not respond to a detailed request
for clarification.
When a Guardian reporter arrived at the warehouse on Friday, a man at
the gatehouse outside refused any entrance and would not answer
questions. “This is a secure facility. You’re not even supposed to be
standing here,” said the man, who refused to give his name.
A former Chicago police superintendent and a more recently retired
detective, both of whom have been inside Homan Square in the last few
years in a post-police capacity, said the police department did not
operate out of the warehouse until the late 1990s.
But in detailing episodes involving their clients over the past
several years, lawyers described mad scrambles that led to the closed
doors of Homan Square, a place most had never heard of previously. The
facility was even unknown to Rob Warden, the founder of Northwestern
University Law School’s Center on Wrongful Convictions, until the
Guardian informed him of the allegations of clients who vanish into
inherently coercive police custody.
“They just disappear,” said Anthony Hill, a criminal defense
attorney, “until they show up at a district for charging or are just
released back out on the street.”
‘Never going to see the light of day’: the search for the Nato Three, the head wound, the worried mom and the dead man
‘They were held incommunicado for
much longer than I think should be permitted in this country – anywhere –
but particularly given the strong constitutional rights afforded to
people who are being charged with crimes,” said Sarah Gelsomino, the
lawyer for Brian Jacob Church.Photograph: Phil Batta/Guardian
Jacob Church learned about Homan Square the hard way. On May 16 2012,
he and 11 others were taken there after police infiltrated their
protest against the Nato summit. Church says officers cuffed him to a
bench for an estimated 17 hours, intermittently interrogating him
without reading his Miranda rights to remain silent. It would take
another three hours – and an unusual lawyer visit through a wire cage –
before he was finally charged with terrorism-related offenses at the
nearby 11th district station, where he was made to sign papers,
fingerprinted and photographed.
In preparation for the Nato protest, Church, who is from Florida, had
written a phone number for the National Lawyers Guild on his arm as a
precautionary measure. Once taken to Homan Square, Church asked
explicitly to call his lawyers, and said he was denied.
“Essentially, I wasn’t allowed to make any contact with anybody,”
Church told the Guardian, in contradiction of a police guidance on
permitting phone calls and legal counsel to arrestees.
Church’s left wrist was cuffed to a bar behind a bench in windowless
cinderblock cell, with his ankles cuffed together. He remained in those
restraints for about 17 hours.
“I had essentially figured, ‘All right, well, they disappeared us and
so we’re probably never going to see the light of day again,’” Church
said. Brian Jacob Church, Jared Chase and Brent Vincent Betterly, known as the ‘Nato Three’.Photograph: AP/Cook County sheriff's office
Though the raid attracted major media attention, a team of attorneys
could not find Church through 12 hours of “active searching”, Sarah
Gelsomino, Church’s lawyer, recalled. No booking record existed. Only
after she and others made a “major stink” with contacts in the offices
of the corporation counsel and Mayor Rahm Emanuel did they even learn
about Homan Square.
They sent another attorney to the facility, where he ultimately
gained entry, and talked to Church through a floor-to-ceiling chain-link
metal cage. Finally, hours later, police took Church and his two
co-defendants to a nearby police station for booking.
After serving two and a half years in prison, Church is currently on parole after he and his co-defendants were found not guilty in 2014 of terrorism-related offenses but guilty of lesser charges of possessing an incendiary device and the misdemeanor of “mob action”.
The access that Nato Three attorneys received to Homan Square was an
exception to the rule, even if Jacob Church’s experience there was not.
Three attorneys interviewed by the Guardian report being personally
turned away from Homan Square between 2009 and 2013 without being
allowed access to their clients. Two more lawyers who hadn’t been
physically denied described it as a place where police withheld
information about their clients’ whereabouts. Church was the only person
who had been detained at the facility who agreed to talk with the
Guardian: their lawyers say others fear police retaliation.
One man in January 2013 had his name changed in the Chicago central
bookings database and then taken to Homan Square without a record of his
transfer being kept, according to Eliza Solowiej of Chicago’s First
Defense Legal Aid. (The man, the Guardian understands, wishes to be
anonymous; his current attorney declined to confirm Solowiej’s account.)
She found out where he was after he was taken to the hospital with a
head injury.
“He said that the officers caused his head injuries in an
interrogation room at Homan Square. I had been looking for him for six
to eight hours, and every department member I talked to said they had
never heard of him,” Solowiej said. “He sent me a phone pic of his head
injuries because I had seen him in a police station right before he was
transferred to Homan Square without any.”
Bartmes, another Chicago attorney, said that in September 2013 she
got a call from a mother worried that her 15-year-old son had been
picked up by police before dawn. A sympathetic sergeant followed up with
the mother to say her son was being questioned at Homan Square in
connection to a shooting and would be released soon. When hours passed,
Bartmes traveled to Homan Square, only to be refused entry for nearly an
hour.
An officer told her, “Well, you can’t just stand here taking notes,
this is a secure facility, there are undercover officers, and you’re
making people very nervous,” Bartmes recalled. Told to leave, she said
she would return in an hour if the boy was not released. He was home,
and not charged, after “12, maybe 13” hours in custody.
On February 2, 2013, John Hubbard was taken to Homan Square. Hubbard
never walked out. The Chicago Tribune reported that the 44-year old was
found “unresponsive inside an interview room”,
and pronounced dead. After publication, the Cook County medical
examiner told the Guardian that the cause of death was determined to be
heroin intoxication.
Homan Square is hardly concerned exclusively with terrorism. Several
special units operate outside of it, including the anti-gang and
anti-drug forces. If police “want money, guns, drugs”, or information on
the flow of any of them onto Chicago’s streets, “they bring them there
and use it as a place of interrogation off the books,” Hill said.
