Times-Picayune:

A Georgia man says drug suppression officers mistook his okra plants for marijuana.

Dwayne Perry of Cartersville tells WSB-TV that he was awakened by a helicopter flying low over his house Wednesday and then some heavily-armed deputies and a K-9 unit showed up at his door. They were from the Governor’s Task Force for drug suppression and they were out looking for marijuana plants.

What they had seen, apparently, were Perry’s okra plants and a shrub at the end of his house.

Perry says the officers ended up apologizing to him.

Cops think they’re doing something good for society, as some sort of heroes, by spending resources (helicopter pilot time, aircraft fuel, wages and benefits for the officers, etc.) hunting for a plant.  In the mean time, MS13 continues to cross the border unmolested, black gangs are roaming Atlanta, and real crime goes unnoticed.

Your tax dollars at work.

WNCN:

A state law that allows concealed carry permits holders to take their guns into bars and restaurants is now one year old, but even though the law is set in the books, the debate over concealed carry has not died down.

Restaurants can still ban concealed carry by posting signage at their entrance.

Raleigh’s Players’ Retreat off Hillsborough Street is one such restaurant.

“That’s the reason why I’m here,” Rose Caldwell said. “I would not be comfortable dining in a place where I thought people were bringing weapons.”

But the gun rights group Grassroots NC said that sign makes Players’ Retreat and hundreds of other restaurants that ban concealed handguns across North Carolina “high risk,” according to a running list on their website.

“I don’t want to be sitting in a restaurant that’s posted where I can’t carry my weapon safely and concealed on me,” said Josette Chmiel with Grassroots NC. “And in the chance that it gets robbed or somebody comes in, a criminal, a felon, shooting, that I can’t defend myself. To me, that’s a high risk.”

State lawmakers made it legal to carry concealed handguns in places like bars, movie theaters and in locked compartments of cars on school and state government parking lots one year ago Wednesday.

So what’s the result of the law?  Is the blood running from the bars out into the streets from all of the gun fights?  We get our answer next.

“And there’s been no incidences, so the law is playing out exactly as we thought it would,” Chmiel said.

You mean that the blood isn’t running in the bars, just like for the Mississippi open carry law, the blood isn’t running in the streets from all of the gunslinger scenarios like in the movies?  You mean that the gun control lobby is dead wrong?  You mean that people who openly carry weapons waited until it was legal because they are peaceable citizens?  You mean that the folks who waited until it was legal to carry in bars did so because they are peaceable citizens?

Wait.  Something’s wrong.  That’s not the narrative they want us to hear.

Remember that we discussed the boy-Mayor of Jersey City in Jersey City And Responsible Gun Manufacturers?  Well, he’s happy he spent the tax payer’s money.

Gun rights advocates are blasting Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop for a new city initiative that the mayor says uses the power of the city’s purse to reward “socially responsible” gun distributors.

They say Fulop’s plan will do nothing to stop the flow of illegal guns into the city, and is merely intended to tout his liberal credentials. Fulop is among the Democrats eyeing the governor’s mansion in 2017.

Fulop’s political future may be torpedoed by his gun-control advocacy, Frank Fiamingo, president of the New Jersey Second Amendment Society, told The Jersey Journal.

“He wants to be governor of the state of New Jersey?” Fiamingo said. “Not if the million gun owners have to say anything about it. He’s making the wrong enemy.”

Last week, the city announced it plans to award a $500,000 contract to Lawmen Supply Company to provide weapons and ammunition to the police department after a bid process that involved the city quizzing potential vendors about their business practices.

The city asked bidders how they would handle firearms returned by the city, whether they sell assault weapons to citizens and whether they agree not to sell certain models of firearms for civilian use.

Lawrence Keane, a vice president at the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a firearm trade association, said the questionnaire “will have no impact” on keeping illegal guns away from criminals.

“If the mayor’s intent was to try to advance his gun-control agenda by politicizing the purchase of law enforcement equipment, he has utterly failed,” Keane said.

