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.
Get real luis. I argue that State/local governments can't make unreasonable regulations infringing on our rights to own & carry arms.
That's a lie.
Here's what you really say:
"Our US Constitution makes it clear that the peoples owning & carrying of arms is not to be infringed. - By anyone." -- tpaine
You also claim that as a property owner, I can't deny you access to my property if I don't want you carring a gun into it.
You're back from suspension and lying again.
Are people who drive to work the only people with a Constitutionally protected right to carry a gun to and from work for self-defense?
Get real luis. I argue that State/local governments can't make unreasonable regulations infringing on our rights to own & carry arms.
Our US Constitution makes it clear that the peoples owning & carrying of arms is not to be infringed. - By anyone.
That's a lie.
So you rant, day after day.
You also claim that as a property owner, I can't deny you access to my property if I don't want you carring a gun into it.
Hogwash.. -- This thread makes clear my position on this issue.
You're back from suspension and lying again.
Unable to refute the Constitutional facts, you raise personal issues as a diversion. -- How pitiful.
Are people who drive to work the only people with a Constitutionally protected right to carry a gun to and from work for self-defense?
Unfortunately, gun grabbing zealots like the Brady bunch do not agree, and 'majority rule' still applies in many States & localities.
BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Making crap up out of whole cloth again.
Now, "people" have a "Constitutionally protected" (you learned that phrase from me) right to have an "easily accessible place to store" their guns while at work provided for them by their employers, which of course, you will demand that this "right" be secured by MORE laws passed by the government.
Big government socialist.
You and I are done.
Kennesaw sticks to its guns: Law requires firearms
Address:http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1787232/posts
I see you're still soft peddling tyranny.
There's nothing about defending your rights in forcing your will on others on their property. I liked you better when you were banned. Perhaps I could "defend" my first amendment rights by taping your mouth shut (per your logic).
There's nothing about defending your rights in forcing your will on others on their property.
Typically, you see a gun in your employees car as "-- forcing your will on others on their property --".
Fancy that.
??? Too bad you aren't regularly banned for being nonsensical, as well as for being rude.
You don't believe that property rights really exist. That is the problem. Your empty whining that I'm a gungrabber is simply all you have in the way of defense.
I'm going to start a pool on when you will get banned from FR again. I give you two weeks tops.
You don't believe that property rights really exist.
They exist, and I support them. I don't agree - as you do, - that they can be used to facilitate gungrabbing by businessmen.
That is the problem. Your empty whining that I'm a gungrabber is simply all you have in the way of defense.
You just initiated this exchange with your empty whine of my "tyranny". -- Now that was rude.
-- You admit that businessmen should have the power to ban guns; -- that's gungrabbing, not rude.
Too bad you aren't regularly banned for being nonsensical, as well as for being rude.
Too bad you're incapable of realizing you're being nonsensical, as well as being rude.
I'm going to start a pool on when you will get banned from FR again. I give you two weeks tops.
You hope; -- seeing you can't shut me up with logic, you're betting using personal attacks will work.
You don't believe that property rights provide exclusionary power over the property.
You think other people's property rights end where you wish to stop imposing your rights.
Totalitarian.
Rights and Freedom
Address:http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1788265/posts
Property rights either give the possessor limiting powers over others or they do not. You believe they do not.
I don't know why you keep arguing with yourself over this. You want your rights to override mine. I got it. I'm armed and prepared for you to attempt it.
They exist, and I support them. I don't agree - as you do, - that they can be used to facilitate gungrabbing by businessmen.
-- You admit that businessmen should have the power to ban guns; -- that's gungrabbing, and to say so is not rude.
Property rights either give the possessor limiting powers over others or they do not.
Properly rights are not absolute. Read the article I just posted for proof.
You believe they do not.
I don't agree - as you do, - that they can be used to facilitate gungrabbing by businessmen.
I don't know why you keep arguing with yourself over this.
I'm arguing with your anti-constitutional concepts..
You want your rights to override mine. I got it.
You're the one in favor of "overriding" our right to carry; not me.
I'm armed and prepared for you to attempt it.
Dream on that you've scared anyone.
Sorry didn't get any farther than that, as its a blatant mistatement of your position. You want to dictate to others what they must do with and on their property. Precisous little is left of property rights after that.
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