Posted on 03/27/2007 10:31:38 AM PDT by Sub-Driver
Webb Denies He Gave Aide Gun That Led to Arrest
Tuesday , March 27, 2007
WASHINGTON — Virginia Sen. Jim Webb said Tuesday he did not give aide Phillip Thompson the gun that led to his arrest in a Senate office building. Webb did not say whether it was his gun.
Thompson is awaiting arraignment in D.C. Superior Court after being arrested Monday for trying to enter the Russell Senate Office Building, where Webb's office is located, carrying a loaded pistol and two fully loaded magazines.
The judge will determine whether Thompson, 45, will have to pay bail to get out of jail, and will set a date for a preliminary hearing. Thompson spent the night in a D.C. jail after U.S. Capitol Police determined Monday that he did not have a permit to carry a gun in Washington, D.C., where only law enforcement officials are allowed to carry handguns.
He is charged with carrying a pistol without a license and possession of an unregistered firearm and unregistered ammunition. According to the court docket, Monday was Thompson's birthday.
A senior Democratic aide said Monday evening that Thompson forgot that he had the weapon when he sent the senator's bag through the X-ray machine at the office building. The aide said Webb gave the bag that contained the gun to Thompson when the aide drove the senator to the airport.
Webb said he has been in New Orleans since Friday and returned Monday night. He denied that he gave the weapon to Thompson.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Fine, your decision. But the Constitution says that the rest of can make our own decisions on the matter.
The Supreme Court, in it's last ruling on the matter, said or at least implied that the right to keep and bear "any part of the ordinary military equipment" which "could contribute to the common defense" is protected by the Second Amendment.
Means something like properly functioning. A well-regulated clock keeps proper time. A well-regulated gun shoots were it's aimed. Double barreled shotguns are well-regulated if both barrels shoot to the same point of aim.
But don't ignore it. Someone else might decide to ignore some other part of the Bill of Rights that you do approve of.
Not outside the secure area. You can take a gun onto the airport property, but not inside the secure area of the terminal. I get the impression that this was outside the secure area, in part because non-ticketed individuals aren't allowed in the secure part, with the exception of people who work there. But for other reasons as well.
Cannon, powder, musket balls, tents, and other stores such as flour where stored in Concord. They belonged to the colonial militia as a whole. Most of the cannon were moved and hidden before the British arrived. The Brits threw the musket balls into the mill pond, where the militia later recovered them. But the militiamen brought their own personally owned weapons to the party, and at least a limited supply of powder and ball for them as well.
The militia was content to let the Regulars occupy and search the town ... until the Brits started burning the stores (and accidentally set a building on fire, which *they* put out). The Militia, on the hillside just across the North Bridge observed the smoke and feared the British were burning the town. When they advanced toward the Bridge, the Regulars guarding the bridge, waiting for the return of those who had gone beyond it to search for the cannon, fired upon the militia. The militia fired back, and harassed the British all the way back to Cambridge and Boston. They'd probably have overwhelmed them had not the British commander sent up some light cannon, which met the retreating troops at Lexington. With the cannon they were able to prevent the militia from massing. The militia's own cannon had been removed from their mounts and were not available.
The militia did not want a war, the British probably didn't either, but by their actions, they got one.
.75 or so was most common. The Militia Act of 1792(?) specified that the standard caliber was a ball that weighed 1/18 of a pound. I'm too sleepy to figure out exactly what size round lead ball that would be, but I suspect it's about .75 or .69 inches. About like a 12 gauge shotgun (.729 inch) (A typical 12 ga slug weighs about 1 ounce, but it's not spherical and is longer than the bore diameter. The English Brown Bess musket, used during the Revolutionary war by both sides, used a 1 ounce ball and had a 0.75 inch bore. The French pattern musket had a .69 inch bore, which would make it's ball weigh about .78 ounces. 1/18 of a pound is 0.89 ounces.
The bullets in the magazine have SOMEBODY's thumb prints on them as well.
It's not a piece of putty for you, Congress, or the Courts to mold into what it "obviously" should be, in your opinion of course.
The Constitution can't be "fixed" on these points. You can't tinker with it.
And you can't ignore it as written either. You either obey it, or you amend it. The amendment process was made difficult to guard against such tinkerers as yourself.
He wasn't, his aide was. He could if he wished, who's going to stop him, the Capital police?
I'll bet it's not really illegal, just against some regulation or another. If it's illegal, it will be in the US code. I very much doubt it's to be found there.
Notice the aide was charged under the DC law with carrying without a permit and having an unregistered weapon. (At least part of that was struck down *last week*, it will be interesting to see if the local prosecutor has figured that out yet.)
A chemical tag is only useful in locating where the stuff was purchased and who it was sold to.. generally after it's been exploded. It doesn't help you to find out that somebody is thinking of making fertilizer into a bomb.
Not according to John Lott's compilation and statistical analysis of crime records.
But what the heck, Mussolini made the trains run on time too.
DC has the strictest gun laws in the nation, and one of the highest crime rates as well. Kind of argues against your basic premise, doesn't it?
Most likely, but not necessarily. The cartridges could have been loaded into the magazines, clips or speed loaders by someone with latex gloves on. Those are available at SAM's and many other places in 100 count boxes. Same goes for the magazines, or clips, whichever they were.
I am not saying it would ever happen again. I am saying that it was common practice in the past, that is until politicians became guardians of their own agendas rather than guardians of the Constitution.
There is no gun registration in Virginia.
When I was in high school here, one of my classmates went through something similar. Over the weekend, his dad had taken him to the shooting range, and he had forgotten and left the handgun they had been using in his bookbag. He was dropped off at school on Monday morning and immediately realized the gun was in his bag, so he went straight to the principal's office and told the principal what had happened so he could give the gun to the principal for his dad to pick it up.
He was expelled.
RECALL takes care of it all.
Even paranoids can have real enemies...........H. Kissinger......
I believe that says EXCEPT in felony. I also believe that it is a felony to carry a gun in DC.
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