The Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) seizes 2000+ pocketknives per day at airports.
This may indicate that, 9/11 notwithstanding, normal Americans do not regard the Swiss Army knife as an obviously deadly weapon.
Because doing the paperwork for each seizure is inconvenient – for the TSA – the government has proposed a rule change which permits airline passengers to carry pocketknives with blades up to 2.36 inches long. We might want a rule change based on the fact that “government” realizes that the pocketknife ban is idiotic rather than one based on their own convenience, but we should take what we can get.
[Incidentally, “government” is in quotes because the government is supposed to be us. Sadly, those who work for us just don’t get that.]
But wait! No good deed and no bit of good reasoning ever goes unchallenged. Congress wants answers! Why does the TSA want to endanger innocents by tolerating Boy Scout knives? Enquiring (if infantile) minds want to know.
In a congressional hearing, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee borrowed a colleague’s pocketknife for a demonstration. She pretended to stab him. She then solemnly pronounced, “You need to stop this now! These cause bleeding. These cause injury and these can cause terrible tragedy.”
(Apparently, it was OK for a Member of Congress to have a knife in his pocket. After all, they’re, they’re, well, they’re Government.)
It’s hard to find a theme for this little collection of thoughts. That’s because there’s a whole rainbow of really silly hysteria shining through the Congressional prism.
The best argument against the garden-variety pocketknife on an aircraft is not very good. The 9/11 hijackers used “box cutters” - knives with utility blades – to take over aircraft and kill crew members. This seems to prove the hypothesis that knives are sharp and dangerous.
Okay, it proves they’re sharp, but we already knew that.
It does not prove that there is a greater danger from pocketknives on an aircraft than there is, for example, from the guy standing next to you in Walmart.
9/11 took place in a totally complacent society. Because no one should seek violence, it was (still is) ingrained in us to avoid violence even when violence is the better choice. Normally, we operate under “rules of engagement” that say if you agree with the aggressor, the bad guy will take what he wants, leaves and everyone will come out alive and healthy.
The terrorist hijacking presented a real steep learning curve. Passengers on only one of the four hijacked aircraft, Flight 93, had time to work out that the rules of engagement had changed. By then, the terrorists had taken over the flight deck and flight controls. Still, violent action by citizens with guts prevented that aircraft from being used as a guided missile.
So – what if you try today to take over an aircraft with a pocketknife? Can you kill the person next to you? Most likely. You can do the same thing to the guy next to you at Walmart. In fact, you have a better chance of killing more people and getting away at Walmart – that’s a much less dense environment and victims have much more room to retreat which gives them less incentive to attack.
Out of 100 passengers on an aircraft, 20 or 30 will be willing to meet violence with violence. With a little bit of padding and overwhelming numbers, good guy citizens will prevail over someone wielding a knife or even two or three guys wielding knives. The bad guys will not be taking over the airplane. It makes much more sense to take away knives at Walmart. For that matter, that kitchen knife display at Walmart is one lethal murder scene waiting to happen. Well, wouldn’t Congress think so?
Since 9/11, there have been a number of instances of violent passengers - would-be bombers, just plain crazies - acting up on airplanes and being quickly subdued by fellow passengers. Perhaps citizens in this new decade generally are more willing to step up to the plate against bad guys. Or, perhaps, stories of citizens can confronting criminals rather than running from them are getting a little more attention these days.
The suggestion that we should be afraid of people carrying pocketknives is one of stunning cowardice. The notion that government should regulate such things is a presumptuousness which old King George III would have recoiled at. And yet, we are supposed to take seriously public officials who tell us to whimper like little girls because this guy is a pocketknife or that guy has not been to anger management.
I remember when I began to carry a pocketknife. I was six years old. It was a small white knife with a blade about an inch and a half long. That was a really big deal to me. It meant that my dad trusted me to be responsible. It meant that I could start carrying the same sort of tool as my older brothers and my grandfathers and every other older guy I knew.
These were – and are – tools. Remember man, the toolmaker? I’ve carried a knife in my pocket constantly since with the sole exceptions of places where irrational paternalism prevails or those few places where leaving it in the car makes sense (such as jails.)
