The Freedom Bulletin

In case you missed it, the Globe did a story yesterday about Ward Bird, a New Hampshire man who is in jail for allegedly threatening to shoot a woman who was trespassing on his property. I must admit, I had never heard of Ward before reading this article, but count me as a supporter.

Three and a half years ago, a woman named Christine Harris trespassed on Ward’s land, which is marked with “no trespassing” signs. She says she was lost and that he waved a gun at her and angrily told her to leave. He says he never took the gun from its holster. He was charged with felony reckless conduct, there was a mistrial, and the district attorney tried him again, this time on reckless conduct and felony criminal threatening. He was convicted of the latter charge, which carries a mandatory term of 3 to 6 years (which even the judge considered too harsh), the New Hampshire Supreme Court upheld the conviction, and he was thrown in prison last month.

Ward could have taken a plea deal and avoided prison, but he refused to give in, explaining, “I was offered the opportunity to lie, and I wouldn’t do it.”

I believe that first of all, there is little evidence that Ward did what he was convicted of, second of all, that he did nothing wrong by defending his own property, and third, that even if he did something wrong, his sentence is too harsh.

Ward’s supporters are trying to get Governor John Lynch to pardon him. Read more about his case and learn how you can help at FreeWardBird.org.

Saturday was the annual Toy Gun Bash, an event in Providence, Rhode Island dedicated to destroying toy guns. Kids were encouraged to bring in their toy guns and put them into the Bash-O-Matic, a machine that looks like a monster, so that they could be crushed.

I find this creepy, offensive, and, frankly, un-American. There is nothing wrong with having a toy gun, or a real gun for that matter. Guns are useful for self-defense, hunting, and target shooting, and one of the most important founding principles of our country is that people have the right to bear arms. Even if they weren’t useful for anything, guns do not, in themselves, hurt anyone. It is offensive to me that the Rhode Island Attorney General’s office would organize an event with the goal of destroying perfectly good items and brainwashing children into thinking that guns are bad when, in fact, they are not.

If there is anything that children should be taught about guns, it is how to use them safely. Then they should be allowed to decide for themselves whether they would like to own toy guns and, when they are skilled enough to use them, real guns.

Here’s a story from a few days ago about a Malden, MA man whose gun just may have saved his life against two robbers:

“The mother of a Malden man who survived being struck with four bullets in a gunfight that left the other two men dead said yesterday that she is grateful her son was armed with his licensed handgun at the time.

‘He had it on him. Why, I don’t know. His friends said he’s never had it on him. But I am very thankful he did. Otherwise it would have been him killed,’ said Kathleen Becerra, 47.”

Read the rest at the Boston Herald.

On Tuesday Lakeisha Gadson, a mom from Roxbury, MA, was convicted of misleading police officers but acquitted of involuntary manslaughter, reckless endangerment of a child, improper firearm storage, and illegal possession of a firearm.

According to the Suffolk County D.A.’s Office, Gadson’s teenage son, Jayquan McConnico, kept a firearm, loaded and unlocked, in a drawer in his bedroom. On June 24, 2007, her other son, 8-year-old Liquarry Jefferson, was playing with his 7-year-old cousin. The boys entered Jayquan’s room, opened his dresser drawer, took his gun, and started playing a game of some sort with it, during which the cousin somehow pointed the gun at Liquarry and fired. Tragically, Liquarry died of his injuries.

Acquitting Lakeisha, the boys’ mom, of these charges was the right verdict (she was only convicted of lying to the police about how her son died). To argue that Gadson is responsible for Liquarry’s death because she failed to ensure that Jayquan kept his gun out of the reach of children is excessive. Each person is responsible for their own actions – Gadson is not responsible for the fact that her teenage son had a gun without a license, which he kept loaded and unlocked.

But furthermore, Jayquan McConnico, who pleaded guilty to similar charges in 2008, should not be held responsible for Liquarry’s death, either. Storing a loaded gun in an unlocked drawer might not be the wisest thing to do, it is illegal, and if he hadn’t done it, Liquarry would be alive today…but that does not mean that he caused his death. McConnico is not responsible for the fact that two young boys decided to go into his room, open his drawer, and take his gun.

The cause of Liquarry’s death was his 7-year-old cousin’s decision to fool around with a gun and fire it at him. It may sound mean to pick on a 7-year-old, but seven is old enough to know what a gun is, what it looks like, and that you shouldn’t fire it at someone unless you have made sure it isn’t loaded. Everyone involved in this case has suffered tremendously, and I don’t think it is appropriate to punish anyone further for this horrible accident. But if anyone is responsible for Liquarry’s death, it is either the boy who chose to play with a loaded gun, or his mother (Liquarry’s aunt), who failed to teach her son that guns are dangerous and should be handled with caution.

Although Liquarry’s death was a tragedy, as anyone’s death is, neither Gadson nor McConnico caused it, and it only compounds the tragedy to hold innocent people responsible for things they did not do. The jury in Gadson’s case made the right decision.

A few days ago, the Daily Kos (of all sites) had a great post arguing that liberals should support all of our constitutional rights, including our Second Amendment rights.

“Liberals can quote legal precedent, news reports, and exhaustive studies. They can talk about the intentions of the Founders. They can argue at length against the tyranny of the government. And they will, almost without exception, conclude the necessity of respecting, and not restricting, civil liberties.

Except for one: the right to keep and bear arms.”

Read the rest here.

I wish more liberals thought like this! Liberalism used to mean a philosophy that is basically the same as present-day libertarianism. I’m glad that to the authors of that blog post, it still does!

The Supreme Court ruled today in McDonald v. Chicago that the Second Amendment applies to state and local governments in addition to the federal government. The case centered around Chicago’s ban of basically all handguns, which will likely be repealed as a result of the ruling.

The decision is not perfect – it allows some state and local gun restrictions, just not those that ban handguns entirely. Paul Helmke, the head of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Handgun Violence, was “reassured that the Court has rejected, once again, the gun lobby argument that its ‘any gun, for anybody, anywhere’ agenda is protected by the Constitution.” But this is still a victory for liberty because the court has upheld one of our fundamental rights, the right to bear arms, and sent a message to state governments that they cannot trample all over people’s freedoms just because they aren’t the federal government.

Ilya Shapiro of the Cato Institute wrote as much:

“The Fourteenth Amendment, coming on the heels of the Civil War, says clearly that never again would the Constitution tolerate state oppressions and that all individuals possess certain fundamental rights. And it is equally clear that the right to keep and bear arms is one of those deeply rooted fundamental rights, not least because the Framers thought so highly of it as to enumerate it in the Second Amendment.”

Otis McDonald, the Chicago grandfather and community leader who brought the lawsuit against his city, brought up another positive aspect of the decision, in addition to preserving freedom:

“This will make criminals think twice. If you have the right to have a handgun in your house, even if you don’t have a gun, that will give criminals a second thought, a third thought about breaking in to your house.”

Full text of the decision (PDF)

Gun pictures thanks to Adams Guns

Three cool things I’ve come across recently:

• Man carries assault rifle to Obama protest – and it’s legal. I didn’t really get the outrage over the fact that people had guns near Obama’s town halls. The Second Amendment gives Americans the right to bear arms, so as long as you’re not shooting an innocent person with your gun, I don’t see what the problem is.
• Charles Krauthammer and Michael Graham explain why preventive medicine and early detection don’t save money.
• A better way of stopping uninsured people from being free-riders, by John McClaughry at the National Review and Michael Cannon from the Cato Institute.