Posted on 01/27/2007 1:36:11 PM PST by tpaine
By Vin Suprynowicz
For years, Garry Watson, 49, of little Bunker, Mo., (population 390) had been squabbling with town officials over the sewage line easement which ran across his property to the adjoining, town-operated sewage lagoon.
Residents say officials grew dissatisfied with their existing easement, and announced they were going to excavate a new sewer line across the landowner's property. Capt. Chris Ricks of the Missouri Highway Patrol reports Watson's wife, Linda, was served with "easement right-of-way papers" on Sept. 6. She gave the papers to Watson when he got home at 5 a.m. the next morning from his job at a car battery recycling plant northeast of Bunker. Watson reportedly went to bed for a short time, but arose about 7 a.m. when the city work crew arrived.
"He told them 'If you come on my land, I'll kill you,' " Bunker resident Gregg Tivnan told me last week. "Then the three city workers showed up with a backhoe, plus a police officer. They'd sent along a cop in a cop car to guard the workers, because they were afraid there might be trouble. Watson had gone inside for a little while, but then he came out and pulled his SKS (semi-automatic rifle) out of his truck, steadied it against the truck, and he shot them."
Killed in the September 7 incident, from a range of about 85 yards, were Rocky B. Gordon, 34, a city maintenance man, and David Thompson, 44, an alderman who supervised public works. City maintenance worker Delmar Eugene Dunn, 51, remained in serious but stable condition the following weekend.
Bunker police Officer Steve Stoops, who drove away from the scene after being shot, was treated and released from a hospital for a bullet wound to his arm and a graze to the neck.
Watson thereupon kissed his wife goodbye, took his rifle, and disappeared into the woods, where his body was found two days later -- dead of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Following such incidents, the local papers are inevitably filled with well-meaning but mawkish doggerel about the townsfolk "pulling together" and attempting to "heal" following the "tragedy." There are endless expressions of frustration, pretending to ask how such an otherwise peaceful member of the community could "just snap like that."
In fact, the supposedly elusive explanation is right before our eyes.
"He was pushed," Clarence Rosemann -- manager of the local Bunker convenience store, who'd done some excavation work for Watson -- told the big-city reporters from St. Louis. Another area resident, who didn't want to be identified, told the visiting newsmen, "Most people are understanding why Garry Watson was upset. They are wishing he didn't do it, but they are understanding why he did it."
You see, to most of the people who work in government and the media these days -- especially in our urban centers -- "private property" is a concept out of some dusty, 18th century history book. Oh, sure, "property owners" are allowed to live on their land, so long as they pay rent to the state in the form of "property taxes."
But an actual "right" to be let alone on our land to do whatever we please -- always providing we don't actually endanger the lives or health of our neighbors?
Heavens! If we allowed that, how would we enforce all our wonderful new "environmental protection" laws, or the "zoning codes," or the laws against growing hemp or tobacco or distilling whisky without a license, or any of the endless parade of other malum prohibitum decrees which have multiplied like swarms of flying ants in this nation over the past 87 years?
What does it mean to say we have any "rights" or "freedoms" at all, if we cannot peacefully enjoy that property which we buy with the fruits of our labors?
In his 1985 book "Takings," University of Chicago Law Professor Richard Epstein wrote that, "Private property gives the right to exclude others without the need for any justification.
Indeed, it is the ability to act at will and without need for justification within some domain which is the essence of freedom, be it of speech or of property."
"Unfortunately," replies James Bovard, author of the book "Freedom in Chains: The Rise of the State and the Demise of the Citizen," "federal law enforcement agents and prosecutors are making private property much less private. ...
Park Forest, Ill. in 1994 enacted an ordinance that authorizes warrantless searches of every single-family rental home by a city inspector or police officer, who are authorized to invade rental units 'at all reasonable times.' ... Federal Judge Joan Gottschall struck down the searches as unconstitutional in 1998, but her decision will have little or no effect on the numerous other localities that authorize similar invasions of privacy."
We are now involved in a war in this nation, a last-ditch struggle in which the other side contends only the king's men are allowed to use force or the threat of force to push their way in wherever they please, and that any peasant finally rendered so desperate as to employ the same kind of force routinely employed by our oppressors must surely be a "lone madman" who "snapped for no reason." No, we should not and do not endorse or approve the individual choices of folks like Garry Watson. But we are still obliged to honor their memories and the personal courage it takes to fight and die for a principle, even as we lament both their desperate, misguided actions ... and the systematic erosion of our liberties which gave them rise.
Sewer-cide is ugly. He is dead Jim. And by his own hand.
Even if that's 100% true, it doesn't justify attempted murder. They weren't trying to abduct his children or rape his wife.
If that's accurate, and I mean the whole truth, which I doubt it is, he should have protested, allowed it to happen, and then sued their a$$ off, which is just what the court system is for.
Not even mentioning that little 'blue' ice that falls off as they descend to warmer altitudes.
I think you miss the point. Vin isn't justifying the killing, he's explaining it.
Vin wrote a book with "Carl Drega" in the title, another guy who was pushed too hard by an oppressive goverment. Worth a read.
Do you have any idea how long it takes for grass seed to grow and get that land looking like its original condition again?
Then again, when he drives into town, he almost certainly drives on some road built on an easement through someone's property and the pissed off owners could practice their sniper skills on him the next time he drives down that road.
Quite a dilemma there. < /sarc>
That extreme degree of lone wolf territoriality is not compatible with a school of piranhas let alone human society.
I wuz kinda thunkin he was one of them perverts too. You know, they say first it is trashcans, then it progresses to dumpsters and finally they end up in a county dump. LOL
I realize that....probably just in a playful mood and jerking your chain a bit. ;^)
What a despicable coward this guy was. Sniping a couple of unarmed workers from 85 yards away. Wow, what a real man. Then on top of that he's too scared to face the consequences so he runs off into the woods and shoots himself.
A refreshingly honest point of view. You are right. I think it was Thomas Jefferson who said "The tree of liberty must be refreshed, from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
Carolyn
Interesting thought.
Is it under 500 Feet?
So he'll spread his filth from behind a computer or a piece of paper. He'll try to convince other fools to do his dirty work for him.
Vin Suprynowicz is a piece of garbage. The freak who murdered unarmed sewer workers and shot a cop is a piece of filth. Final Judgment won't be nice for either.
Suprynowicz and his ilk are going to learn one way or the other that they are not God.
I think our founders had more respect for individual rights and property rights than those who run and administer government today. If those who administer government today were more cognizant of just who their employers are, they'd find that constructive dialogue, performed on a basis of mutual respect, would go a long way to resolving disputes in an equitable manner.
My relatives have nothing to worry about........Its your govt. and its agents who do.
It would be instructive for some of these anarchist loudmouths to read about how George Washington dealt with the Whiskey Rebellion.
It would be instructive for some of these anarchist loudmouths to read about how George Washington dealt with the Whiskey Rebellion.
-ccm
LOL! That 'honorable' man would see himself on FOXNEWS LIVE surrounded by SWAT snipers.
And, if Janet Reno were AG, chances are he'd be burned alive.
"-- LOL! Guess a lot of Freepers can't find the diplomatic way to show support for this misguided soul without appearing unbalanced and extreme. --"
But seriously, I posted this to illustrate how misguided men, - 'defending "unfettered" property rights', -- can go totally over the top and work against our basic principles.
But the workers could have refused to go on the man's land.
I would have
Would you recommend peaceful rallies, organizing behind your candidates and voting in those that would or just pulling out the ol' SKS and going down to city hall and whacking them?
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