So far as the TSA proposal is concerned, we should not be groveling and thanking our government masters because they may let us carry knives now. We should be asking, how dare this paternalistic, cowardly collection of bureaucratic wimps and congressional dilettantes presume to bar We the People from carrying commonplace tools in the first place.
I haven't just rambled for a while. I’m past due.
We Are Lucky They Are on the Job –
Earlier this week, I was on the way back from hearings in Taylor County Circuit Court. I came upon an intersection that was blocked by a fire department vehicle and was directed to take a detour. I asked the firemen what the problem was, and they told me the road was closed due to a serious motor vehicle accident.
This was at about 2:30 in the afternoon. I made the detour and came out at another blocked intersection with another fire truck and more firemen and I could see even more vehicles and firemen down where the wreck occurred.
The 8 or 10 firemen there all were volunteers. They either left work for this call – which took several hours – or they were on shift work and did it in their off time.
We talk about a “gimme” society where everyone is out for themselves. We talk about a lazy society and an entitlement society. For that matter, these Dispatches talk about those things and will continue to do so.
These volunteers are the other side of the coin. They are people who are driven to contribute to their fellow citizens and to see things and do things from which the average Jane and Joe would recoil in fear or horror.
We are lucky they are on the job.
Headline: “Obama Weighs in on Papal Election” -
I didn’t go any farther than the headline. The article was several paragraphs long, so I knew that it was bullshit.
It seems to me that the only wise “weighing in” by an American president while an election for Pope is going on is something like “Well, that’s none of our business.”
Why do we expect American politicians to comment on everything imaginable? For that matter, why don’t we call them on it when they go far afield from their legitimate functions?
Data Which Tends to Show That Background Checks Work:
Capt. Mark Kelly (USN, retired) is married to former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Ms. Giffords was shot by a criminal/crazy a couple of years ago in Arizona.
Recently, Capt. Kelly went to a gun shop in Tucson were he purchased a Colt AR-15. That is a civilian version of the most common infantry rifle used by the American armed forces, the M-16. The military version has a selector for fully automatic fire, that is, it works as a machine gun. It can also fire semi-automatic, that is, one trigger pull equals one shot. The AR-15 is only semi-automatic.
Capt. Kelly then went to the press to decry how easy it was for him to acquire that weapon.
A slightly far-fetched response by the self-appointed gun community was that he was hypocritical in that he was buying something to use for home defense that he would deny others. It was far-fetched because obviously he was doing it as a publicity stunt from the get-go.
I really don’t see what’s wrong with this picture. He had a background check using the national system which rings into the huge FBI complex in Bridgeport, West Virginia. He was cleared to purchase the firearm.
That’s the way it’s supposed to work.
Capt. Kelly is a decorated (e.g., Air Medal, Distinguished Flying Cross) and honorably discharged military officer. He has no felonies and no domestic violence convictions. He’s the kind of person who is supposed to be able to purchase a firearm, because he’s the kind of person who almost certainly is going to use it safely and only for lawful purposes.
Incidentally, the AR-15 probably is the least lethal weapons system Capt. Kelly has used. He flew combat missions in the Gulf.
A legitimate issue about the background check system is how to include those with very serious mental illness, including addictions. A challenge there will be how to include them without discouraging people to seek treatment, especially for minor and situational disorders. In these Dispatches, that’s a discussion for another day.
Keeping Up On The Law:
The three traditional “learned professions” are medicine, the clergy and the law. To do your job, you have to spend considerable study time continuing to learn and just keep up. That’s not a big deal – it comes with the territory.
A lot of that involves reading court decisions, particularly those of courts in which you practice. You need to know how judges are deciding cases and what kind of arguments and reasoning work and what kind don’t. When you get a new judge or justice, you need to read particularly carefully to get up to speed on that judge.
In West Virginia, we have a new Supreme Court justice, Allen Loughry. He already has left a lot of written tracks, mainly with his book Don't Buy Another Vote, I Won't Pay for a Landslide: The Sordid And Continuing History of Political Corruption in West Virginia.
And yet, it’s still part of the job to play close attention to how all the judges are writing and ruling so that we can do our jobs with a minimum degree of competency.
