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 ...
I missed that one - thanks for pointing it out. I suspect, however, that this will be the last mention of this story you will see in the Compost. Even here, Milbank's tone is nothing more than "boys will be boys."
Seems like the Senator is not telling us the truth.
And how many people do you know ... outside of hitmen :) .. that wear gloves while reloading a magazine?
You pretty well summed him up. A mental breakdown wouldn't surprise me.
"Well we know what happens when an armed person with malice walks into such an area where everyone but a few guards are disarmed. We don't know what happens when a significant portion of the "civilians" are also armed."
Yes we do: Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley. Also Teddy Roosevelt, who was shot but lived, and Jackson, who was saved by a double misfire of the pistols of a man who stepped forward to kill him. In those days, nobody was disarmed, and at LEAST 20%, one out of five of the first 28 Presidents, was shot or at least shot at by somebody stepping right up out of an armed crowd.
In the 1950s, Puerto Rican separatists shot up the floor of the US House of Representatives.
Of course, since the JFK assassination we have had heavy armed guards around the President, and even other than JFK himself, we have managed to foil the attempts (or, in the case of Reagan, save his life when the defense failed) that have gone after President after President.
Since JFK, there's been an assassination attempt, sometimes multiple attempts, against at least Ford (twice), Reagan, Bush 41 and Clinton. There may have been others that were silently foiled. (I don't count the bizarre case of the killer bunny who went after Carter in his rowboat.)
We have a very good idea, from our history, of what would happen if people had an unlimited right to carry arms around government officials. We'd at least match the 19th Century record of having 20% of our Presidents shot or shot at, and it would probably be more like 100%, in this day and age.
"Or such was the state of the DC law until the US Circuit Court for DC through a giant monkey wrench into the law. I doubt anyone has sorted out just what the law actually is now in DC with regards to registration, possession and carrying of handguns, at least in one's own residence."
It will be interesting to see what happens with that DC Circuit decision! I like it because it essentially incorporates the 2nd Amendment into national constitutional rights applicable to the states.
"At the time it was written, it was not unusual for individuals to own cannon and/or cannon armed ships."
It was unusual, because those things are quite expensive.
Only important, wealthy figures did, and the American Colonies/early Federal period states were certainly run by the gentry.
At any rate, there was, and is, a fundamental difference between a portable mass-casualty weapon like a machine gun and an armed privateer. There's certainly a difference between a cannon and a personal anthrax bomb.
"It's the ultimate Red Herring of the Gun Grabbers. Very few folks could afford a nuke, and those that could wouldn't be deterred by a stinking law, if they were wanting to commit mass murder anyway."
It's not a red herring, and I am not a "gun grabber".
Wealth is not the issue. Arabs have oil wealth, and if nuclear weapons were LEGAL, we could not have the massive efforts to track them down and disrupt their ownership. It is not a matter of DETERRENCE. Our laws give the government the positive authority to go in and root out people who are trying to get these things and other WMD; it's illegal to have them, it's illegal to try to get them, and the government focuses a lot of energy on trapping the people who are trying to to prevent them from getting them. Legalize it, and government has no right to interfere.
It's a matter of reasonableness. The 2nd Amendment says "arms". Those who want to defend the 2nd Amendment cannot ignore the question of NUCLEAR arms. You can't shuck and jive the question away. You've got to answer it directly, and you have to answer it NO. NO, the Second Amendment does NOT give any individual the right to HAVE WMD or to try and get them. Period.
If you CAN'T say that, if you try to change the subject to avoid the problem of LIMITING the Second Amendment, if you try to pretend that WMD are NOT really an issue in a world full of terrorists, then your position rapidly loses credibility.
A properly limited understanding of the Second Amendment to give individuals the right to handguns to defend themselves is eminently reasonable grounds on which to fight. But the purist position that the problem of "arms" including mass-casualty weapons either doesn't exist, or that there IS such a right, undermines the whole position because it's either blind or nuts or both.
The Second Amendment rapidly becomes indefensible if it means that mosques in America have the 2nd Amendment right to buy nuclear weapons, using Saudi oil money, so long as they don't use them. No, they don't. If THAT'S the extreme that defenders of the 2nd Amendment are going go, you're going to lose the right.
The better answer is to ANSWER: OF COURSE the 2nd Amendment means GUNS, personal firearms. THAT'S what is protected. Not mass-casualty weapons. Guns, especially handguns for self defense, with the specific right to carry them concealed under most conditions (but not, for example, around the President). Absolutely unlimited rights for anybody at all to possess any weapon of whatever sort he decides he wants is insane. Refusing the answer the question and impugning the motives of anybody who points out that the 2nd Amendment says ARMS, not guns, makes you look like you're DEFENDING private nukes.
It's easy to get away from the characterization. Just say no. No, it doesn't mean nukes or anthrax bombs. Yes, it means personal firearms. Is that so hard? The unwillingness to do it is damaging to your cause.