‘That scares the hell out of me’: a throwback to Chicago police abuse with a post-9/11 feel
‘The real danger in allowing
practices like Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib is the fact that they always
creep into other aspects,’ criminologist Tracy Siska told the Guardian.Photograph: Chandler West/Guardian
A former Chicago detective and current private investigator, Bill
Dorsch, said he had not heard of the police abuses described by Church
and lawyers for other suspects who had been taken to Homan Square. He
has been permitted access to the facility to visit one of its main
features, an evidence locker for the police department. (“I just showed
my retirement star and passed through,” Dorsch said.)
Transferring detainees through police custody to deny them access to
legal counsel, would be “a career-ender,” Dorsch said. “To move just for
the purpose of hiding them, I can’t see that happening,” he told the
Guardian.
Richard Brzeczek, Chicago’s police superintendent from 1980 to 1983,
who also said he had no first-hand knowledge of abuses at Homan Square,
said it was “never justified” to deny access to attorneys.
“Homan Square should be on the same list as every other facility
where you can call central booking and say: ‘Can you tell me if this
person is in custody and where,’” Brzeczek said.
“If you’re going to be doing this, then you have to include Homan
Square on the list of facilities that prisoners are taken into and a
record made. It can’t be an exempt facility.”
Indeed, Chicago police guidelines appear to ban the sorts of practices Church and the lawyers said occur at Homan Square.
A directive titled “Processing Persons Under Department Control”
instructs that “investigation or interrogation of an arrestee will not
delay the booking process,” and arrestees must be allowed “a reasonable
number of telephone calls” to attorneys swiftly “after their arrival at
the first place of custody.” Another directive, “Arrestee and In-Custody Communications,” says police supervisors must “allow visitation by attorneys.”
Attorney Scott Finger said that the Chicago police tightened the
latter directive in 2012 after quiet complaints from lawyers about their
lack of access to Homan Square. Without those changes, Church’s
attorneys might not have gained entry at all. But that tightening –
about a week before Church’s arrest – did not prevent Church’s prolonged
detention without a lawyer, nor the later cases where lawyers were
unable to enter.
The combination of holding clients for long periods, while concealing
their whereabouts and denying access to a lawyer, struck legal experts
as a throwback to the worst excesses of Chicago police abuse, with a
post-9/11 feel to it.
On a smaller scale, Homan Square is “analogous to the CIA’s black
sites,” said Andrea Lyon, a former Chicago public defender and current
dean of Valparaiso University Law School. When she practiced law in
Chicago in the 1980s and 1990s, she said, “police used the term ‘shadow
site’” to refer to the quasi-disappearances now in place at Homan
Square.
“Back when I first started working on torture cases and started
representing criminal defendants in the early 1970s, my clients often
told me they’d been taken from one police station to another before
ending up at Area 2 where they were tortured,” said Taylor, the
civil-rights lawyer most associated with pursuing the notoriously
abusive Area 2 police commander Jon Burge. “And in that way the police
prevent their family and lawyers from seeing them until they could
coerce, through torture or other means, confessions from them.”
Police often have off-site facilities to have private conversations
with their informants. But a retired Washington DC homicide detective,
James Trainum, could not think of another circumstance nationwide where
police held people incommunicado for extended periods.
“I’ve never known any kind of organized, secret place where they go
and just hold somebody before booking for hours and hours and hours.
That scares the hell out of me that that even exists or might exist,”
said Trainum, who now studies national policing issues, to include
interrogations, for the Innocence Project and the Constitution Project.
Regardless of departmental regulations, police frequently deny or
elide access to lawyers even at regular police precincts, said Solowiej
of First Defense Legal Aid. But she said the outright denial was
exacerbated at Chicago’s secretive interrogation and holding facility:
“It’s very, very rare for anyone to experience their constitutional
rights in Chicago police custody, and even more so at Homan Square,”
Solowiej said.
Church said that one of his more striking memories of Homan Square
was the “big, big vehicles” police had inside the complex that “look
like very large MRAPs that they use in the Middle East.”
Cook County, home of Chicago, has received some 1,700 pieces of
military equipment from a much-criticized Pentagon program transferring
military gear to local police. It includes a Humvee, according to a local ABC News report.
Tracy Siska, a criminologist and civil-rights activist with the Chicago Justice Project, said that Homan Square, as well as the unrelated case of ex-Guantánamo interrogator and retired Chicago detective Richard Zuley, showed the lines blurring between domestic law enforcement and overseas military operations.
“The real danger in allowing practices like Guantánamo or Abu Ghraib
is the fact that they always creep into other aspects,” Siska said.
“They creep into domestic law enforcement, either with weaponry like
with the militarization of police, or interrogation practices. That’s
how we ended up with a black site in Chicago.”
OFF THE WIRE
NCOM and ABATE of California is sponsoring this year's ALL CALIFORNIA
CLUBs meeting at the convention this year. Hosted by the Southern
California Confederation of Clubs and presented/facilitated by Double D
and Donnie Landsman who helped get the country's first motorcycle rider
anti-profiling bill passed in Washington State. The agenda this year
will focus on how to collectively support California's Assembly Bill 334
- Motorcycle Rider Anti-Profiling Bill.
Palm Beach County, Florida –
Journalists at the DC Post were looking through message boards that are
frequented by law enforcement officers, when they found a post where one
officer was causally talking about planting evidence on “mouthy
drivers” and “street lawyers.”
The Post then contacted the officer and conducted an anonymous interview with him where he revealed his disturbing perspective.
