So why are the knuckleheads in various gun forums and blogs going on and on about how they are cashing in things like junker guns and cheap magazines for a profit at gun buy backs (and why am I writing about it, more on that later). Take for example the recent gun buy back run by the Central Coast Ceasefire Oregon and the Newport Police Department in Oregon (source). The magnanimous people (with taxpayer's money no doubt) were handing out gift cards and store credits, at of all places a store that reportedly sells guns. Anyone could apparently walk up to the buy back with a trunk load of old rusty junk guns and offload them there for a profit with no questions asked. It seems that a lot of gun owners did just that - got rid of their junk for gift cards. Not only were they giving money for guns, they also were buying so called "high capacity magazines" for $25 apiece - heck you can pick up brand new 30 round AK magazines for $14 apiece (and I would bet you could do better if you looked around some). Then you could sell them there for a profit of $11 each which would be pretty nice. I wish I had been in OR for that sale because I could have loaded up with magazines in advance just to sell them at a huge profit margin. I may have to keep my eyes and ears open to find out when the next one will take place there or anywhere. If I get enough advance warning, and they are still offering the same deal, I may be purchasing a hundred AK mags or so and making a profitable trip to the Beaver State or anywhere else they are doing it with no questions asked!
Chances are though, with all the yapping that has been going on about the gun buy back programs, specifically the ones at which gun owners stand to make a profit, so much so that it has made Fox news (and probably others), these programs will be shut down or modified so that a decent and law abiding gun owner won't be able to sell a thing there. I'm surprised that these gun buy backs are still being run at all considering the findings, as reported by Fox News, of the National Research Council in 2004. Those findings in essence stated that gun buy back programs are flawed in their logic and ineffective in practice because in part that “guns that are typically surrendered in gun buy-backs are those that are least likely to be used in criminal activities,”. They also went on to say: “In contrast, those who are either using guns to carry out crimes or as protection in the course of engaging in other illegal activities, such as drug selling, have actively acquired their guns and are unlikely to want to participate in such programs,". Dah, do ya think! It's obvious that the anti-gun groups, politicians, bureaucrats and police departments who run these things did not think one bit about it and had no problems wasting taxpayer's dollars and went right ahead and did just that probably because it was politically advantageous for them!
Now, I promised I would get back to explaining why I am writing about this after calling others knuckleheads for having done the same. The cat is already out of the bag; what those other folks did was to make national news and probably will result in ruining a good thing (well not ruining a good thing for the taxpayers but certainly for gun owners trying to turn a quick buck on clunkers). What I write now is of little consequence. My blog, with all of its maybe 125 readers a day is not going to have much effect on gun buy back programs if any at all. What may happen though is that my one or two sometimes readers in OR may read about this. Then they may try to attend the next gun buy back out that way, showing up with a trunkful of old rusted AK mags or an armful of clunker guns that they can turn in for gift cards and then later use them to buy guns & ammo. That would be okay by me even if it is the taxpayer who winds up paying for their guns & ammo. Only In America Folks!
All the best,
Glenn B
Is this just another case of a white police officer pulling over and then manhandling another innocent person because she is black? See: http://www.policeone.com/suspect-pursuit/articles/8175036-Video-SC-man-claims-to-be-cop-tries-to-stop-wifes-arrest-after-pursuit
Well, had there not been a video, with audio, recording of the incident, I imagine that Al Sharpton and his race baiting brigade would be marching to the steps of the courthouse in Charleston, SC already. The thing is though, there was video, with audio, and both the picture and sound are clear as crystal in showing us all how not to act during a traffic stop.
As can be seen and heard in the video, the officer pulls over a woman because he says she was speeding. He demands to see her license, registration and insurance card. He is well within the scope of his duties to do so and is well within the law. Not only that but he is also polite and speaks in a normal tone of voice that is not in any way threatening as he explains to her why she was stopped and then asks for the documents. He asked the woman, four times, for her driver's documents and then explains that he is a police officer and is lawfully asking for them. You cannot hear everything clearly that the woman says but after the officer states that he is lawfully asking for the documents she begins to protest that she was not speeding and she is getting loud enough for the audio to be picked up and recorded clearly. The officer then tells her that she is required by law to present those documents to him as she continues to protest saying she was not speeding. Can you guess what she says next?
She berates the cop as having "...nothing else better to do with your time than stop black people". You had to know that was coming, didn't you! It seems almost inevitable when a white cop stops a black person who is an asshole and yes folks this particular woman was an asshole, at least in my opinion, and it only gets worse from there on out. She continues to refuse to comply and the officer warns her that if she does not give him the documents, which he is now demanding, that she will be placed under arrest. It is obvious that had she complied from the get-go, she would probably only been given a ticket but she keeps refusing to comply and questioning the officer as why she has to produce her license, registration and insurance documents, and thus keeps making things worse. He informs her she is under arrest.
The officer walks around the car to the driver's side and apparently misses a glowing red danger sign. She has applied the brakes as the brake lights come on. To me that means she may be putting the car into gear. She refuses to follow his orders to get out of the car and he tries to open the door. Bad move that put him at very high risk but he does manage to get the door open from inside. All I could think, at that point, was why did he not resort to pepper spray and my only answers were that either he did not have any or that he had been sort brainwashed by recent 'racial events' so that he was fearful to do so.
Okay, so the door is open and then a tug of war begins as he tries to get her out. As the tug of war is going on she is screaming to someone that he is touching me (as will be seen later she apparently had managed to call her husband on the phone, and was probably already on the phone with him as the officer was walking around the car). Again, I found myself wondering where was his pepper spray? I also wondered, why wasn't he using his baton with a come-along hold to remove he from the vehicle but then unless he had a collapsible one on his belt I don't think he had a baton. Not all departments issue them and even when they do, not all officers carry them but one surely would have been helpful in that situation.