Incidentally, in a verbal review of Don’t Buy Another Vote, Bro. Moon commented that Justice Loughry had most of the recent scandals exactly correct, but as to as least one, “Boy, if he only knew the whole story!”
Accuracy in Argument:
This probably deserves to be an independent post once I’ve given it more thought. I note one of the topic headings above, “Data Which Tends to Show…”
Well, that proves I’ll never make it as a propagandist.
Nobody wants evidence. Nobody wants probabilities. Nobody wants to recognize the existence of doubt or any possibility that “the other side” has a shred of truth or credibility to their arguments.
And so, if I were a true-blue zealot, the topic heading would have been “Absolute Proof That …”
Sorry, that’s offensive, unscientific and dishonest. It’s not sexy, it’s not comforting and certainly doesn’t make things easy, but the truth is, life is not easy and social questions are not so clear-cut that absolute truth and absolute good lies on one side only.
I have taken a strong position in these Dispatches against current gun control proposals, the lack of logic driving them and the cynical use of the pain of victims. And yet, if everything Sen. Feinstein wants to do is enacted, some people who would otherwise die will live. Sorry, my Second Amendment compatriots, that’s just the damn truth. And on the other hand, if Sen. Feinstein has her way, some people who would otherwise live will die. Oops, Sen. Schumer, you aren’t saving humanity completely after all.
Moreover, we have to make judgments about the costs we’re willing to pay for freedom of individual action versus imposed limitations.
You want easy? Shut off your brain and be a propagandist.
Dennis Hugh Curry, 69, of Spencer, WV (formerly of Fairmont) passed away Tuesday, March 5, 2013 at the Louis A. Johnson VA Medical Center in Clarksburg surrounded by his loving family.
He was born in Fairmont on August 20, 1943, a son of the late Carroll Hugh and Opal (Gates) Curry.
Dennis attended Fairmont Senior High School and graduated from Buckhannon-Upshur High School in 1961. He attended West Virginia Wesleyan College and graduated from Fairmont State College in 1965 with a degree in Industrial Arts.
He proudly served his country with the U.S. Marine Corps, joining in 1962. He was commissioned an officer in May, 1965. He was deployed on aircraft carriers in the Atlantic and deployed in Norway. In 1967, he was deployed to Vietnam, where he was promoted to Captain and became an infantry company commander. He engaged in 26 combat operations including several amphibious landings.
Dennis graduated from West Virginia University College of Law in 1971 and practiced law in Fairmont for several years. He was the first Municipal Judge for the City of Fairmont. Later, he practiced law in Spencer, WV.
He was a member of the West Virginia State Bar, the Marine Corps League and was a life member of the National Rifle Association. In the past, he competed in several regional and national pistol competitions.
He is survived by his three loving daughters, Hillarey Carder and her husband Dan of Masontown, Ashley Gillespie and her husband Scott of Morgantown and Erin VanGilder and her husband Brent of Carolina Beach, NC and seven grandchildren, Macey Carder, Benjamin Carder, Cayton Carder, Ian Gillespie, Mairin Gillespie, Beau VanGilder and Brooke VanGilder.
Also surviving is the mother of his children, Susan Metheny Davis of Fairmont, two brothers, Roger D. Curry and his wife Janet Curry of Fairmont and Rev. Joel Curry and his wife Dr. Shara Curry of Glenville as well as numerous nieces and nephews.
Family and friends may call at Carpenter and Ford Funeral Home, 209 Merchant St. Fairmont on Sunday from 1-8 pm and Monday from 10-11 am. The funeral service will be held in the funeral home on Monday, March 11, 2013 at 11 am with Rev. Joel Curry, brother of the deceased, officiating.
Interment will follow at the WV National Cemetery in Pruntytown [near Grafton] where full military honors will be conducted by the Marion County Veterans Council Honor Guard.
Online memories and condolences may be left for the family at www.carpenterandford.com
Vice president Joe Biden has a wealth of experience in government – in the Senate, as vice president, as a dealmaker, arm-twister, cajoler and fundraiser. All of these are relevant job skills in politics.
Whether you like him or not or like his policies or not, you have to concede that he is effective.
Most of the time.
