Sebastian has reports on one plea deal and another that may be pending on the recent arrests for possession of firearms in New York City.
First, a plea deal has been struck for the Tea Party leader arrested at LaGuardia Airport when trying to check a firearm. He pled to disorderly conduct and had to forfeit his Glock 27. An updated link to the story can also be found here.
The second involves registered nurse and medical student Meredith Graves. According to what Sebastian is reporting, a plea deal to a similar charge may be in the works.
Read both and push your Senator to support HR 822 which would have, at the least, exempted Meredith Graves from this madness.
In the north London neighborhood of Tottenham, rioters and looters ranged freely for over 12 hours while police vainly tried to regain control. According to reports, the riot started after a protest outside the police station on Tottenham High Road got out of control.
The initial gathering on Saturday was to protest the shooting of Mark Duggan, a 29-year old gang member. Duggan was shot and killed on Thursday by a police constable after Duggan shot the constable in the chest. The constable’s radio deflected the bullet and saved his life. Of course, given the British laws on firearms, Mr. Duggan’s possession of a handgun should have been unpossible.
According to the Telegraph, the Metropolitan Police focused their efforts in Tottenham where rioters burned police cars, stores, and apartment buildings. Looters took advantage of this to hit other areas less than a mile away.
But its tactics meant gangs of youths were free to break into stores at nearby Tottenham Hale retail park and in Wood Green, with looters forming an orderly queue in broad daylight to steal from a sports shop.
Riot police did not intervene to stop the looting in some areas until 7.30am the following morning, almost 12 hours after the riots began, and last night there were fresh disturbances in Enfield.
An orderly queue? Only in the U.K.!
The looting continued into the daylight hours. Lest it be said this looting was racially motivated, check out the looters in the video below. Some are black and some are white. They are all thieves.
There are many who believe Mr. Duggan got what he deserved as this video makes clear. It does contain quite a bit of swearing so you may not want to play it if young kids are in the room or they will be dropping the F Word with a weird accent at the worst possible time.
I spent the fall of 1978 in London on a Semester Abroad program. There was a considerable amount of labor unrest in the UK at the time and the IRA was still active in their bombing campaign against the British. That said, I don’t remember any riots happening while I was there nor do I remember seeing the police regularly carrying firearms. The gun laws at that time were much less restrictive than they are now and the only police who regularly carried firearms was the Special Branch of Scotland Yard.
The Republicans will now control both houses of the North Carolina General Assembly for the first time since 1898. That’s correct – 112 years. 1898 was the year that the fusion of Populists and Republicans lost control of the General Assembly which they had held for the preceding four years. The tactic that the Democrats used to overcome the Republicans was an appeal to white supremacy.
The “white supremacy campaign” was exactly that. The Democrats repeatedly stated that only white men were fit to hold political office. They often accused the fusionists, especially the Republicans, of supporting “negro domination” in the state. Indeed, there were a large number of African American officeholders, some of whom had been elected and many more who were appointed to office. The Democrats referred to themselves as the “white man’s party” and appealed to white North Carolinians to restore them to power.
As a result of this shameful legacy, the Democrats have maintained control of at least one house of the General Assembly ever since. That is, until last night.
Sean at An NC Gun Blog has developed a list of laws that need to go. While most of these laws are firearm or weapon specific, some are not. He brings an outsider’s keen eye to some of the more egregious laws on the books. For example, in North Carolina to purchase a cross-bow you need a a purchase permit from the local sheriff. This is the same permit that NC requires for the purchase of a handgun. Sean’s list should be required reading in the Republican caucus of both houses of the General Assembly.
At the top of my list would be a modification of the gun ban during states of emergency, the castle doctrine, and guns in state parks. I would also add that the Wildlife Resources Commission needs to change its regulation which prevents the carrying of anything other than a .22 pistol as a sidearm on state-recognized gamelands outside of hunting season even if one has a Concealed Handgun Permit. Since all the National Forests in North Carolina are also gamelands, I am forbidden to carry a centerfire handgun, permit or no permit, outside of hunting season. Congress recognized that crime happens in National Parks. The General Assembly and the WRC needs to recognize that it can happen in National Forests as well.
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