The officer revealed the illegal and unethical actions that he is
proud of taking on the job. The DC Post has also said that they have
verified the officer’s position with the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s
Office, and they have verified many of the claims that he has made.
The original post was titled “Tricks of the trade – let’s exchange!” and featured the following message:
“I have a method for getting people off the street
that should not be there. Mouthy drivers, street lawyers, assholes and
just anyone else trying to make my job difficult. Under my floor mat, I
keep a small plastic dime baggie with Cocaine in residue. Since it’s
just residue, if it is ever found during a search of my car like during
an inspection, it’s easy enough to explain. It must have stuck to my
foot while walking through San Castle. Anyways, no one’s going to
question an empty baggie. The residue is the key because you can fully
charge some asshole with possession of cocaine, heroin, or whatever just
with the residue. How to get it done? “I asked Mr. DOE for his
identification. And he pulled out his wallet, I observed a small plastic
baggie fall out of his pocket…” You get the idea. easy, right? Best
part is, those baggies can be found lots of places so you can always be
ready. Don’t forget to wipe the baggie on the person’s skin after you
arrest them because you want their DNA on the bag if they say you
planted it or fight it in court.”
Other officers on the board responded by sharing similar stories
about how they falsely arrest people who don’t adequately bow to their
authority.
Later in the interview, when the officer was asked if planting
evidence happened regularly within his department, he responded by
saying,
“Um, yes it does, on a regular basis. Probably every
day in my shift. I work nights on the Road Patrol in a rough, um, mostly
black neighborhood. Planting evidence and lying in your reports are
just part of the game.
Then straight from the horses mouth, the officer said that this
crooked behavior was actually encouraged by the drug war. Continuing his
discussion about planting evidence, the officer said,
“Yes, all the time. It is something I see a lot of, whether it was from deputies, supervisors or undercovers
and even investigators. It’s almost like you have no emotion with it,
that they attach the bodies to it, they’re going to be out of jail
tomorrow anyway; nothing is going to happen to them anyway. One of the
consequences of the war on drugs is that police officers are pressured
to make large numbers of arrests, and it’s easy for some of the less
honest cops to plant evidence on innocent people. The drug war
inevitably leads to crooked policing — and quotas further incentivize
such practices. It doesn’t help that your higherups all did the
same thing when they were on the road. It’s like a neverending cycle.
Like how molested children accept that as okay behavior and begin
molesting children themselves.”
When asked if he would get in trouble with the police department for
framing people, the officer laughed and said that this type of behavior
was actually encouraged.
“Our top boss, Sheriff Ric Bradshaw, supports this
behavior and has for his entire career. As with anything, it depends on
who you know in our agency. Last year, we had three deputies on the TAC
unit, Kevin Drummond and Jarrod Foster, get caught falsifying
information for a warrant. They got a pat on the back for a job well
done. Just recently, we had a deputy, I think his name was Booth. He was
caught completely lying on a car crash. Back a few more years, our
Sheriff was involved a massive coverup of the death of two black
deputies. He hid the report for years. This is only the beginning. The
Sheriff has been involved in falsification of documents and his
underling, Chief Deputy Michael Gauger, has been personally involved in
an overtime scandal to steal money from the Sheriff’s Office. Does our
Sheriff know about this behavior? Of course he does. We have even had a
judge outright accuse my agency of committing fraud upon the court in a
public hearing. She was one of the ones who saw through all the lying
and covering up our department does to get away with the internal crime
committed by deputies on a regular basis,” he said.
Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office is no special police department,
and this officer is not just a bad apple. The problems that are
discussed in this interview are systematic, and they occur in every town
across the country.
Just this week, we exposed a police department in Missouri
whose officers were forced to make arrests or faced losing their job.
This leads to otherwise innocent people being charged on a regular
basis.
Also this week, the Free Thought Project conducted a report to show what happens to cops
who try to expose this corruption. Several officers within the Chicago
police department were threatened with “going home in a casket” for
exposing this same vile practice within their ranks. Read more at http://thefreethoughtproject.com/officer-reveals-planting-evidence-lying-part-game/#uIZKwxoIIpl0txky.99
OFF THE WIRE
With social media being used as a soundboard for many who post their
fleeting thoughts or random feelings at any given time, what this
software is essentially doing is targeting people for thought crimes.
Read more - http://bit.ly/1D8nupE
Fresno, CA– Don’t use the word “rage”
on social media, or you may have an anti-police mentality. At least
that’s the case according to Chief Dyer of the Fresno Police Department
and their new social media scanning software called “Beware.”
The Orwellian software, which we have previously reported
on, is designed to assess the risk involved when officers respond to
calls at any given address. However it is likely to build even more
mistrust among trigger happy police and create more danger for those
they like to claim that they “protect and serve.”
The software compiles all information on any given person, or people
at an address in which officers are responding. It then computes a
numerical threat score or risk index for each person to assign a
color-coded threat rating. Not only does the Beware software pull up
social security numbers, previous and current addresses, phone numbers,
and other personal information but it scans your social media as well.
A reporter from ABC
who voluntarily had himself assessed turned up a threat rating of
‘green’ with a score of zero. Another woman who had simply tweeted about
a card game involving the word “rage” triggered a higher threat rating
since the word “rage” apparently signifies an anti-police mentality.
“It doesn’t make them a criminal necessarily, some of
those comments, but it certainly gives the officer an awareness that
this person may have an anti-police sentiment and be an increasing level
of threat to them,” Chief Dyer told ABC regarding the woman’s threat
level.
This software has already been rejected in one city in Washington
state. It is also majorly contended by privacy and human rights
activists. However, Fresno has decided to jump on the opportunity to use
the product for free for 18 months as a test market of sorts.