Fulop shot back, saying the National Shooting Sports Foundation has “zero appreciation for the flow of illegal guns into cities.”

“Where Jersey City can shape the dialogue in a productive and safer manner it is money well spent,” the mayor said.

Sort of like Solyndra and any number of other scams on the federal level.  Except they always demand to use other people’s money, don’t they?

News from Denver, Colorado:

Denver is about to pay up again after a confrontation between civilians and police. This time, it’s a wrongful prosecution case.

A jury awarded a family $1.8 million Friday evening for a mistaken raid on their home back in 2009. While 9NEWS awaits the officers’ account of what happened, the family involved is speaking out about the events of that night.

Jan. 27 is a date Daniel Martinez, Jr. and his family have been reliving for five years. Martinez’s son, Daniel Martinez III, says at around 11 p.m., four Denver Police officers came pounding on their front door.

“They pushed through the door and pushed my dad against the wall. Then I saw them grab my little brother and saw them slam his head through the window. I screamed, ‘you can’t do that. You can’t do that, he’s a minor,'” Martinez said. “Then, they put me in a chokehold, had taken me outside, body-slammed me onto the concrete, put a knee in my back and handcuffed me right there.”

The family’s attorney, Kathryn Stimson, says that night DPD was conducting what law enforcement refers to as a “Knock and Talk.”

She says they were following up on a tip they received that two felons were selling drugs and running a brothel inside of a home located in the 1200 block of Stuart Street. Stimson said those tenants had moved out over a month before. About two weeks later, the Martinez family moved in.

Martinez says when the officers broke into his house, he was confused and afraid for his kids.

“I felt helpless, helpless and confused, scared. I didn’t know what was happening,” Martinez said.

Martinez was later charged with resisting arrest. His sons were charged with assaulting an officer. In 2010, all of them had either been acquitted or had their charges dropped. Stimson says that is when the family filed the lawsuit.

After being awarded the $1.8 million, Martinez says he’s glad that justice has been served, but still worries for his family.

“I’m constantly looking out the window, I’m still in fear,” Martinez said. ” I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

Stimson says the jury upheld the claims of wrongful prosecution against the officers but not the claim of excessive force.

So let me get this straight.  A “knock and talk” is where cops come and bust in your door and beat the hell out of the occupants of the home, and you have to fight it all in court, and you have the community ignore your bruises, and then the community has to turn around and pay for what the cops did while the cops go unmolested and without responsibility or accountability, as if it was all some sort of obscene, bizarre, reality-horror show that costs obscene amounts of money the community doesn’t really have?

Okay.  I think I’ve got it now.

Salon:

Black men are routinely shot down by police in the country, that’s the bottom line. And while it’s certainly admirable for open carry advocates to stick to their principles and defend John Crawford’s right to carry a toy gun around Wal-Mart, it’s failing to see the forest for the trees. John Crawford, Michael Brown, Kajieme Powell, Levar Jones were all unarmed black men killed shot by police in the last few months. It wouldn’t have helped them to actually be carrying guns, real or otherwise.

Surely these open carry people, however well intentioned, should realize that nice white men and women openly carrying firearms on the street aren’t being gunned down on sight by police officers. The worst thing that happens to them is they are forced to show their ID. It’s unarmed black men (and unarmed mentally ill people of all races) who are being gunned down on sight by police officers. Are they agitating for their right to shoot cops? I doubt it. Nor should they be.

The problem isn’t that people don’t have enough guns. The problem is that police are too often using the guns they have. That won’t be solved by a bunch of average suburban white people wandering around public spaces with their rifles slung over their backs. Those aren’t the people most likely to be shot by police –whether they’re armed or not. They’re missing the point entirely.

In addition to confusing the Ohio stop and identify statute, which is oriented towards a legitimate “Terry Stop” rather than just any happenstance desire for the police to know someone’s identity (meaning that the Ohio police didn’t really have a right to stop the open carriers), the author is the one that misses the point.