Last Tuesday, the VP gave an interview on guns and home defense. He recounted his wise advice for home defense, the same advice that he has given his wife.
He advised his audience to “buy a shotgun.” He explained you really don’t need an “assault weapon” with 30 round magazine to defend your home. (By the way, I’m inclined to agree there, insofar as “need” is concerned.)
Then he explained his plan. He owns two shotguns, apparently of the double-barreled variety. If his wife detects an intruder, here is the VP’s plan:
“I said, Jill, if there’s ever a problem just walk out on the balcony here ... take the double-barreled shotgun and fired two blasts outside the house.”
His theory is that the sound of the shots will scare off the bad guys.
Let’s take this advice apart:
Shotgun – That part is fine. A shotgun is an excellent home defense weapon. There are a number of different loads available, that is, a number of different types of projectiles. There is less threat of over-penetration, that is, it’s less likely that projectiles will punch through four walls and hit an innocent neighbor.
The only criticism I have so far is that it’s not a great idea to publicize the inventory of one’s home weaponry. If the bad guys come around and actually commit acts which necessitate a response, what that response will be should be the homeowner’s little surprise.
Oh, the VP also talks about locking the weapons up. This is an absolute necessity. You do not leave weapons unlocked and available unless they are on your person. There are lots of varieties of vaults and lockboxes available which permit reasonably rapid access.
So what’s the problem?
Holy home defense, Batman – Walk out on the balcony!? Discharge a weapon at random!? This is advice coming from a supposedly responsible public official?
Let’s think this through, Mr. VP:
You hear intruders. What do you conclude? Well, you’re right or you’re wrong – it’s a person or it’s not a person. If it’s a person, that’s likely to be more dangerous so that’s the safer assumption to make initially. Then you will continue to collect information.
If it’s a person, there is a chance that they are there without any bad intent. Maybe they are making a delivery, or have a mistaken address, or it’s the meter reader coming in or some family member who has lost his or her key.
Or the people coming in may have a bad intent. That also is the safer assumption to make while you continue to gather more information. By now, your defensive arms should be readily at hand and you should be seriously considering calling 911.
But so far, discharging or even pointing the weapon is not justified. You don’t know that you have a person with bad intent. Even if it’s a person with a bad intent our hypothetical does not yet contain a danger to life which justifies the use of deadly force. Indeed, if in the unlikely event that you hear someone say, “I’m a burglar! I’m stealing your downstairs TV and then I’m leaving. Have a nice day,” that alone still doesn’t justify shooting anybody.
(There are numerous exceptions, which are beyond the scope of this post.)
If you have identified the intruder as a bad guy, it’s reasonable to assume that the intruder is prepared for a confrontation and further reasonable now to assume that the intruder is armed.
And here’s the advice you’re getting from Mr. Biden: Let’s go out on the balcony and expose ourselves to someone who may be armed. Then let’s take our double barreled shotgun which can shoot twice without reloading and shoot it twice. Now, we’re standing out on the balcony holding an empty shotgun. And, since we fired randomly to “scare” the bad guy, we have announced to the intruder that we are armed. As I ran this scenario past my buddy, he noted that this seems to turn the situation into a fair fight. That’s not good planning. You don’t want a fair fight against someone armed.
Mind you, maybe this scaring off thing will work. The intruder may head for the hills. Another possibility is the intruder may reach for his firearm.
Oh, where did the projectiles go which were shot randomly? Isn’t it rather cavalier for someone worried about gun violence to say, hey, let’s point a weapon randomly and let ‘er fly? Projectiles follow the laws of physics. If there is something in their path, it becomes the physics of material strength and destruction.
Also, even in the keep-your-powder-dry mecca of the Mountain State, generally it’s illegal to discharge a firearm in a residence randomly.
There’s lots of training available, in person or online. Every person who owns firearms should be familiar with them and trained in their use. I will not presume to summarize any “right way” to use a firearm in the home. There are way too many variables for any one post. Moreover, there are a LOT of people in the United States far more qualified to give those instructions.
I do know to avoid doing stupid shit like going gunning for an intruder at random and shooting at nothing.