Chief Jerry Dyer told ABC that he understands the civil rights
concerns, but the information is public and it may prove critical to
officer safety.
With social media being used as a soundboard for many who post their
fleeting thoughts or random feelings at any given time, what this
software is essentially doing is targeting people for thought crimes. It
is ensuring that they are greeted by an officer prepared to handle them
as a criminal no matter the situation.
In the book 1984, by George Orwell, thought crime is a criminal act
of holding unspoken independent opinions that go against the ruling
party of Oceania. It meant that not only were people controlled, but
their thoughts were as well.
These laws were enforced by the Thought Police, who used surveillance
and psychological monitoring to find and eliminate those who would dare
to question or dislike, even internally, their government and rulers in
Oceania. While the novel was published in 1949, Orwell was intensely
omniscient, and television-like screens with hidden microphones and
cameras were used to monitor, misinform, and police the people or
Proles.
“The inhabitants of Oceania, particularly the Outer Party
members, have no real privacy. Many of them live in apartments equipped
with two-way telescreens, so that they may be watched or listened to at
any time. Similar telescreens are found at workstations and in public
places, along with hidden microphones. Written correspondence is
routinely opened and read by the government before it is delivered. The
Thought Police employ undercover agents, who pose as normal citizens and
report any person with subversive tendencies. Children are encouraged
to report suspicious persons to the government, and some even denounce
their parents. Surveillance controls the citizenry and the smallest sign
of rebellion, even something so small as a facial expression, can
result in immediate arrest and imprisonment. Thus, citizens (and
particularly party members) are compelled to obedience.” Orwell, 1984.
In the Oceanian Society, Big Brother; their ruler, was atop of the
pyramid, the Party in middle, the Proles, or general population at the
bottom.
The Party “seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are
not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in
power.”
The company named Intrado, who is responsible for the Beware software, would like to welcome you to 1984.
If there is hope, it lies in the Proles.
OFF THE WIRE agingrebel.com
A California Assemblyman named Ken Cooley (above) introduced a bill last week that would require police officers to be given additional training to convince them they shouldn’t profile motorcycle riders.
Cooley told the Sacramento Bee that the bill is intended “to ensure that anyone entering law enforcement in California knows the ground rules to apply the law fairly without regard for irrelevant factors of, ‘I’m on a bike’ or they’re dressed a certain way….We recognize that this issue is a much bigger issue right now than the motorcycling setting but it is an important issue of people being secure in their persons and the administration of traffic laws.”
It is a bipartisan bill, sponsored by five Republicans and three Democrats. If you want to support or comment on it, it is Assembly Bill 334 titled: “An act to add Section 13519.17 to the Penal Code, relating to the profiling of motorcycle riders.”
No No
“The bill would require all local law enforcement agencies to adopt a written policy designed to condemn and prevent the profiling of motorcycle riders and to review and audit any existing policies to ensure that those policies do not enable or foster the practice of profiling motorcycle riders.” And the state of California would pay for whatever that costs.
The proposed law defines “profiling of motorcycle riders” to mean “using the fact that a person rides a motorcycle or wears motorcycle paraphernalia as a factor, without any individualized suspicion of the particular person, in deciding to stop and question, take enforcement action, arrest, or search a person or vehicle, with or without legal basis under the California Constitution or the United States Constitution.”
The bill also requires that the California “Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training shall ensure that the profiling of motorcycle riders is addressed in the course of basic law enforcement training and offered to law enforcement officers in conjunction with existing training regarding profiling.”
California Dremin’
Excluding its helmet law, California is among the friendlier states to bikers. California was among the first states to prohibit motorcycle only checkpoints in 2012. Since then four more states – Louisiana, Missouri, North Carolina and Virginia – have prohibited the practice. Illinois and New Hampshire have prohibited the use of federal funds for those checkpoints and eleven states prohibit all safety and sobriety checkpoints.
California is also the only state so far that tolerates lane splitting. A Texas Bill, H.B. 813, that would allow lane splitting in the Lonestar State, was recently introduced by state Representative. Sergio Muñoz Jr.
Governor Greg Abbott(R) of Texas will make his state the 45th to have
open carry. This is a major victory for our nation and the 2nd
Amendment. Many in the Texas have worked hard to make this a reality and
the hard work has finally paid off. One such group Texas Open Carry has
been working hard to bring this the floor of the Texas lawmakers.
Texas has always been an open carry state for long guns/rifles, but not
the handgun.
Governor Abbott was elected and faced fierce opposition by numerous
and even one crazy questionable candidate. Even with that said, one of
his first acts is to enforce the 2nd Amendment. Least he stuck to his
platform and Republicans can be proud of this.
Governor Greg Abbott (R) handed Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in
America another loss on February 17 when he announced that he will
indeed sign open carry into law, thereby “[making] Texas the 45th state
to allow Open Carry.” Abbott made these comments during his 2015 State
of the State Address.
Let me briefly follow-up on a word I mentioned a moment
ago–liberty. In a single word, it encapsulates what the country stands
for, what Texas symbolizes. I will expand liberty in Texas by singing a
law that makes Texas the 45th state to allow Open Carry.
There has been many negative Public Service Announcements (PSA) from
various organizations trying to block anything and everything dealing
with our fundamental rights to bear arms. Here is just one such lunatic
PSA by a women in California encouraging kids to “steal their parents
guns”.
An anti-gun ad shows a teenager bringing his parent's gun to school to
keep his house free of dangerous weapons. The Fox News brigade goes
bananas. (CrooksandLiars) Naturally, the 2nd Amendment patriots at
Fox News misunderstand the aims of a public service announcement. When a
teenager finds a gun (it didn't specify if it was loaded or not), he
brings it to school and hands it to an adult teacher. He said,
"Can you take this away? I don't feel safe with a gun around my house."
