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
The EU and NATO have no unalienable right to exist, nevermind having the unalienable right to own nuclear weapons.
I see, you as the sole arbiter of what is "tenable" and not have declared my position untenable. Further you as the self-anointed representative of the majority of gun owners has spoken for the rest of them.
Sorry buddy, but your incessant braying** about more restrictions has shown you for what you are - a liberal statist at heart. like I said you are known by the company you keep and you're right in there with Feinstein, Schumer, Pol Pot Waxman, Rangel and the rest of the neo_nazi Democrats and socialist dictators.
**It' s no concidence that the symbol for the democrats is a jackass, and you're echoing DU type sentiments
No, for two reasons, one it depends on the shape and two, if we did, we'd have to shoot you. (And then ourselves :) )
It's always been that way, and likely always will be:
"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man." Thomas Jefferson, quoting Cesare Beccaria in On Crimes and punishment (1764).
As far as confiscating guns from criminals goes, why would that require Marshall law? Although it depends on what you mean by "criminal", criminals are already forbidden to have guns by law. It would just take the will to do it. But it's so much easier, not to mention safter, to go after "wierdos" and "Jesus Freaks", and guys whose only crime is owning a piece of metal and/or or wood that's too short, or a gun that fires to fast, than to go after the Crips, Bloods or other gangs (including those whose membership includes lots of "Sicilian Gentlemen")
Explain how a pitiful few Mujaheeden keep killing Americans, and lots of Iraqies too? They don't have either or those, AFAIK.
Besides tanks and fighter aircraft as just a much "arms", as the term is used in the Second Amendment, as a AR-15 or M-16. It's just that few could afford them anyway.
Captain, USAFR(ret)
Which is in the main body of the constitution. The second amendment, along with the rest of the Bill of Rights, is an amendment. Congress powers are restricted by the amendments. The very nature of an amendment is such that it overides the original document, should there be a conflict. Although in this case, IMHO, there is not.
The clause you quoted just limits, although admittedly not much, what they can collect taxes for. They still are limited to the list of other powers enumerated in Art. I Sec. 8, plus a few more scattered about the Constitution and some amendments.
The second amendment doesn't *give* any such rights, it protects them from governmental infringement. You've already been given a near contemporary dictionary definition of "arms". Just because you don't like it, or think the implications might stampede the sheeple, does not make it not true, and part of what you swore to uphold and defend.
No, it establishes that the Federal government is responsible for providing for the common defense and general welfare of all the citizens of the United States. The government is entitled to regulate which arms are available for general use and which are reserved for the Armed Forces.
Terrorists can afford them. You are irresponsible in promoting tanks, fighter aircraft, nuclear submarines, aircraft carriers, and WMDs be available to US citizens who can afford them. That kind of extremist position will cost you all your credibility in the eyes of the general public. It is a losing position that will cost legitimate, sane, and responsible gun owners more rights. It does more damage than any liberal gun control adherent can possibly do. I don't understand how some people can be so foolish and irresponsible. I can only surmise that they want attention and want to fail.
Your positions are so far out of step of the American political fabric that they are damaging to the conservative movement. Extremist militias have done more damage to legitimate, sane, and responsible gun owners' rights than any liberal political movement.
If that were true, then the second amendment would have changed it. However it's not the case, even absent the second amendment. Look down a bit farther in Art 1 Sec. 8, there you will find a power to raise aand support Armies, and a Navy. (the Air Force is just an air armie and the Marines are part of the Navy). To ratify treaties (the President, not Congress has the power to make them). All that would have been redundent if the clause you quote did what you think it does, and a basic principal of Constitutional Law is that all provisions have meaning.
Yes, the federal goverment is responsible for the external security of the coutry, and has limited authority over internal security and safety, but all that is established by other clauses of the Constitution, not the one you quote. The second amendment expressly forbids the the Federal government, and through the 14th amendment the States as well, from making such restrictions and distinctions that you say they are entitled to make with regards to the type of arms that mere peonscitizens may keep and bear. What it comes down to, is that the "right of the people" "shall not be infringed". Some, such as some state Suprme Court Justices, say that restriction applied to the states even prior to the passage of the 14th amendment. (see Nunn vs Georgia)
You surmise wrong. I want the Constitution to be obeyed!!
And will not be detered by any laws banning them. Only the law abiding, which terrorists most definately are not, will obey such laws, as the quote from Jefferson above indicates.
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