"The Second Amendment protects a preexisting right, it doesn't grant anything. The Constitution grants powers to the branches of the federal government, restricts the states from exercising certain powers they had prior to the Constitution. But it protects the rights of the people."
I agree, it protects a pre-existing right, just like the first Amendments "freedom of speech" protection protects a pre-existing right to free speech.
The problem, though, it what the parameters of that right are.
I bring up WMD because it is topical. DO the Michigan Militia, or the Dearborn Mosques, have the right to build huge fertilizer bombs just so long as they don't use them?
That there is a right to keep and bear arms or to free speech is an abstraction. When we try to apply that concretely, to people with evil intent building mass-casualty weapons (which are arms) or selling child pornography (which is material produced by a branch of "the press"), does it mean that people cannot be STOPPED from building such weapons or selling such pornography?
There is no unlimited right, but the guff I am getting here with my WMD question sure makes it look like you think there is an absolutely unlimited right to have ANY sort of weapon. If that's what you think, then say so. Say: there is a personal right to possess nuclear weapons, because they are arms, and the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
Or say the opposite, which is the rational position: there is a right to keep and bear arms, which can't be infringed, but that right doesn't mean nuclear weapons. It means personal sidearms, which is to say guns. Reasonably limit the idea of arms to GUN RIGHTS, and we can quickly get on the same page, but it doesn't work to "hedge" on WMD. It's not infringing the right to keep and bear arms to prohibit people from having WMD; the right doesn't extend that far.
"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."
This is exasperating.
Are nuclear weapons "ordinary military equipment".
Do you have the right to have a nuke in your basement, yes or no?
If they took fingerprints on the gun, and Thompsons are not on them, and Webbs are, I would think that would tell everything.
Was the victim carrying the gun UNKNOWLINGLY? He should appeal to the 4th Circuit on Constitutional grounds! When abortion laws were ruled unconstitutional, they stopped enforcing them THE NEXT DAY! Why not with guns? After all...it's not like firearms are anywhere NEAR as lethal as abortion vacuums, just going by the relative body counts.
Yeah, I think that I should have made it clear to another poster that I was commenting about the basic right, not necessarily whether you can carry a weapon into a government building in particular.
Thanks for the clarification on how a ruling affects a law. I thought I had read that they had some specific time within which to appeal - possibly they do, if so, would assume that's some sort of "conditional stay" that perhaps the judge could issue? You tell me if that's customary.
Well the metal detectors are there for some reason. I doubt they are scanning for nail files. The point is a person is not allowed to bring a loaded gun into Congress or the WH.
Guardians of stupidity. Common sense dictates that we do not allow people with loaded guns to walk into Congress or the WH.
1) That any credible individual or group has suggested that 'the 2nd Amendment means mass casualty weapons' (whatever the heck those are); and
2) That "the 2nd Amendment has to mean GUNS, not mass casualty weapons" (your statement, not mine).
Until you can prove point one, you are (IMO) guilty of posting lame @ss 'strawman arguments' (as I suggested in Post 175). As for your second point, it belongs to you - feel free to prove it (and don't forget to define your terms)...
I stand corrected, based on your input...
The fact is that under our Constitutional form of gov't your neighbor can indeed have a lab in his basement ~capable~ of working with anthrax; --- just as he can own the materials to make a fertilizer bomb in his U-Haul. He has that freedom to posses dangerous materials; -- "so long as he doesn't bother anybody".
The 2nd Amendment has to mean GUNS, not mass casualty weapons.
The 2nd means we all have the freedom to own property that can be used for armaments. -- Fertilizer, fuel, dead/diseased animals, -- even nuclear materials, -- can & are owned by free men. Unable to refute the above reasoning, you've ignored it.
And then the question is merely one of how much safety regulation or registration one is going to require - or not require - concerning personal ownership of guns.
The real question has always been one of how much safety regulation or registration one is going to require - or not require - concerning personal ownership of 'dangerous' property. -- And history shows us that prohibitions do not work.
My opinion is that gun possession is clearly a federal right, spelled out in the Second Amendment.
It's clearly a individual, inalienable constitutional right, - like our rights to life, liberty, or property, -- and can only limited by due process of law [no prohibitive infringements].
Like any other right, it is broad, but naturally limited. An unlimited right would mean that convicted felons could have guns.
Non-violent ex-felons should have such rights restored.
It would mean that the Secret Service couldn't infringe people's gun rights when the President was around.
They can't now, constitutionally speaking.
And it would mean that people could individually possess WMD. That's all nutty.
It's 'nutty' to claim that we can have a free republic that can prohibit any type of property dangerous enough to be made into a 'mass casualty weapon'. -- 9/11 taught us that lesson.
--- tell me that the 2nd Amendment DOES NOT mean that there is any personal right to have either nuclear weapons or fully-automatic weapons, mass-casualty weapons, and we can proceed. That's the FIRST test, the litmus test of sanity.
Comparing nuclear materials with machine guns is hardly a test of sanity. Its nutty.
Personal nukes? Yes or no. (NO is the right answer.)