Katherine
Timpf was on to explain how insane this ad is. Because she trusts
parents to teach their kid about gun safety, this ad is all wrong.
Perhaps
bringing the gun to school was a poor idea, but where else can a child
find a responsible adult if his family is laden with idiots who keep
firearms easily accessible by anyone? And, Ms. Ammosexual, how many
damned accidental deaths does one country need before people are held
accountable for the mass proliferation and acquisition of these sorts of
lethal weapons? Did the psa explain that maybe the kid's mom is
unwilling to teach him or unwilling to hide the weapon from a younger
sibling? No, so Fox News and Ms. National Review are appalled at the
content of the ad, completely missing the point.
Guns should
NEVER be accessed readily by any minor, and more often than not, anyone,
period. Guns ABSOLUTELY make the house much more dangerous for the
whole family.
Guns in the home greatly increase the risk of
youth suicides. That is why the American Academy of Pediatrics has long
urged parents to remove guns from their homes.
The person who made the ad said that guns should not be accessible by children.
We can't say the truth, as Fox News is bought and paid for by 2nd
Amendment enthusiasts who have worked tirelessly to change the meaning
of that amendment. In fact, they recommend prosecution if that ad leads
to one person bringing a gun to school, also missing the point that
weapons don't make a home safer. Remember, pre-1982, before Orrin
Hatch and the NRA-ILA decided to re-interpret the amendment to mean
exclusively, you have a right to bear arms (and leave off "to form a
militia"). It was a turning point in our country, and Congress has
worked harder on the mass proliferation of guns than on any other
matter.
The kid may face some discipline from the school, but
let's focus on what's the point of this ad: guns should NEVER be within
the reach of a minor. This is the problem, not the kid trying to rid his
house of dangerous, lethal weaponry.
OFF THE WIRE
Thank you to all who share information with me so that I may share it with others! Please feel free to pass along to others you feel might be interested in the POW/MIA Veterans Newsletter, thank you!
Have you thanked a Veteran for the Freedoms you enjoy Today?
Thank you to all of you for your service to our country,
for signing that check that devoted life, limb, well being....
May you all have many things to be thankful for and may each day bring bountiful blessings to you and yours!
HAPPY LABOR DAY WEEKEND ALL!
Attention all vets who served in Somalia, Iraq, and
Afghanistan who were issued the weekly anti malaria drug
Mefloquine (Lariam)to prevent malaria. If you are still
having side effects from the drug, contact your local
VA environmental health coordinator.
Mefloquine (brand name: Lariam®) is a drug that has been
given to military personnel, including those serving in
Somalia, Iraq, and Afghanistan, for protection against
malaria. Malaria is an infectious disease transmitted by
mosquitoes. Mefloquine, a round, white tablet taken once a
week, is also used for travelers visiting areas where
malaria is found, based on recommendations from the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention. Mefloquine was approved
by the FDA in May 1989.
If you are concerned about mefloquine use or long-term side
effects from taking mefloquine, talk to your health care
provider or local VA Environmental Health Coordinator.
Mefloquine side effects: Most people who take
mefloquine do not experience side effects. For those who do,
the most common reported side effects include nausea,
vomiting, diarrhea, dizziness, difficulty sleeping, and bad
dreams. These symptoms are usually mild and do not cause
people to stop taking the medicine. People with liver
problems, or those who drink alcohol or take medicines that
affect the liver, may take longer to eliminate mefloquine
from the body. Occasionally, mefloquine may cause more
serious side effects. Examples include psychiatric symptoms
such as anxiety, paranoia, depression, mood changes,
hallucinations, agitation, and unusual behavior. Other
uncommon side effects may include muscle weakness, irregular
heartbeat, and lung problems such as pneumonitis
(inflammation of lung tissue). Rare cases of suicidal
thoughts have been reported.
Health concerns? If you are concerned about mefloquine
use or long-term side effects from taking mefloquine, talk
to your health care provider or local VA Environmental
Health Coordinator.
Veterans may be eligible for VA disability compensation
benefits and health care benefits for health problems
associated with mefloquine use during military service.
Scientists band together to develop PTSD biomarkers
A consortium of psychiatrists, neurobiologists and scientists will pool resources to devise accurate ways to detect post-traumatic stress disorder, to reduce the number of war veterans who go undiagnosed, Technology Review reports. By examining civilians and military personnel previously involved in automobile accidents, the scientists will draw from genetic data, brain imaging, and other physiological measurements to identify patterns in PTSD sufferers. Roughly 9 percent of American accident survivors develop PTSD. The goal of the consortium is to develop quantitative biomarkers -- for instance, levels of chemicals in blood or brain scan patterns -- that will help hospitals diagnose the disorder more precisely.
Afghanistan War: Degenerative Brain Disease Threatens U.S. Soldiers
As the war in Afghanistan winds down, more than 200,000 U.S. soldiers who suffered from a traumatic brain injury are at risk of developing a degenerative brain disease. Doctors have not yet found a way to diagnose or prevent the condition, called Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), HuffPost's David Wood explains. The condition can lead patients to suffer from memory loss, difficulty in walking and speaking, paranoia and even suicide. Doctors hope that by treating soldiers early for traumatic brain injury, they may prevent it from developing into CTE.
National POW/MIA Recognition Day
The President issues a proclamation commemorating the observances and reminding the nation of those Americans who have sacrificed so much for their country.