Fortunately, Mr. Biden and his family are protected by the Secret Service. If an intruder comes into their residence, I don’t think the Secret Service will follow the Biden defense plan.
It is sickening to see car nuts slobbering over yet another assault roadster – a car with an excessively high engine capacity and features that nobody needs to exercise safely any constitutional right to travel.
These killing machines are designed for speed professionals. Civilians have no business parking them in their garages.
The latest entry in the orgy of assault roadsters was unveiled on American shores in Miami last week. It is the 2013 Lamborghini Aventador. For $440,000, untrained civilians can obtain – without a background check – a two-seat power demon with a 6.5 liter V-12 engine and AWD drivetrain. The engine produces 700 hp in a vehicle having only a 4100 pound curb weight, creating a ridiculously high power to weight ratio. The reported acceleration is 0 to 60 mph in 3.1 seconds with a top speed in excess of 210 mph.
Why? Why the name of all that’s holy are we unleashing these speed wagons on the vulnerable people who ply the highways in our society?
Mind you, whenever anyone dares suggest rational limits to the capabilities of automobiles, such reactionary forces as the American Automobile Association and Motor Trend Magazine organize a carefully scripted terror campaign on right-thinking citizens. Even though the opinions of their membership/readership do not reflect the opinions of the vast majority of law-abiding American car owners, these and other auto hate groups intimidate government with mass mailings, phone campaigns and the threat of withholding political contributions. They frighten the general public with silly rhetoric. They suggest that if government can take away your Lamborghini, surely it can take away your Toyota Corolla.
Let us carefully define what we’re working with. What is an assault roadster?
Assault roadsters they take many forms. Their most common characteristic is the engine. They all have fossil-fueled, internal combustion engines with more than six cylinders and more than 2 liters of displacement. In addition, other features frequently appear:, such as:
- Aerodynamic styling with drag coefficients equal to or less than 0.33.
- Spoilers on the front and/or rear.
- A height less than 47 inches
- Ground clearance less than 5.5 inches
- Tires with an aspect ratio less than 50%
- Carbon fiber or carbon-ceramic brakes
- The use of exotic materials – e.g., carbon fiber – in the monocoque.
- All-wheel drive
- Multiple air intakes
- Turbochargers
The assault roadster ban will prohibit the manufacture, possession or transfer of any vehicle with an engine having more than six cylinders or displacement more than 2 liters which also has any two of those 10 characteristics.
The radical car lobby depends on a strained reading of the Constitution in claiming that assault roadsters cannot be controlled.
The right to travel, some say, is based in the Privileges & Immunities Clause of the United States Constitution, Article IV, Section 2. Other say that the right to travel is a more basic human right, on a par with defending oneself from a murderous attack.
But the devil is in the details. Assuming that citizens have some sort of basic travel right, this does not mean that the government cannot regulate travel and prohibit dangerous abuses in the implements of travel. We have a right to a free press, and yet the courts support a cause of action for libel. We have a right to bear arms, and yet no one seems to object to banning machine guns.
What was the Founders original intent? Could it have encompassed conveyances with rapidly firing engines and the other characteristics of the assault roadster? Certainly not. The swift horse and the sleek carriage were the speedy conveyances of the wise Founding Fathers. It is disingenuous to say that lethal speedsters such as this Lamborghini were within their contemplation.
And so, the possession and use of assault roadsters is without legal foundation. Moreover, they are marketed without moral compunction. Carefully edited footage from the debut of the Aventador in Miami included conventionally attractive young females talking about these assault roadsters as being “turn-ons.” What stronger evidence to we need for us to realize that marketers are selling these are some sort of perverse fertility symbols, not as a reasonably necessary method of conveyance.
The ban on assault roadsters is an idea whose time has come. The elimination of automobiles with excessively large engines and other speed paraphernalia violates no one’s legitimate rights. We would merely protect citizens. The Aventador, the Corvette, the Challenger, the Mustang, these and their sad sisters have no place in responsible citizens’ driveways.