Many 'persons' in our country possess nuclear materials, and the ability to make it into weapons. No one [to date] has been insane enough to do so.
Machine guns? Yes or no. (NO is the right answer.)
Millions of 'persons' in our country possess the materials, and the ability, to make machine guns. Not many [to date] have been insane enough to do so, and use them as "mass-casualty weapons". -- And it's 'nutty' to prohibit them.
Once we get past those two "No's", we've admitted that the 2nd Amendment IS a limited right.
No one here is arguing for an unlimited 'anarchy of arms'. We argue for a right to own and carry arms, -- without infringements.
"Arms" does not mean ALL arms. Some arms can be infringed, are infringed, have to be infringed, and it's perfectly constitutional to infringe them.
Prohibitions on arms are infringements. Constitutional due process must be used in the writing & enforcing of restraints on that liberty.
Justice Harlan recognized:
"--- The full scope of the liberty guaranteed by the Due Process Clause `cannot be found in or limited by the precise terms of the specific guarantees elsewhere provided in the Constitution.
This `liberty´ is not a series of isolated points pricked out in terms of the taking of property; the freedom of speech, press, and religion; the right to keep and bear arms; the freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures; and so on.
It is a rational continuum which, broadly speaking, includes a freedom from all substantial arbitrary impositions and purposeless restraints ---"
I agree, it [the 2nd] protects a pre-existing right, just like the first Amendments "freedom of speech" protection protects a pre-existing right to free speech. The problem, though, it what the parameters of that right are. I bring up WMD because it is topical. DO the Michigan Militia, or the Dearborn Mosques, have the right to build huge fertilizer bombs just so long as they don't use them?
Answered above.. Millions of 'persons' in our country possess the materials, and the ability, to make bombs. Not many [to date] have been insane enough to do so, and use them as "mass-casualty weapons". --- Due process can be used make & enforce laws to reasonably regulate bomb-making without prohibiting our freedom with "-- substantial arbitrary impositions and purposeless restraints --".
That there is a right to keep and bear arms or to free speech is an abstraction.
Weird concept. They are a very real part of our inalienable rights to life, liberty, and property. -- Care to explain your reasoning?
When we try to apply that concretely, to people with evil intent building mass-casualty weapons (which are arms) or selling child pornography (which is material produced by a branch of "the press"), does it mean that people cannot be STOPPED from building such weapons or selling such pornography?
Sure, weapons of 'mass-casualty' are arms, capable of being 'built'; -- how do you stop people with 'evil intent' from driving a moving van full of gasoline into a schoolyard and setting it afire? Should we be 'licensed' to buy gas?
There is no unlimited right, but the guff I am getting here with my WMD question sure makes it look like you think there is an absolutely unlimited right to have ANY sort of weapon.
If that's what you think, then say so.
Already said it, -- 'no comment' from you; -- No one here is arguing for an unlimited 'anarchy of arms'. We argue for a right to own and carry arms, -- without infringements.
Say: there is a personal right to possess nuclear weapons, because they are arms, and the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
You're 'stuck on nukes'. -- Your local hospital probably has enough nuclear material to make a fairly nasty 'dirty bomb'. -- I say: -- there is a personal right to possess such nuclear materials.
Or say the opposite, which is the rational position: there is a right to keep and bear arms, which can't be infringed, but that right doesn't mean nuclear weapons.
Damn near anything can can be made into a weapon. That's rational; - prohibitions on damn near anything are not rational.
It means personal sidearms, which is to say guns. Reasonably limit the idea of arms to GUN RIGHTS, and we can quickly get on the same page,
You advocate prohibitions on machine guns. That takes you off the 'reasonable limits' page.
but it doesn't work to "hedge" on WMD. It's not infringing the right to keep and bear arms to prohibit people from having WMD; the right doesn't extend that far.
Machine guns are not "WMD". It's infringing the right to keep and bear arms to prohibit people from having 'automatic' weapons; the right extends that far.
So, the 2nd Amendment means that you can have nukes in your basement, it's your inalienable right.
There is not much more to say, really.
It doesn't say that.
It doesn't mean that.
And it isn't going to be allowed to mean that.
The latter is the most important point, because neither you nor I gets to define what the Constitution means. The authorities do that, the courts. The trend for years has been away from gun rights, not toward them, and the trend will continue too, if this is the sort of defense that defenders of the 2nd Amendment offer. You could defend gun rights pretty effectively with the assistance of friends like me.
But you won't back away from the insanity that the 2nd Amendment is not limited to guns, and insist that it means any sort of armaments at all, right up to WMD. You believe that, apparently passionately.
I cannot support that.
You've lost an ally.
What do you people have against machine guns??? They were produced and sold FREELY from 1888 thru 1934, and then under Fed.Gov restrictions until 1986....they have NEVER been a problem! The only reason new ones were outlawed in 1986 is because Tip O'Neal fraudently declared that he'd won a voice vote that he actually lost.,....just LISTEN to the audio tapes of it!
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