Observances of National POW/MIA Recognition Day are held across the country on military installations, ships at sea, state capitols, schools and veterans' facilities. It is traditionally observed on the third Friday in September each year. This observance is one of six days throughout the year that Congress has mandated the flying of the National League of Families' POW/MIA flag. The others are Armed Forces Day, Memorial Day, Flag Day, Independence Day and Veterans Day.
The flag is to be flown at major military installations, national cemeteries, all post offices, VA medical facilities, the World War II Memorial, Korean War Veterans Memorial, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the official offices of the secretaries of state, defense and veterans affairs, the director of the selective service system and the White House.
A Pentagon ceremony for National POW/MIA Recognition Day was held on Friday, Sept.16, 2011. This ceremony featured troops from each of the military services
Health Notice for Vets at Camp Lejeune 50s through the 80s
If you served on active duty at Camp Lejeune between 1957 and 1987, you may have been exposed to contaminated drinking water.
Under a new law (pdf) just signed by President Obama, you can receive VA medical care if you are suffering from any of the medical conditions described in the law and resided or served on active duty at Camp Lejeune for not fewer than 30 days between January 1, 1957 and December 31, 1987.
VA will provide care immediately for those conditions while your eligibility under the new law is confirmed. VA’s Public Health web site contains important information about the law along with links to other useful web sites. Or call 1-877-222-8387 for assistance.
Veterans already enrolled in VA health care, contact your local VA health care facility to receive care under the new law.
Those not already enrolled should call 1-877-222-8387 for assistance.
Care for family members will be available after Congress appropriates funds and VA publishes regulations. The new law applies to health care, not disability compensation.
You may also register to receive notifications from the Marine Corps regarding “Camp Lejeune Historic Drinking Water.”
The Department of Veterans Affairs is committed to providing the best quality care for eligible Veterans and their families who lived or worked at Camp Lejeune and were exposed to contaminated water.
The law signed by President Obama on August 6, 2012, is titled Honoring America’s Veterans and Caring for Camp Lejeune Families Act of 2012.
-------------------------------------------------------
HR 1627 - An Act To amend title 38, United States Code, to furnish hospital care and medical services to veterans who were stationed at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, while the water was contaminated at Camp Lejeune, to improve the provision of housing assistance to veterans and their families, and for other purposes.
‘‘(F) Subject to paragraph (2), a veteran who served on active duty in the Armed Forces at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, for not fewer than 30 days during the period beginning on January 1, 1957, and ending on December 31, 1987, is eligible for hospital care and medical services under subsection (a)(2)(F) for any of the following illnesses or conditions, notwithstanding that there is insufficient medical evidence to conclude that such illnesses or conditions are attributable to such service:
‘‘(i) Esophageal cancer.
‘‘(ii) Lung cancer.
‘‘(iii) Breast cancer.
‘‘(iv) Bladder cancer.
‘‘(v) Kidney cancer.
‘‘(vi) Leukemia.
‘‘(vii) Multiple myeloma.
‘‘(viii) Myleodysplasic syndromes.
‘‘(ix) Renal toxicity.
‘‘(x) Hepatic steatosis.
‘‘(xi) Female infertility.
‘‘(xii) Miscarriage.
‘‘(xiii) Scleroderma.
‘‘(xiv) Neurobehavioral effects.
‘‘(xv) Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.’’.
The book, "No Easy Day," gives a Navy SEAL's firsthand account of the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden. NEW YORK -- The much-anticipated firsthand account of the Navy SEALs raid that killed Osama bin Laden reveals the terrorist leader was unarmed and was already dead with a bullet to the brain when the SEALs entered his bedroom in the compound at Abbottabad, Pakistan.
As the SEALS ascended a narrow staircase, the team's point man saw a man poke his head from a doorway, wrote a SEAL using the pseudonym Mark Owen (whose real identity has since been revealed by Fox News) in “No Easy Day,” a copy of which was obtained at a bookstore by The Huffington Post.
"We were less than five steps from getting to the top when I heard suppressed shots. BOP. BOP," writes Owen. "I couldn't tell from my position if the rounds hit the target or not. The man disappeared into the dark room."
Team members took their time entering the room, where they saw the women wailing over Bin Laden, who wore a white sleeveless T-shirt, loose tan pants and a tan tunic, according to the book.
Despite numerous reports that bin Laden had a weapon and resisted when Navy SEALs entered the room, he was unarmed, writes Owen. He had been fatally wounded before they had entered the room.
"Blood and brains spilled out of the side of his skull” and he was still twitching and convulsing, Owen writes. While bin Laden was in his death throes, Owen writes that he and another SEAL "trained our lasers on his chest and fired several rounds. The bullets tore into him, slamming his body into the floor until he was motionless."
Then the SEALS repeatedly examined his face to make sure he was truly bin Laden. They interrogated a young girl and one of the women who had been wailing over Bin Laden’s body, who verified that it was the terror leader.
The shots fired inside the room appear to contradict the mission they were given. During a meeting with top commanders, a lawyer from either the Pentagon or the White House "made it clear that this wasn't an assassination," writes Owen, who recounted the instructions: "I am not going to tell you how to do your job. What we're saying is if he does not pose a threat, you will detain him."
Searching bin Laden’s neatly organized room, Owen found two guns -– an AK-47 and a Makarov pistol -– with empty chambers. “He hadn’t even prepared a defense. He had no intention of fighting. He asked his followers for decades to wear suicide vests or fly planes into buildings, but didn’t even pick up his weapon. In all of my deployments, we routinely saw this phenomenon. The higher up the food chain the targeted individual was, the bigger a pussy he was.”
The book calls out inaccurate accounts of the assault. "The raid was being reported like a bad action movie," Owen writes. "At first, it was funny because it was so wrong."
