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.
So does the GA bill that you support.
Bill would let workers have guns in cars (GA)
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
^ | 01/24/07 | SONJI JACOBS
Posted on 01/24/2007 3:00:17 PM PST by neverdem
Georgia lawmakers in both the House and Senate, backed by the National Rifle Association, are trying once again to pass a measure that would allow Georgians to leave registered guns in their vehicles while they are at work.
Seriously, though, private property rights do, IMO, trump certain other rights. The RKBA, for example. If a neighbor you visit demands you leave your weapons at the door (or at home), you're bound by their rules.
"I vuz only folliwink zee orders" didn't cut it at Nuremburg.
But seriously the shooter here would have had achieved a much better outcome if he'd gone after the folks who sent that $18,000 a year civil servant.
Maybe if these politicos see that there's a distinct possiblity of them paying a very high price for running roughshod over peoples property they'll be a bit more circumspect.
And if you can find a municipal sewer worker who makes 18 grand a year, I'll buy you lunch.
L L
I started this thread not knowing where tpaine was coming from but now I am more confused. He keeps needling me on my position which is in total agreement with the GA bill that he referenced and which he said he agreed with. I don't know your position but from some of your posts, it seems that you might also be in agreement with the GA bill.
;-)
I see it the following way; and this is the accepted and long-standing legal standing.
Since the Constitution does not delegate the power to set business regulations to the Federal government, then the power to enact statutes regarding parking lot regulations for privately owned companies falls on the States because the Constitution does not forbid the States from doing so -- The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
In a State lacking specific statutes prohibiting private business owners from making their parking lots a gun-free zone, then the power to set those restrictions are left to the people, in this case, the property owners.
The Constitution is a grant of powers from the people to the Federal government, and the Bill of Rights is a limitation on government, not on people, so the Second Amendment is not a restriction on the actions of property owners on their own property.
You'll soon see that tpaine stands for the violation of all property rights in defense of his right to carry a gun on private property against the owner's wishes...under any and all circumstances.
I believe that the violation of property rights by citizens and the enlistement of the power of government to do so is every bit as wrong as the violation of Second Amendment rights by the government.
Rights can conflict, and when they do, you look down and see who owns the property you're standing on, and that individual wins.
The Boston Tea Party was a precursor to the Revolution. The actual Revolution had it's start at Lexington and Concord.
If memory serves me correctly, there was a bit of shooting there.
CA....
That's less than $350/week.
No one makes less than $350/week.
L
No one makes less than $350/week.
Huh????
On the same thread he both agreed with me that private property owners had a Constitutionally protected right to ban people with guns from their property, and disagreed with me that private property owners had the Constitutionally proptected right to keep people with guns from their property.
Here are his exact words:
1. Our US Constitution makes it clear that the peoples owning & carrying of arms is not to be infringed. - By anyone.
2. There ~is~ an 'age old tradition' [reinforced by our 4th] that people have a right to be "secure in their person, houses, --"; thus they can ban arms from their home property.
That's about right.
Here's a direct question...
Do property owners have the right to keep you off their property because you have a gun on you?
So, if the Georgia lawmakers and a national lobyist group are "trying once again" to pass a law allowing the citizens of the State to leave guns in their vehicles while they work, then OBVIOUSLY, the current "public policy" allows for the employer NOT to allow employees to have guns in their vehicle, in the company's parking lot, while they work.
Not at anything above a McJob.
Their dime, their dance floor.
L
The average salary in Howard County Mo was 19000 in 2000.
Reynolds County
Zip code: 63629
Median resident age: 35.4 years
Median household income: $19,659 (year 2000)
Median house value: $39,400 (year 2000)
You can't buy an empty lot for that anywhere in my County.
L
You wish luis. We've been fighting about individual rights & states 'rights' since day one.
Since the Constitution does not delegate the power to set business regulations to the Federal government, then the power to enact statutes regarding parking lot regulations for privately owned companies falls on the States because the Constitution does not forbid the States from doing so -- The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
There is your basic fallacy; -- you ignore "-- nor prohibited by it to the States --".
Our 2nd prohibits infringements on peoples rights to own & carry arms.
In a State lacking specific statutes prohibiting private business owners from making their parking lots a gun-free zone, then the power to set those restrictions are left to the people, in this case, the property owners.
Nope, "gun free zones" are clear infringements on our RKBA's, regardless of who initiates them. -- In fact, ALL of our lawmakers are bound to support & defend our RTBA's, along with all the rest of the "Law of the Land".
GA lawmakers are trying to do their duty, and stop these private infringements.
The Constitution is a grant of powers from the people to the Federal government, and the Bill of Rights is a limitation on government, not on people, so the Second Amendment is not a restriction on the actions of property owners on their own property.
Garbage in, garbage out. -- The Constitution is a grant of powers from the people to both Federal & State governments, and the Bill of Rights is a limitation on all such governments, and all of the people in the USA are pledged to honor the Republic and "the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance therof." -- That's the Law of the Land.
You'll soon see that tpaine stands for the violation of all property rights in defense of his right to carry a gun on private property against the owner's wishes...under any and all circumstances.
Sheer, unsupported bull.
I believe that the violation of property rights by citizens and the enlistement of the power of government to do so is every bit as wrong as the violation of Second Amendment rights by the government.
Rights can conflict, and when they do, you look down and see who owns the property you're standing on, and that individual wins.
Hilarious conclusion. Conflicting rights are decided by "who owns the property you're standing on, and that individual wins" . Gotta love that bold authoritarian view that ignores individual rights.
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