Read her logic again.  Because – in her estimation – blacks are “gunned down” by police more than whites, the silly practice of open carry by whites is a meaningless contribution to liberty.  It misses the problem of over-zealous cops.  And while we can agree with the author about the over-zealous cops, we simply cannot agree on the notion that carrying weapons is a meaningless exercise of liberty and self protection.

The author would deny it, but her conclusion and end result is as racist as the Jim Crow laws in so many counties where the Sheriff reserves the right to deny gun ownership regardless of liberties and rights recognized by State Constitutions.  They are all racist and need to go the way of the dinosaur.

Another example of racism came up today in Disqus comments that drove a little bit of traffic to this site.

I can’t decide whether these comments were left by a feminist Sophomore international studies student at Dartmouth or scrawny boy in his mommy’s basement who has no job.  I’ll assume for former for the sake of argument.

First of all, the only reason that someone would invoke the issue of race is because she is thinking about it.  The only reason someone would think that gun owners and gun rights advocates would care about race is that they assume we are as racist and bigoted as they are.

For the record, I know his skin color.  The man has as much right to defend his life as anyone else, and in Texas he has a right to defend life and property.  Moreover, I don’t even care if the man was guilty of the crime of which he was charged (drugs).  If he thinks that someone is breaking into his home in the middle of the night, he has a God-given right to defend his life and the lives of his loved ones.  In fact, he has the duty to do so.  What you will find if you peruse this and similar sites is a consistent objection to thuggish and overbearing police tactics.  You will also find consistent support for the right to self defense regardless of race.  Consider David Codrea.

I addressed that question in principle many years ago, on the pioneering (and long-discontinued) GunTuths.com website in an essay titled “What the Panther Taught the Eagle: A Modern Folk Tale.” It involved about 50 armed members of the New Black Panthers who were counter-demonstrating against the Ku Klux Klan in Jasper, Texas, after James Byrd, a black man, had been kidnapped by three racist whites, chained to the back of a truck, dragged for miles down a country road and decapitated upon hitting a culvert.

“The Panther’s historic affinity for Marxist dogma notwithstanding, their stand demonstrates the true meaning and power behind the Second Amendment’s guarantee that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” I wrote at the time. “The truth is, the Panthers applied the right to bear arms in exactly the way it was intended to be – in defense of their lives and their rights. Their presence deterred violence against them. They did not engage in unwarranted violence. Their stand should be applauded as an example by all who believe that this is a right of all free people.”

Consider also Kurt Hofmann:

What Sugarmann did not point out then, and is certainly not pointing out now, is that the vast majority of the murderers of African-Americans are also black (91.1% then, 89.4% now). In other words, Sugarmann makes an issue of the fact that almost 57% of black homicides are committed with handguns, while pretending to ignore the vastly stronger correlation of race. If the focus for reducing black homicide, then, “must” be on “reducing access to firearms,” then whose access must be reduced?

“No guns for negroes,” all over again, right in line with the shameful history of American “gun control.”

And shameful it is.  All Jim Crow laws should fall.  I am told that the opposition to open carry in South Carolina by powerful state senator Larry Martin was because those horrible Negros down around Charleston might open carry and thus affect the tourism industry in South Carolina.  Larry Martin is an enemy of liberty.

Now on a personal note.  As to being a “wingnut” blog and my readers being “zoo critters,” let me tell you something deary.  I chew through people like you like I chew through a tenderloin.  I enjoy it.  You feel free to step into my back yard and run with the big dogs any time you feel froggy.  Be warned, though.  We play rough.

And drop the racism.  It betrays an evil heart.  Oh, and by the way, thanks for the traffic today.

David Codrea:

After over three years of emotional torture and total economic destruction, the prosecution, representing the same Department of Justice that has stonewalled investigations into its own culpability for smuggling guns to Mexico, now demands extracting five more years out of the lives of Rick, Terri and Ryin Reese. What that prosecution has not done is explain where a government that gets its sole Constitutional instruction on arms under the proscription that “the right of the people to keep and bear [them] shall not be infringed” also finds its authority.