Contrary to earlier accounts, Owen says SEALs weren't fired upon while they were outside the gate of the compound. There was no 40-minute firefight. And it wasn't true that bin Laden had "time to look into our eyes."
Owen, a 36-year-old SEAL who also took part in a previous 2007 attempt to get Bin Laden and was involved in the heroic 2009 operation to free Captain Richard Phillips from pirates off the coast of Somalia, also had harsh words for President Barack Obama.
Though he praises the president for green-lighting the risky assault, Owen says the SEALS joked that Obama would take credit for their success. On his second night in Afghanistan waiting for final orders, sitting around a fire pit and joking about which Hollywood actors would play them in the bin Laden movie, one SEAL joked, “And we’ll get Obama reelected for sure. I can see him now, talking about how he killed bin Laden,” according to Owen.
Owen writes: “We had seen it before when he took credit for the Captain Phillips rescue. Although we applauded the decision-making in this case, there was no doubt in anybody’s mind that he would take all the political credit for this too.”
Later, while watching Obama’s speech announcing the raid, Owen writes: “None of us were huge fans of Obama. We respected him as the commander in chief of the military and for giving us the green light on the mission.” When one SEAL jokes again that they got Obama reelected, Owen asks, “Well, would you rather not have done this?”
He writes: “We all knew the deal. We were tools in the toolbox, and when things go well they promote it. They inflate their roles. But we should have done it. It was the right call to make. Regardless of the politics that would come along with it, the end result was what we all wanted.”
Later, when they meet Obama at the White House, Owen says he was reluctant to sign the American flag presented to the president because it would disclose his identity. So, at least one SEAL scribbled a random name on the flag. While going through the metal detector to meet the president, Owen’s pocketknife set off the alarm.
After listening to Obama’s speech and enduring Biden’s “lame jokes that no one got (He seemed like a nice guy, but he reminded me of someone’s drunken uncle at Christmas dinner)" the president invited the team to return to his residence later for a beer.
But Owen writes a few weeks later: “We never got the call to have a beer at the White House.” Joking with a fellow SEAL, “Hey, did you ever hear anything about that beer?” Walt cracks: “ You believed that shit. I bet you voted for change too, sucker.”
Tommy Vietor, spokesman for the White House National Security Council, said in an email: "As President Obama said on the night that justice was brought to Osama bin Laden, 'We give thanks for the men who carried out this operation, for they exemplify the professionalism, patriotism, and unparalleled courage of those who serve our country.'
Ladies & Gentlemen,
We are engaged here in Washington in a heck of a fight to protect the benefits earned by members of the uniformed services through their service and sacrifice for the nation. An example of this is the battle over healthcare for retirees and their families. For years we have been told that healthcare, especially for retirees, has been driving national defense into bankruptcy - an incredible insult to men and women who devoted their adult lives to the protection of the nation.
Last summer our members accepted a 13% increase in TRICARE Prime rates with the understanding that future increases would be tied to COLA. Shortly after that, we learned that something in excess of $500 Million in "unused" TRICARE money had been reprogrammed for other uses. Then, the administration released its 2013 budget request which included huge new fees for TRICARE Prime coverage and new, also huge, first time ever, fees for elderly retirees covered by TRICARE for Life. So much for promises made.
As the budget worked its way through the House and Senate review process, we learned that DoD wants to reprogram an another $708 M of "unused" healthcare funding money this year. The scrutiny this request brought about subsequently revealed that the sum reprogrammed last year wasn't $500 M, but rather, $1.36 Billion and the year before that it was $772 M. So, in the last three years, DoD has reprogrammed or asked to reprogram nearly $3 B of healthcare funding.
Rather than being an anchor around the neck of DoD, healthcare turns out to be a bill payer for the department. This is just one of the fights we are engaged in. Below is a youtube link to our first NAUS Video. (It is pretty good except for the homely guy making the presentation.) It is an alert of the Assault on military, veteran and retiree benefits going on today. I hope you will be comfortable with distributing it further.
PLEASE USE CAUTION WHEN REPLYING TO THIS EMAIL - THE ‘REPLY ALL’ FUNCTION SHOULD ONLY BE USED WHEN INFORMATION IS PERTINENT TO ALL ADDRESSEES NOT FOR INDIVIDUAL RESPONSES OR COMMENTS WHEN ‘REPLY’ OR ‘FORWARD’ SHOULD BE USED – THANK YOU!]
WASHINGTON -- Marine Commandant Gen. James Amos rejected the suggestion that three Marines involved in a video that showed troops urinating on the bodies of dead insurgents got off easy by not facing court-martial.
"It wasn't a slap on the wrist," Amos told a crowd at the National Press Club in Washington.
The Marines, all enlisted members of 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, pleaded guilty to various offenses at Article 15, nonjudicial punishment hearings, according to a Marine Corps press release. The Marine Corps did not release the names of the Marines or which punishments were given to whom, but said the punishments include reduction in rank, forfeiture of pay and punitive letters.
More Marines are under investigation, Amos said, and they will be "held accountable" soon.
Amos said nonjudicial punishments can end a Marine's career, but he would not say whether that was the case in this instance. He praised Lt. Gen. Richard Mills, the officer responsible for determining disciplinary actions in the incident.
"I think when it's all said and done, everyone will look back and say, ‘The Marines did the right thing,'" Amos said.
Amos also addressed a number of other topics during the hourlong talk.
*On sequestration, he said the budget cuts would disproportionately affect the Marine Corps and "would quite honestly stunt any modernization."