As for the tug of war, the cop isn't about to win it maybe because as will be seen later she is no small woman. In fact, as they tug, the woman decides to throw the car in gear and takes off. All I could think was that the cop was very lucky it was not just a few moments before when she sped off because his arms both had ben tangled up inside the car then and he likely would have been dragged along as she sped away. The officer is able to maintain composure and pursues her (note at that point the driver who had been trying to pass them did the right thing - he stopped and stayed stopped until the officer was able to get into his car and engage in the pursuit). The woman winds up pulling over in a parking lot. More officers are there when she is stopped.
The officers standoff, guns drawn, and unintelligible commands can be heard. At that point, an officer with his gun drawn, apparently pointing at the woman driver, is approached from his rear by a black male who says: "Excuse me officer..." Folks, thisis not the time to be walking up to a cop excusing yourself. The officer tells him to stop and to back-up. He tells the guy at least a few times to back-up but the guy does not, he stands there right behind the cop who has his weapon drawn. As another officer approaches, the black male says what sounded to me like: "My name is officer Logan with the Charleston Police Department...". They order him again to back up then yet a third officer approaches and two of the officers order him down on the ground as he repeatedly tells the officers that the woman is his wife. After about the third or fourth time of him saying "That's my wife" one of the officers tells him CONGRATULATIONS. I almost peed my pants I laughed so hard when I heard it.
I think he truly wanted to help with the situation. Yet, unless you want to get hurt, not following the commands of the officers, during a situation like that when they have guns drawn is a real dickhead of a boner. Add to that identifying yourself an a police officer when in fact you are not one and you just make things worse (the husband was subsequently arrested for impersonating a police officer among other charges). Then to admit the woman was your wife - oh Lordy! They cuff him and put him in a vehicle. Folks, it is not wise to walk up on officers in a situation like that, even with good intentions. That is especially so when you walk up on an officer who has his firearm out and apparently is the one trying to control the situation with voice commands. Of course, as can be seen in the video, they handled the guy well and if you are wondering why they cuffed him and put him in the car it was because he posed a potential threat and then did not follow the lawful orders of a police officer after being repeatedly told to back off. Had he backed off and once several feet back said something like: "Maybe I can help, that is my wife" it might have wound up being handled differently. But he did not comply and thus the cuffs.
After that you hear an officer commanding the woman to open the car door outside. Yes that is what the officer says, and yes he had already told her to put her hands out through the window, but I can tell you that could confuse anyone who was not a cop in that type of a situation. Regardless she was not going to comply because she was being, to put it nicely, extremely foolish an asshole. To the officer's credit he gets it right, after saying that once or twice, and tells her to put her hands out through the window to open the door with the outside door handle with her left hand (specific is good in cases like this). Good commands that time but she still does not comply and is screaming repeatedly "I didn't do anything".
That is the exact type of thing you should do during a traffic stop if you are being pulled over and really want to jack the cops adrenaline levels up to super-max and maybe get yourself shot. It is exactly what you do not want to do if you do not want to get shot or do not want to go to jail or do not want a speeding ticket and are hoping for a warning. You see, those cops are not merely wondering why she is not being compliant at that moment but also why she just elevated a speeding ticket (or warning) stop to an arrest situation and then resisted arrest and then fled almost taking the officer with her. Did she just commit another crime, maybe bank robbery, assault, kidnapping (is a victim in the trunk), murder, is she transporting drugs, does she have a weapon that she is holding and thus will not show her hands, is she suicidal or whatever. Lots of considerations for the cops to contemplate in the heat of a nasty scene being carried out by someone who got stopped for a ticket at most. So you can rest assured they are betting something else may be up and are each jacked up with a super shot of adrenaline.
Luckily for the woman, the cops remain relatively calm. They keep telling her to open the door and after a bit one tells her that should she not open the door and exit the car he will snatch her out of it. Finally that is just what the officer has to do. Even when she is out of the car she continues to be uncooperative and resists arrest. Yes, her struggling from side to side making it difficult for them to cuff her, her noncompliance in an arrest situation, is in fact resisting arrest. She does not make it easy for the officers to cuff her but they do and she still continues to claim she did nothing while yelling and screaming and arguing with the officers. At one point an officer tells her he is not arguing with her anymore and while I may have heard it wrong, it sure sounded to me like she screams back at him: "Why are you not arguing anymore..." How imbecilic can someone be!
So, if you want to get yourself arrested, do maybe half the crap she pulled and it's almost guaranteed to happen. If, on the other hand, you would like to avoid being ticketed, arrested, having your spouse arrested and maybe both of you winding up in jail - then try to avoid all the crazy shit that this woman decided to do. Maybe even speak respectfully to the officer and you may get off with just a warning. Even if you get a ticket, it's better than what she and her husband are facing.
My hat goes off to the officers who all acted with a great amount of restraint in dealing with that woman. Me, I probably would have hosed her down and let her sulk in the fumes awhile. It would have saved a whole lot of grief. As I said though, I am not faulting the officer for not doing so, for all I know the department may not issue OC spray or the officer may not carry it or thought it was uncalled for at the moment when I would have used it. Regardless, the officers did a good job. Now imagine being one of them who has to go out and stop another speeder with attitude, or respond to some junkie beating his ho, or have a call to a murder scene where a psycho-mother just killed her whole family and he has to arrest her, and any of that maybe ten minutes later. It's amazing that the police don't wind up committing more unlawful beatings is all I can say.
At hat tip and my thanks to Mike G for the article with the video.
All the best,
Glenn B