See the update on the Reece family and the lying under oath engaged by the Federal Government.  Sad and despicable.  When the very ones in authority will not obey the laws the Congress passes to govern them, why should we?  And this reminds me of a post Mike Vanderboegh made just recently on the role of the law in totalitarian governments.

Kurt Hoffman:

When millions of Americans, with neither the metalworking and gunsmithing skills to build firearms by hand, or the wealth to buy equipment sufficiently sophisticated (at the prices such equipment commanded until now) to do so through automation, can nevertheless produce effective fighting arms in the privacy of their homes, “universal background check” laws, “prohibited person” laws, “assault weapon” bans, etc. become meaningless. The gun ban zealots’ worst nightmare–uncontrollable, utterly anonymous access to so-called “assault weapons” is upon us, spelling the death of the “government monopoly on force” so beloved of the gun ban jihadis.

That’s a victory for humanity.

This will make it even easier to ameliorate any evil universal background check law passed by Congress.  Rock on.

Mike Vanderboegh passed on this piece on caliber debates again.  But this is a strange one.  Somebody apparently wants the FBI to begin using the .22LR cartridge.  As I said, strange.  I’ve always thought of the .22LR as underpowered, even for a varmint round.  Muzzle velocity and wound trek matter (I prefer the .22 WMR for varmint rounds), which is why the 5.56 mm (.223) is such an effective round and has served the U.S. military so well for years given its propensity to yaw, tumble and fragment into pieces leaving multiple would treks.  Related: here is a very interesting article at The Daily Caller on the history of the .357 magnum (a round which I like very much).  For the record, I shoot .45 ACP, .38 Special and .357 magnum in my handguns.

Mississippi Business Journal:

Winchester Ammunition, which has manufacturing facilities in Oxford, has won a five-year contract to produce ammunition for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Olin Corp. and its Winchester division have been awarded a contract worth up to $50 million to produce ammunition at its Winchester Centerfire Operations in Oxford for two DHS agencies.

“The Department of Homeland Security’s wide-ranging border security and law enforcement missions require a significant amount of firepower, particularly for training. I’m pleased that Mississippi will be able to fill that need,” said Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), who serves on the Senate subcommittee with jurisdiction over the Homeland Security Department.

The indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract calls for the procurement of 40 caliber Smith & Wesson training ammunition, with a maximum dollar value of $50 million.  The ammunition is intended for use by the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) for field-level training.

Most of the DHS uses .40 ammunition right now.  At $50 million and around 50 cents per round (that’s high priced and I can find it for less), that’s at least a total of 100 million rounds for range days.  With 20,000 field agents in Border Patrol, this amounts to 5000 rounds per agent.  They don’t need that many rounds to stay qualified with their firearm.

I wouldn’t begrudge the expenditure except that the Border Patrol doesn’t usually discharge their weapons (Brian Terry fired bean bags), and the Border Patrol has been turned into a giant nanny for aiding and assisting illegal immigration.

And the more Winchester makes for the federal government, the more that drives prices up for me and busies Winchester employees working for the government.

Mint Press News:

On Friday, May 9, 2014, just after 5:30am in Killeen, Texas, Marvin Louis Guy was the target of a no knock raid.

The officers were looking for drugs, yet none were found in the home.  There was some questionable paraphernalia, but nothing indicative of drug dealing- or anything damning enough for a reasonable person to feel the need to take an officers life.

Unfortunately the danger of no-knock raids is real. just ask the parents of baby Bou or the family of Detective Dinwiddie.

Detective Dinwiddie was one of the SWAT officers who broke into Guy’s house on May 9th, based on a seemingly bogus informant tip off about drugs being dealt from the home.

Likely alarmed by the men climbing through his windows at 5:30 in the morning, Guy and his wife sought to protect themselves and their property and fired on the intruders- in self defense.

Dinwiddie, along with three other officers were shot while attempting to breach the windows to the home, according to the department’s press release.

“The TRU was beginning to breach the window when the 49 year old male inside, opened fire striking four officers.”

Since the shooting occurred during the break in, a reasonable person would assume they had not yet identified themselves as police officers.  How on earth is this not self defense?

