So…who is the LoneRanger going to vote for?

This pre-election season has been a very taxing one for me. I’ve looked over the candidates high and low and have had to watch one right after another fall out until I’m left with 3 choices I don’t like.

When it became apparent that McCain would represent the Republican party I was practically outraged. I don’t like him. I sided with many other conservatives who vowed to vote for Hillary or Obama just to spite McCain and let him know that he didn’t represent me or my values and would not have my support.

But then it dawned on me: I’d rather have someone leading us who I can agree with 50% of the time than someone I agree with 10% of the time. McCain may not be my choice, but at this point he’s the least of the three evils and depending on his choice for VP, may turn out to produce a decent showing come November.

McCain may not have a stellar voting record when it comes to firearms, etc. and his ideas regarding Gitmo, etc. bug me but he’ll be so much easier to mop up after than what Hillary or Obama will hose us with.

Take home message: If I had to vote today, McCain would get my vote. Not because he’s great but because sometimes taking one on the chin is better than getting knocked out.

Molon labe

I’ve never been much of a blogger. I like to write but honestly, I’m not consistent enough to make a decent showing. In spite of all this I’ve decided that I’ve had enough. Society as a whole is in a downward spiral that isn’t slowing anytime soon. This blog will primarily be a soapbox for my thoughts on the second amendment, right to keep and bear arms, concealed carry, and other gun-related issues. While other hot topics may surface now and again, it’s focus will be on guns.

Here’s a quote I really enjoy: “[T]he simple truth—born of experience—is that tyranny thrives best where government need not fear the wrath of an armed people. The prospect of tyranny may not grab the headlines the way vivid stories of gun crime routinely do. But few saw the Third Reich coming until it was too late. The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed—where the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees. However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once.” - US Federal Appeals Judge for the Ninth Circuit Alex Kozinski, in a dissent written over the court’s refusal to hear a challenge of the California Assault Weapons ban in 2003

While fear of the government is pretty far down on my list of reasons to carry I still think it’s nice that voices like this exist in America, especially voices of power.

So why guns? I like guns. I enjoy shooting guns for fun, I enjoy hunting, and I maintain a concealed carry permit which allows me to protect myself and my loved ones. I carry on a daily basis and do so because I believe that the responsibility to protect myself lies with me. As a society today we have a sense of entitlement. We’re entitled to this or that.

Unfortunately, police have no duty to protect you.

Warren v. District of Columbia is one of the leading cases that reminds us of this. Two women were upstairs in a townhouse when they heard their roommate, a third woman, being attacked downstairs by intruders. They phoned the police several times and were assured that officers were on the way. After about 30 minutes, when their roommate’s screams had stopped, they assumed the police had finally arrived. When the two women went downstairs they saw that in fact the police never came, but the intruders were still there. As the Warren court graphically states in the opinion: “For the next fourteen hours the women were held captive, raped, robbed, beaten, forced to commit sexual acts upon each other, and made to submit to the sexual demands of their attackers.”

The three women sued the District of Columbia for failing to protect them, but D.C.’s highest court exonerated the District and its police, saying that it is a “fundamental principle of American law that a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any individual citizen.” There are many similar cases with results to the same effect.

In the Warren case the injured parties sued the District of Columbia under its own laws for failing to protect them. Most often such cases are brought in state (or, in the case of Warren, D.C.) courts for violation of state statutes, because federal law pertaining to these matters is even more onerous. But when someone does sue under federal law, it is nearly always for violation of 42 U.S.C. 1983 (often inaccurately referred to as “the civil rights act”). Section 1983 claims are brought against government officials for allegedly violating the injured parties’ federal statutory or Constitutional rights.

The seminal case establishing the general rule that police have no duty under federal law to protect citizens is DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services. Frequently these cases are based on an alleged “special relationship” between the injured party and the police. In DeShaney the injured party was a boy who was beaten and permanently injured by his father. He claimed a special relationship existed because local officials knew he was being abused, indeed they had “specifically proclaimed by word and deed [their] intention to protect him against that danger,” but failed to remove him from his father’s custody.

The Court in DeShaney held that no duty arose because of a “special relationship,” concluding that Constitutional duties of care and protection only exist as to certain individuals, such as incarcerated prisoners, involuntarily committed mental patients and others restrained against their will and therefore unable to protect themselves. “The affirmative duty to protect arises not from the State’s knowledge of the individual’s predicament or from its expressions of intent to help him, but from the limitation which it has imposed on his freedom to act on his own behalf.”

About a year later, the United States Court of Appeals interpreted DeShaney in the California case of Balistreri v. Pacifica Police Department. Ms. Balistreri, beaten and harassed by her estranged husband, alleged a “special relationship” existed between her and the Pacifica Police Department, to wit, they were duty-bound to protect her because there was a restraining order against her husband. The Court of Appeals, however, concluded that DeShaney limited the circumstances that would give rise to a “special relationship” to instances of custody. Because no such custody existed in Balistreri, the Pacifica Police had no duty to protect her, so when they failed to do so and she was injured they were not liable. A citizen injured because the police failed to protect her can only sue the State or local government in federal court if one of their officials violated a federal statutory or Constitutional right, and can only win such a suit if a “special relationship” can be shown to have existed, which DeShaney and its progeny make it very difficult to do. Moreover, Zinermon v. Burch very likely precludes Section 1983 liability for police agencies in these types of cases if there is a potential remedy via a State tort action.

Many states, however, have specifically precluded such claims, barring lawsuits against State or local officials for failure to protect, by enacting statutes such as California’s Government Code, Sections 821, 845, and 846 which state, in part: “Neither a public entity or a public employee [may be sued] for failure to provide adequate police protection or service, failure to prevent the commission of crimes and failure to apprehend criminals.”

I don’t blame police though. Police officers are by and large great men and women who stick their necks out day and night to keep slime off the street and help us. They are grossly underpaid and in many locales somewhat underresourced. If every cop in America could patrol every “beat” 24/7 they would still be out numbered. Here’s where you and I come in. Pay attention to the news and you’ll see that everyday citizens are tired of being victims. They’re taking back their rights and taking back their piece of mind. I read story after story in papers across the nation of citizens shooting would be assailants or robbers. People are tired of it and they’re not going to take things laying down. I’m the same way. If someone wants to harm me or my family it will cost them. My home is my castle and when you enter that domain unlawfully and uninvited, consequences will ensue.

I don’t expect anyone to protect me and my family but me if trouble comes knocking, rest assured, I’ll be packing. Molon labe.