*On women in combat, Amos said he expects that opening more jobs and roles to women "is going to be a huge success." At least two female volunteers will start the previously male-only Infantry Officer Course next month, he said, and the Marine Corps is gathering data from that and ongoing physical tests to see how best to open more units and jobs to women. "I need to get past hyperbole and get past intuition and instincts. … I need to get facts," he said.
*On the Marine Corps' role going forward, Amos said he makes "no apologies" for being on the ground in Iraq's Anbar province or Afghanistan's Helmand province, but that land wars are "not why American buys a Marine Corps." Instead, he said, the nation wants a force that can respond to any crisis at a moment's notice.
*On sexual assault, Amos said he put together an operational planning team to define the problem and determine how to eradicate such assaults. "I think it's revolutionary," he said, stressing that the new plan has support at the highest levels. "We're headed to zero," Amos said. "Will we get there? I don't know."
Aug 29, 2012
Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune| by Dan Browning
If former Gov. Jesse Ventura didn't like what Navy SEAL Chris Kyle wrote about him in his memoir, "American Sniper," he's going to positively hate what five fellow SEALs -- and the mothers of two of their fallen comrades -- have to say about him.
Kyle's friends and associates have rallied to his defense in a defamation lawsuit Ventura filed in Hennepin County in January. Ventura, whose real name is James Janos, sued over Kyle's portrayal of a bar fight he claims they had six years ago in Coronado, Calif.
Under the heading, "Punching Out Scruff Face," Kyle describes a confrontation with a "celebrity" who served in the military during the Vietnam War. He said Scruff Face winters in Baja California, opposed the war in Iraq and described the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks as a "conspiracy."
Though he didn't name Ventura in the book, Kyle has acknowledged that Scruff Face is Jesse "The Body" Ventura.
Ventura denies Kyle's allegation that he prompted the alleged fight by saying that the SEALS "deserve to lose a few" in Iraq, or that Kyle "laid him out" at the bar during a wake for a fellow SEAL.
The lawsuit has been moved to federal court in St. Paul, where Kyle's attorney, John Borger, filed a motion Tuesday to dismiss two of the three counts as legally deficient. He said he plans to bring a separate motion for summary judgment on the remaining defamation claim as well.
In support of Tuesday's motion to dismiss claims of unjust enrichment and misappropriation of Ventura's likeness, Borger filed a handful of "declarations" from witnesses to the alleged bar fight who describe him as a "jackass" and his comments that night as "anti-American."
Borger describes Ventura in his motion as a "Navy veteran, ex-wrestler, ex-color commentator, actor, ex-mayor, ex-governor, outspoken conspiracy theorist, and frequent fanfaron of future prospects for public office." A fanfaron is a braggart, a swaggerer, a bully.
Ventura to have say in court
David Olsen, Ventura's attorney, said Tuesday he would respond in court and declined to comment further.
Kyle retired from the Navy in 2009. He served four combat tours in Iraq and elsewhere, and was awarded two Silver Stars, five Bronze Stars with Valor, two Navy and Marine Corp Achievement Medals, and one Navy and Marine Corps Commendation.
"The Navy credits me with more kills as a sniper than any other American service member, past or present," he said in a court filing.
Kyle said he and two co-authors wrote "American Sniper." "The events that happened in the book are true," he said. "I reconstructed dialogue from memory, which means that it may not be word for word. But the essence of what was said is accurate."
The witnesses' declarations generally agree with Kyle's description of the alleged fight at McP's Irish Pub in Coronado. Kyle and his friends were having a wake for Mikey Mansoor, a SEAL who threw himself onto a grenade to save his comrades and was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.
Eyewitness accounts
Debbie Lee, who lost her son, Navy SEAL Marc Lee, in Iraq, said the group was mournful and respectful. "It was not a belly-up-to-the-bar type of event," she wrote.
One of her son's SEAL teammates introduced her to Ventura, whom she found offensive. She said she heard him criticize the war and called President George Bush a jerk. Ventura could only talk about himself, she said. "He did not say he was sorry for my loss."
Bob Gassoff, the SEAL who introduced Lee to Ventura, said the former governor wore a beard braided into pony tails and a blue SEAL team hat. "He was badmouthing the war and President Bush. He was upsetting the families of deceased SEALs," Gassoff said.
Andrew Paul, a reservist Navy SEAL, said he notified Mansoor's family about his death and helped carry his body off the plane.
"I grew up watching [the movie] 'Predator' and professional wrestling. I thought it would be cool to meet 'The Body,'" he said.
But Ventura's behavior that night revolted him, Paul said. "He was saying the wrong things in the wrong place at the wrong time. In my opinion, he was being as anti-American as you can possibly get. Now, he would probably argue that he was being very American by challenging the government, but for a bunch of guys who had just laid their lives on the line for their country and who were at a wake for their fallen comrade, he's lucky the punch to the face is all he got."
Most of those swearing out declarations said they didn't see Kyle hit Ventura, but claim they saw the commotion and the aftermath as Kyle took off and Ventura clambered up from the ground with blood on his face.
Jeremiah Dinnell, an active-duty SEAL, was the exception.
"I heard Ventura say that we shouldn't be over in Iraq, doing what we were doing," he said. "And then he said that the SEALs deserved to lose some guys because of what we were doing.
"That's when Chris punched him. All of us wanted to. Chris was just the first one to pop him."
as “armor piercing ammunition.” If you have not already done so, all industry
employees, target shooters and gun owners should contact your Member of
Congress AND the ATF to oppose this unnecessary ban, which is
truly a solution in search of a problem and that raises serious
questions about executive agency attitude and overreach. Stopped cold on
Capitol Hill, this action appears to be the Obama administration’s
attempt to pursue gun control by other means.
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
