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.
Are you Rhonda Sheer?
-- as set out in the Constitution --
Per the constitution, rebellion is a crime.
--Luis, you're advocating parking lot gun bans & "- gun free zones -", -- which somehow make's my opposition "obviously wrong"?--
But you were advocating a law to allow banning guns from private parking lots.
--So? It's a [proposed] bill. --
It was just culled in from the former draft. This is the way it will go down. This is the way you will go down supporting a ban on guns in the private parking lot.
Eeww! You are related to my ex-wife!
You forgot that is why JR has to write the disclaimer on his home page that FR does NOT support rebellion or violence.
I think it fair to say that throughout this threads discussions, you've been playing wordgames with the truth, -- with everyone here.
You know. It would really help if you had read the bill. TATA!
It's a [proposed] bill. Hopefully, - weasel word provisions like the above would be culled.
It was just culled in from the former draft. This is the way it will go down.
This is the way you will go down supporting a ban on guns in the private parking lot.
Dumb comment, as I don't support that weaseled in portion.
But you were advocating a law to allow banning guns from private parking lots.
Weasel wordgaming. -- I'm advocating a law that makes it clear we have a right to carry arms in vehicles, -- when they are in business/employee parking lots.
Answer this, -- why do you ~want~ to give employers the power to ban guns?
--I'm advocating a law that makes it clear we have a right to carry arms in vehicles, -- when they are in business/employee parking lots.--
The proposed bill allows the employer to ban weapons in his private parking lot.
--I think it fair to say that throughout this threads discussions, you've been playing wordgames with the truth, -- with everyone here.--
Not me. You very post is playing with the truth. I can't help it if you were supporting a bill that would allow employers to ban weapons from private parking lots.
"You know. It would really help if you had read the bill. TATA!"
(You) It's a [proposed] bill. Hopefully, - weasel word provisions like the above would be culled.
I reference "proposed" in every post except ONE and you say I am weaseling. Come on. I understand why luis is so angry with you. You are so NOT with it. Are you so upset with yourself for supporting a bill that would allow the banning of weapons from private parking lots that you are losing it or have you always not had it?
--I think it fair to say that throughout this threads discussions, you've been playing wordgames with the truth, -- with everyone here.--
I was the one letting everyone know that the proposed bill you supported would allow employers to ban weapons from their private parking lots. Why weren't YOU letting them know that?
It was just culled in from the former draft. This is the way it will go down This is the way you will go down supporting a ban on guns in the private parking lot.
Dumb comment, as I don't support that weaseled in portion.
But you were advocating a law to allow banning guns from private parking lots.
Weasel wordgaming. -- I'm advocating a law that makes it clear we have a right to carry arms in vehicles, -- when they are in business/employee parking lots.
--I think it fair to say that throughout this threads discussions, you've been playing wordgames with the truth, -- with everyone here.--
Not me. You very post is playing with the truth. I can't help it if you were supporting a bill that would allow employers to ban weapons from private parking lots.
Weasel, "neener neener" type wordgaming. Grow up, -- those games didn't work for Marsha Clark, and they're making you look foolish.
Answer this, -- why do you ~want~ to give employers the power to ban guns?
A business owner`s private property rights are not affected by the lawful contents of a person`s privately-owned automobile.
Why then do you ~want~ to give employers the power to ban guns from vehicles?
.
--Dumb comment, as I don't support that weaseled in portion.--
You did earlier in the thread. At least you were arguing that the proposed bill did not allow employers to ban weapons in private parking lots. Did you have a change of heart?
--Weasel, "neener neener" type wordgaming. Grow up, -- those games didn't work for Marsha Clark, and they're making you look foolish.--
Wow. Now look at your post and see how foolish it looks.
"You know. It would really help if you had read the bill. TATA!"
--It's a [proposed] bill.--
It is a bill. PERIOD!
Control yourself Marsha - lest you collapse in a hissy fit.
I advocate the time-honored, natural right of property owners to exclude anyone lacking a properly issued court order from their property.
You want to violate property rights.
I want to protect rights.
Simple.
You STILL failed to substantiate anything at all.
In Georgia, you and the NRA are about to create the legal means to force employees to drive to and from work without a gun.
Congratulations.
Why do you lie?
That's been answered a hundred times by several people.
Everything that's in MY property is my business, including whatever is in your vehicle.
When you decide to ignore my rules of access and bring something into my property that I don't want in there, you've stolen from me part of my rights as a propriety owner.
You want what's in YOUR property to be respected, while claiming that you don't have to respect what's in MY property.
Circular and dishonest.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.