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.
"What right do you have to trespass on HIS property? Get real."
Your ability to stay on topic and maintain relevancy is amazing.
--It's an observation. --
But not based on what he has posted. What were you observing?
OTOH, my question was based on your posts indicating that the employee's rights superceeded the rights of the employer.
--Your ability to stay on topic and maintain relevancy is amazing.--
Thank you.
--What's the next step?--
Elections. But that is too frustrating for the anarchists among us.
Red herring removed.
He had already fixed the one problem before the shooting, and the city wouldn't compensate him for it. Now, if there truly were other problems to be fixed (and we don't know this from the information in the article), what steps did the city take to notify the Watsons prior to starting work? Did they maybe show up unannounced on the Watsons' doorstep on occasions before the shooting, with a backhoe and a crew ready to go at it? Did he maybe tell them, on these occasions, to go away, that he was tired of their sh** (no pun intended)? Is this maybe why the city sent a cop with the crew on the day of the shooting? I don't know from the info in the article, and neither do you. If this was the case, maybe he should have gotten a lawyer involved long before the situation came to a head, but that's water under the bridge.
That said, I reaffirm my original position that, given the facts I gleaned from the article, he had every right to defend his property. Maybe he didn't do it the right way, and should have thought about it a little more. However, if there was a history of harassment on the part of the city against Mr. Watson (as the neighbor stated in the article), maybe he had thought about it.
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
No they did not. They began when various States passed CCW laws and it was noted by grabber types in mangement, that some employees traditionally carried rifles and shotguns in their vehicles. Their efforts are intended to deny the rights of their employees.
He absolutely committed murder. That's absolutely the wrong way to handle it. So, he absolutely didn't do it the right way.
--Both parties were absolutists about their imagined powers...Nor does administrating our laws give you godlike powers over your peers.--
What is "godlike" about trying to use a legal easement in the maintenance of the system for which that easement was legally granted?
OBTW, you keep ducking my earlier concern where you called me a gun-grabber for agreeing with the GA bill. Does that mean you have retracted your support for the GA bill?
--No they did not. They began when various States passed CCW laws and it was noted by grabber types in mangement, that some employees traditionally carried rifles and shotguns in their vehicles. Their efforts are intended to deny the rights of their employees.--
The first case that hit the national scene was about guys that were showing off their firearms in the parking lot. I am not trying to debate the legality of their actions in this post, merely pointing out that it was a non-issue to their employer till they took them OUT of the trunk.
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
--That said, I reaffirm my original position that, given the facts I gleaned from the article, he had every right to defend his property.--
You justify murder when they had the legal right to use their legally granted easement? Sad, very sad.
Even sadder, you support murder based on the 'facts' you refer which are the ramblings of a libertarian columnist often not supported by news articles written at the time.
--Whatever. I have made nothing up, --
Oh. Please reference where you got the information about the smelly raw sewage leaking all over his yard.
--Maybe with a little more time on this forum (UpAllNight, since Nov. 3, 2006)--
I been around here long enough to know that when one starts losing, they,
1) Call you a newbie
and if that doesn't work
2) call you a troll.
You miss the point. This guy is the libertarian anarchists' hero
Right. My mistake.
--You, OTOH, seem hellbent on using diversions --
My only diversion was to bring you back to the truth.
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho! In the suit my family is fighting right now, there have been occasions where my less rational side would have surely enjoyed choking the living crap out of a certain smarmy defense attorney, or a certain lazy, good-fo-nothing state's attorney. Fortunately, better judgment has prevailed over me and my family members.
Are you familiar with the Donald Scott case? What is your opinion of that matter?
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
-- I have debated far better than you, sir/ma'am. --
Your main point in this debate was: this guy was justified in killing them since he had raw sewage leaking all over his yard and they wouldn't fix it.
FACT: You cannot source that he had raw sewage leaking all over his yard nor would they not fix the problem.
ERGO, your whole position fall completely apart thus you make an exit through the side door.
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
--having just had to fork out a chunk of money to fix something that wasn't his responsibility,--
Please cite your reference for this.
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
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