Posted on 06/05/2009 6:01:09 PM PDT by Free ThinkerNY
Remember the story, earlier this week, hailing Muslim New York convenience store and deli owner Mohammad Sohail for being so nice to a robber, after foiling the robbery--giving him money and food and getting him to inquire about converting to Islam?
With CAIR and the rest of Islamic America overhyping this story, how could you miss it?
But, in fact, Mr. Sohail is not the "hero" the media and Muslim propaganda pimps made him out to be.
Here's the follow-up story that strangely isn't getting quite the attention the "hero" story got. You know--wouldn't want to burst the fake balloon of a Muslim-American hero.
Authorities had warned Shirley deli owner Mohammad Sohail about his alleged illegal sale of drug paraphernalia several times before raiding his store Tuesday, officials said in a news conference Thursday.
Sohail is among the owners of seven Huntington and Brookhaven shop owners who face civil penalties for allegedly selling illegal pipes, bongs and hookahs. The raid on Sohail's business came at the end of a day when national media reports hailed the deli owner for showing mercy on a would-be robber, an act captured in a surveillance video.
(Excerpt) Read more at debbieschlussel.com ...
I understand....you have made some good points & I respect you for it.
I myself don’t see a problem w/ civil disobedience when necessary. For example, when pro-life demonstrators got arrested when Obama went to Notre Dame. That’s just me, however. To each his own, I guess. :-)
> I understand....you have made some good points & I respect you for it.
Likewise, FRiend.
I like that.
Take another look. From the article: "the sale of pipes and bongs is legal"
I saw a guy make a bong out of a Pringles can once.
Ban Pringles!!
He would surely know that bongs and pipes and hookahs *might* be used as drug paraphernalia -- unless he has been living under a rock all his life. That hardly makes him a "true innocent" -- tho' it might make him "technically-not-guilty", which isn't quite the same thing.
By selling that stuff he is skating about as close to the edge of the ice as is humanly possible, knowing full well that he's so close to breaking the law it's not even funny. That's why he gave the guy $40 bucks: he knew he'd be in for a hassle if the police came to his store.
If he was a true innocent he would have held the perp at gunpoint and waited for the cops. However, he had the conscience of a guilty man, as his actions proved. Actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea.
undercover cops went into that man’s store to purchase bongs, in the midst of the conversation these cops mentioned they wanted to smoke marijuana with aformentioned bongs.
then they returned with backup to seize this man’s merchandise (which by the way were displayed with a sign that stated they were to be used for tobacco products only).
whose action was it that made this transaction illegal?
if the cops went in and purchased the bongs without saying anything except ‘how much?’ and ‘have a nice day’ the transaction would have been perfectly legal.
the laws on paraphenalia are so vaguely worded in most cases, your local 7-11 can be raided under the same circumstances for selling e-z widers.
his acts during the robbery were genuine because the crime he commited was not displaying the bongs, nor even selling the bongs. it only became a crime when the police mentioned drugs while buying the bongs.
Surely, then, the moral of the story has to be “don’t sell bongs because you know jolly well that they could be illegal.”
Big deal is right. All the tobacco shops in Peoria, Illinois sell them too. No one gets too excited about it here. I think he’s still a good Samaritan.
then gun dealers shouldn’t sell guns because they could be used in a crime.
better be safe than upset the local law enforcement.
a shop that distributes the tools necessary for the use of drugs are not a cause of drug use but a sign of it’s prevelance. the community sees this and wants action, so the local law enforcement go after the easiest target (an immigrant shop owner), it makes headlines and placates the upset mothers. local politicians speak out against the scurge of drugs and declare their undying support for police, anything less could be seen as being ‘soft on crime.’
meanwhile the drugs are still out there and this poor guy is being pilloried as if he were pablo escobar.
> then gun dealers shouldn’t sell guns because they could be used in a crime.
Correct... except guns have a Second Amendment that says otherwise. Bongs do not.
the point is that the legality is determined by the law enforcement officer who specifically creates the illegal scenario by bringing up drugs. it is their speech and actions that create another man’s crime and then arrest him for it. do you really want the police to have such power over people?
So it's a thought crime. I think we finally have found a good Muslim.
The big problem here is that he basically turned to recruiting this guy to islam..
There. Fixed it. You are trying to paint the scenario that Law Enforcement gets to determine illegality. That is inaccurate. What determines illegality, in this case, is the the person who buys the bong articulating his motive to use the bong for drugs.
For example, you could walk into the store, just an ordinary Joe Bloggs, and say "I want to buy a bong to smoke some marijuana." BANG! The law has been broken once the store owner sells it to you on that basis. You intend to use the bong for an illegal purpose.
If you were to go to a fertilizer store and ask to buy some Potassium Chlorate "so that I can make a bomb to blow up a school" the law will similarly have been broken if the store owner sells it to you, knowing you are going to make a bomb with it.
If you were to go to a gun shop and ask to buy some bullets and a gun "so that I can assassinate a head of state" the law will similarly have been broken if the store owner sells them to you, knowing that you intend to murder someone with them.
This is exactly how it should be. If the store owner knows you are going to do something illegal with your purchase, he is culpable if he sells it to you on that basis. That is how the Common Law works.
and yet, after purchasing the bong, joe is not commiting the crime of pocessing drug paraphenalia, no matter what he said to the clerk - until the point if and when it is used for such illegal purposes.
it’s an absurd law that criminalizes the actions of an otherwise normal transaction and targets mainly small independent business owners.
it’s an assault on liberty.
>>>giving him money and food and getting him to inquire about converting to Islam?
The robber now knows what it’s like having a hookah smoking caterpiller giving you the call.
Groovy.
“While the sale of pipes and bongs is legal, it becomes illegal when the store owner knowingly sells the items for the use of drugs, officials said. Undercover investigators bought items from Sohail, and the other store owners, after making clear that they would use them for drug use, said Lesko and Suffolk District Attorney Thomas Spota.”
semantics
bleh
mrs
> and yet, after purchasing the bong, joe is not commiting the crime of pocessing drug paraphenalia, no matter what he said to the clerk - until the point if and when it is used for such illegal purposes.
Yes, but you know as well as I do that intending to do a crime is also a crime in itself. That is why Attempted Murder is punishable nearly as severely as Murder itself.
> it’s an absurd law that criminalizes the actions of an otherwise normal transaction and targets mainly small independent business owners.
Using that same absurd logic, so is the buying-and-selling of stolen goods, and for the same reason.
> it’s an assault on liberty.
Maybe if you were a Libertarian you might think that, I dunno. To Libertarians everything that resembles Law and Order is an assault on Liberty.
To the rest of us, it’s Law and Order at its finest.
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