Ample precedent exists both for congressional banning of constitutionally inappropriate automobiles and congressional approval of moral and safe transportation alternatives which protect adequately the right to travel. Just as the “Feinstein Bill” lists certain approved firearms, so can the “Assault Roadster Bill” reassure citizens by providing a list of what automobiles are approved for their transportation enjoyment. They will be happy to see the blessing of the Chevrolet Cobalt, the Ford Focus, the Honda Accord, and the other automobiles used by the great majority of Americans for responsible work and recreation.
This battle will take the tireless efforts of those who care more deeply about the safety of the children, the elderly and indeed the average citizen than for the simple bloodlust of hearing the V8 rumble.
America, our time is at hand.
Mizpah.
Our ever-smiling new Attorney General walked right into a perfect storm. Walked into it? Heck, he created it.
Patrick Morrissey created a top position in the AG’s office and called it “Solicitor General” Then, he hired a Washington lawyer to fill it for the unheard of salary of $132,000 per year.
And then – drum roll – it turns out that the new Solicitor General doesn’t have a West Virginia law license!
Oh, the irony is delicious. We endured 20 years of occasional gaffes from Darrell McGraw, but now the White Knight Reformers have stumbled right out of the starting gate. This is all a scribbler of little political diatribes could wish for.
And so, a blog post full of pious sarcasm perked away in our mind.
Then, just to look for some “color,” I checked out Elbert Lin, the almost-Solicitor General. After all, he could be a PETA activist or Bilderberger or something. Dirt, we want dirt!
Dang.
There is a lesson here, even for a banged up scribe with a few miles on the odometer.
Elbert Lin is qualified. He really doesn’t deserve the noise he is getting.
Mind you, he’s a Yalie and a DC lawyer. We don’t tend to like those folks. They’re just not “people like us.”
The only Yale-trained lawyer I know is my friend Justice Richard Neely. He’s a caustic son of Fairmont and New Haven. I’ve always loved to argue with him and to read anything he writes. And, it does appear that Yale Law School gives lawyers a pretty decent education.
The whole DC lawyer thing is a problem, but you have to pause when you find out how he got there. Right out of law school, Mr. Lin clerked for federal judges. Then he was hired to clerk at the United States Supreme Court for Justice Clarence Thomas. Thomas is not my favorite judge by far, but he signs learned opinions which I cannot make heads or tails of. The law clerks write much of those opinions. Traditionally, only the very best law graduates clerk at the Supreme Court.
Some of Lin’s writing is available on the Internet. While it lacks the folksy mountain patois, his writing shows that he is a really intelligent and thoughtful fellow.
From the Supreme Court, Lin went to the litigation department of a huge DC law firm. Maybe if we criticize that, there’s a little jealousy thing going on.
Some stones are thrown at the notion that Lin took a pay cut to come to Charleston and earn his $11,000 per month. Okay, we figure he’ll be eating regularly on that wage. But it’s still a wage cut. He didn’t have to do it.
The lack of a law license for “Solicitor General” is confusing. Does a solicitor general need a license? Beats me. We never had a solicitor general before. It’s not defined by state law. (There is a code section that puts “solicitor” next to “pimp and panderer,” but that’s probably not what’s intended.) Let’s face it, it’s kind of a pompous title, but it’s Morrissey’s office. He could have called his top assistant “King of the Cowboys.” Does the King of the Cowboys need a law license? Beats me.
What we have is a well-qualified guy coming to West Virginia, carpet bag in hand. That alone is enough of a hurdle for him to leap. He deserves a chance to show his merit.
I do have one criticism: The AG showed political weakness in changing Lin’s title to “senior assistant.” He could have told critics to kiss off because Lin was not going to violate any of the rules of law practice until his license came through.
I still like “King of the Cowboys” better.
Chris Dorner, who went on a killing spree in California, was cornered in a cabin in the Big Bear resort area on Tuesday. The cabin caught fire (cause unknown) and Dorner died (cause unknown). Dorner left in his wake two dead police officers, two dead civilians and several injured persons. All but one of the deceased died in ambushes.
I enormously respect Larry Winget. On his Facebook page/blog today, there was a discussion of whether Dorner “deserved to die.” It was a heated discussion. Some folks expressed that eternal optimism that anyone can be rehabilitated. Larry in typical straightforward fashion termed that hogwash and expressed satisfaction that the guy’s dead. (I’m not quoting him exactly – go to Facebook and read it for yourself – it’s a fascinating discussion.)
