Posted on 10/17/2003 10:29:17 AM PDT by FourPeas
Militia member 'filled with rage,' plotted ambush Friday, October 17, 2003 By Ed White
It was a rural arsenal fit for war. After the peaceful arrest of a Cadillac-area man, authorities who searched his 40-acre compound discovered a stunning collection of firepower, including an anti-aircraft gun capable of firing 550 rounds per minute up to four miles away. A van and a Jeep Cherokee, described by the suspect as his "war wagons," had machine guns inside, with one "locked, loaded and ready to go," Assistant U.S. Attorney Lloyd Meyer said. Agents found an underground bunker, thousands of rounds of ammunition, hundreds of pounds of gunpowder and manuals on guerrilla warfare, "booby traps" and explosives. There were chilling pictures of President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld with the cross-hairs of a high- see MILITIA, A4 powered rifle scope drawn over them, Meyer said. Norman Somerville, 43, was arrested last week on federal gun and drug charges as he shopped at Home Depot in Cadillac. Authorities then spent the weekend combing his property in Wexford County's Antioch Township, about 20 miles northwest of Cadillac. Details of the search were disclosed in a court document filed Thursday in federal court in Grand Rapids, four days before a judge will decide whether Somerville should remain in jail while his case is pending. Somerville was "filled with rage and intended to ambush people, mowing them down in a hail of machine-gun bullets," Meyer said, quoting informants. He belongs to a "self-styled radical militia unit" whose members are upset over the death of Scott Woodring, the prosecutor said. Woodring was the Newaygo County man fatally shot by state police during the summer, days after a trooper died while trying to serve him with an arrest warrant. State police were told in September that Somerville wanted to cause a car accident, then "ambush and kill" any responding officers with a machine gun mounted in his Jeep, Meyer wrote in the court document. An unidentified source, described as one of Somerville's "trusted associates," feared he had become "mentally unbalanced and would kill an innocent person or be killed," Meyer said. Somerville may face additional charges linked to the search of his property, although Meyer declined to elaborate. Two years ago, Somerville moved to Wexford County from elsewhere in northern Michigan. He served in the Army from 1978 to 1984 and was trained as an intelligence analyst assigned to the elite Special Forces. During a brief court appearance last week in Grand Rapids, Somerville said: "The people will have their day. ... There's a quiet civil war going on in the country." In Antioch Township, five miles outside Mesick, neighbors said he is not the type to share a cup of sugar. "We told our kids to stay off his property. There was gunfire a lot," said Lynda Sherburne, a former township clerk who lives nearby. "Who knows where the stray bullets are going. "He got angry very easily. No contact with him was the best contact." Sherburne said her nephew's house shook as state and federal authorities detonated explosives found on Somerville's property. "I don't think anyone realized he was stockpiling back there," she said.
The Grand Rapids Press
Your position is untenable. It is extremist and unreasonable.
They will be deterred if we enforce reasonable laws. It is reasonable to restrict the sale and trade in certain arms of war. Only an extremist would argue otherwise.
Like folks were detered by prohibition? Like the Iraqies were detered by UN "sanctions". Like the 9-11 terrorists were detered by laws against highjacking aircraft. Like the Germans were detered by the treaty that ended WW-I. That kind of deterance?
If the second amendment stands for any kind of deterance, it is deterance of power hunger people in government. Read what the founders had to say on the subject. They were big fans of what is now called disparagingly the "insurrectionist theory". The Second Amendment doesn't say "shall not be infringed unless it is reasonable to do so." And who gets to decide what is reasonable? You? Some hoplophobic soccer mom who thinks a .223 is a "high powered" weapon of mass destructioon? I think not.
Can people be punished for misue of arms? Of course they can, just as they can punished for inciting to riot or shouting fire in a theater when there is no fire. But prior restraint is just not allowed by the Bill of Rights. I believe it was well put by the Arkansas Surpeme Court in the case of Wilson v. State, 33 Ark. 557 (1878) , when it said:
"But to prohibit the citizen from wearing or carrying a war arm, except upon his own premises or when on a journey traveling through the country with baggage, or when acting as or in aid of an officer, is an unwarranted restriction upon his constitutional right to keep and bear arms.
If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege."
Notice they said "war arma", not guns with "legitimate" (one might say "reasonable") sporting purposes.
If you don't like the notion, work to get the Constitutional provisions amended, but don't tell me how "reasonable" you are being when you violate, or advocate that others do it in your stead, what you swore to uphold.
Like folks were detered by prohibition? Like the Iraqies were detered by UN "sanctions". Like the 9-11 terrorists were detered by laws against highjacking aircraft. Like the Germans were detered by the treaty that ended WW-I. That kind of deterance?
If the second amendment stands for any kind of deterance, it is deterance of power hunger people in government. Read what the founders had to say on the subject. They were big fans of what is now called disparagingly the "insurrectionist theory". The Second Amendment doesn't say "shall not be infringed unless it is reasonable to do so." And who gets to decide what is reasonable? You? Some hoplophobic soccer mom who thinks a .223 is a "high powered" weapon of mass destructioon? I think not.
Can people be punished for misue of arms? Of course they can, just as they can punished for inciting to riot or shouting fire in a theater when there is no fire. But prior restraint is just not allowed by the Bill of Rights. I believe it was well put by the Arkansas Surpeme Court in the case of , when it said:
" But to prohibit the citizen from wearing or carrying a war arm, except upon his own premises or when on a journey traveling through the country with baggage, or when acting as or in aid of an officer, is an unwarranted restriction upon his constitutional right to keep and bear arms.
If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege."
Notice they said "war arms", not guns with "legitimate" (one might say reasonable) sporting purposes.
If you don't like the notion, work to get the Constitutional provisions amended, but don't tell me how "reasonable" you are being when you violate, or advocate that others do it in your stead, what you swore to uphold.
The FR gun-grabbers have a hard-on for the War on Drugs as well.
Your position is completely extreme and irresponsible. It only serves the liberals and socialists.
Our government will continue to keep WMDs and other mass weapons of modern war out of the hands of private citizens and hopefully out of the hands of dangerours regimes.
Again your entire position is wrong-wing, extremist, and only serves to give the liberals and socialists more power as you portray yourself as fixated on some theoretical war against the legimate government of the United States. You want to have WMDs, tanks, aircraft so you can decide at some point to fight the government. It is wrong. It is madness and you should not have any weapons.
No more Timothy McVeighs
To be able to kill runaway slaves who fought for their freedom ?
I guess that's me, Captain Extremist. Still I'm in good company with that other right wing wacko, the former Democrat Farm Labor Party Senator from Minnesota, and later Vice President of the United States, Hubert Humprey.
"The right of citizens to bear arms is just one guarantee against arbitrary government, one more safeguard against the tyranny which now appears remote in America, but which historically has proved to be always possible." - Senator Hubert H. Humprey, 1960 (later Vice President of the United States, 1964-68)
And also this guy, who was a real right wing wacko as well. He may also have been your Commander in Chief.
"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free."
Ronald Reagan
Are you claiming the US Marine Corps taught you that every citizen who could afford a tank, figher aircraft, submarines, nuclear weapons, chemical weapons, and biological weapons should be able to bear them just in case they thought it necessary to overthrow the Federal Government some day ? Are you mad ? No loyal and responsible Marine would believe such utter (and dangerous) nonsense.
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