Prosecutors are now seeking the death penalty against Guy. He is charged with capital murder in Dinwiddie’s death, as well as three counts of attempted capital murder for firing on the other officers during the shootout, injuring one other officer. Body armor protected others who were hit.

This announcement, given by the prosecutor in open court, comes one day after Governor Rick Perry presented  Dinwiddie’s family with the Star of Texas award.

Rick Perry apparently wants to chat-up the listening public over the Oklahoma beheadings, but he’s got a situation in his state where a man defended his castle and now has the prosecutors wanting to put him to death.  What does the governor have to say about that?

I’ve said it before and I’ll keep pressing on the issue.  My home is my castle, and I don’t care what judge has signed what piece of paper.  If you come at my home, especially in the middle of the night, you’re going to get shot, cop or not.  I won’t differentiate because I cannot trust uniforms and announcements.  Criminal gangs have now taken to wearing uniforms and making announcements.

My home is my castle.  It doesn’t belong to you, and it doesn’t belong to the state.  If you are law enforcement and want to come in my home, call and make an appointment.  Got it?  If that isn’t good enough for you, if you think there is evidence of something or other you want to see, then put good detectives on the job (like you did at one time in history), watch for me to leave, detain me, and then take me back to the home and let me use my key to the front door.  Or get a locksmith.  In other words, use your brains to gather evidence.  Otherwise, I don’t care if you lose that evidence.  I only care about my safety, and the safety of victims like Mr. Guy.

I hope the grand jury levels charges at the prosecutors for the evil they are about to perpetrate rather than Mr. Guy.  Holding police, evil prosecutors and evil judges accountable by whatever means necessary seems to be the only way to handle this overreach in authority and force.

News from communist controlled territory:

A Pennsauken-based weapons and ammunition supply company is set to win a $500,000 contract to provide firearms and ammo to Jersey City police under new rules that Mayor Steve Fulop has said will help “shape the dialogue” on gun control nationwide.

Lawmen Supply Company, one of two bidders for the contract, had to answer questions regarding how it handles firearms it purchases back from the city, whether it manufactures or sells assault weapons for civilian use and whether it agrees not to sell certain firearms for civilian use.

Jersey City is the first municipality to seek this kind of information about suppliers’ practices. Seattle and other cities are reportedly interested in replicating the city’s initiative.

The questions, which have raised the ire of gun rights advocates, are “socially responsible,” according to Jersey City. Fulop, who will travel to Los Angeles today to participate on a panel on gun violence, has said that in the absence of nationwide legislation to curb gun violence, big-city mayors must act.

Lawmen’s bid was about $10,000 higher than the only other bidder — Atlantic Tactical, of Pennsylvania — but the city said Lawman’s bid “best met the needs of the department.”

The questionnaires the city required the bidders to fill out show Lawmen said it does not sell weapons to civilians …

Shape the dialogue, huh?  There’s only one problem with all of this.  Neither Lawmen’s nor Atlantic Tactical has anything to do with manufacturing anything.  They are distributors and sellers.  They are a middle man.  There are ten thousand just like them, and it sounds like the boy-mayor of Jersey City is perhaps a little jealous over real manufacturing being driven South?  Or does he not know that we’re taking gun jobs away from the North?  I can get nice custom built firearms at Hyatt Gun Shop.  I can go down to talk to the dozen or so gunsmiths at Hyatt and get more real manufacturing done than any of the bidders for this silly contract.

It’s in the news, cops wearing cameras.  A recent Washington Post editorial presses the issue with D.C., and even the New York Times has jumped into the fray.

Color me skeptical.  If cops want cameras in order to protect themselves, I couldn’t care less.  If the video will be live-streamed to a third party and controlled separate from the police, I’m all for it.  This is especially true of SWAT raids, in which the cops may not wear the cameras because of some bogus claim to OPSEC or for the safety of the officers.  In other words, it needs to follow certain rules like wearing cameras all of the time, third party control, and mandatory release of the information.

This follows what reader Ned Weatherby calls Herschel’s Law.