This sort of discussion let’s passion (and bile) flow. After all, there’s nobody we dislike more than criminals. There is little we regret more than giving criminals rights and protections that they have denied their victims. We love stories of cosmic justice, and sometimes justice (at least in our hearts) has a strong element of retribution.
I remember when I was teaching criminal justice students about the judicial process and the Charles Bronson “Death Wish” series of movies was in the theaters. I really love those flicks and I still catch the late-night reruns. The students would make fun of me when I admitted that on the one hand we had this rule of law but on the other hand, I really liked those movies. I still love seeing the plastic criminal characters catch a well-aimed bullet. There’s just a certain “all’s right with the world” balancing.
Okay, not really, but remember what is required to enjoy good fiction: A willing suspension of disbelief.
Fiction aside, the whole argument about what Chris Dorner “deserved” is pointless.
For the last 35 years, I’ve dealt with discontent over the (hopefully) objective and (hopefully) low emotion rule of law in America.
A low emotion approach is not at all morally satisfying. It’s dry and at times it’s dull. What it does is it gives us a shot – just a shot – at actual justice.
And what is justice? (Good heavens, I’m channeling Pontius Pilate, “What is truth?”)
Justice in criminal cases, by my lights, is the process of objectively applying necessarily subjective opinions to protect the community covenant into which the citizens have entered.
In fashioning the result of a criminal case, the decision-makers should consider the feasibility of isolating the offender; the feasibility of rehabilitating the offender; the feasibility of deterring the offender; and the methods of deterring others from similar conduct by making an example of the offender. To do all this, we have to look at what the offender did, why s/he did it, what harm resulted and the foreseeability of that harm. And, of course… here’s the rub… we have to be willing to consider other relevant things because every case is different. Then, we should fashion a result which is sufficient but not "too much."
There’s always a conundrum about what to do with the victims’ voices. Certainly, they did not volunteer to be victimized. Should they have a voice in the result? Should they have a controlling voice in the result? Almost always, I have found victims to be sincere in their beliefs. Often, I have found them to be irrational in their beliefs. No doubt, some of the victims of Dorner – say, families of the deceased – would have been glad to see macabre medieval tortures applied to him. I can’t say that they are “wrong” and I cannot blame them a bit for that opinion.
I can just say that’s not the law.
And I can say that our rule of law is a better way.
I am not qualified to say what Dorner deserved or deserves. According to my beliefs, he is due an accounting before God. I certainly won’t predict the decisions of the Lord God Almighty. Dorner’s on his own there.
I can say what our rule of law dictated. And our rule of law was very clear.
Had Dorner dropped his weapons and surrendered, it would have been the duty of the officers to take custody of him without unduly and permanently harming him. Then, he would have been entitled to a fair trial. For that matter, We the People would have been entitled to a fair trial, too. There is no wiggle room there. No matter how justifiably angry the police were or citizens were, the rule of law is absolute.
Someone on Facebook asked if Dorner’s “manifesto” which indicated a specific intent to murder negated his rights. Answer: Absolutely not. It just made proving the case against him beyond a reasonable doubt really, really easy.
Until and unless Dorner surrendered, police officers had a duty to stop his depredations. Dorner was armed and using deadly force. Generally, the effective response is going to be deadly force or even overwhelming deadly force. That was not dependent on whether the police officers were angry or apathetic or positively filled with goodwill. It was their duty to stop Dorner from committing further offenses. The bullets would not care what the was in the hearts of those firing weapons. The duty of the police under the rule of law was very clear.
That people were victimized by Dorner’s crimes is a tragedy. The fact that these tragedies happen is the reason we have a criminal justice system. Handling criminals with reasonable efficiency and effectiveness requires that we do this in this terribly aggravating non-emotional fashion. It would be oh so satisfying to let our hatred flow. But that would be an affront to this Republic and would blow up in our faces in about an hour and a half.
I am completely unmoved by the death of Chris Dorner. I’m not going to miss any sleep over it. The results were dictated by his choices.
And I am glad that this justice system of ours clankety-clanks along. I’m also glad to be a part of it.
Mizpah.
