Category: A Victory!
WRITTEN BY WILL DABBS, MD
You really wouldn’t think there should be a sign on these
things reading, “Do Not Eat,” but you just never know.
I don’t know where you stand on the subject of demonic possession, but I made an acquaintance at a big inner-city hospital who offered some unique insights on the subject.
Modern medicine excels at quantifying things. If more than two people suddenly start having similar symptoms, some research physician someplace is going to hang an eponym on it and celebrate having discovered a new disease.
As an example, the Fregoli Delusion is a delusional misidentification syndrome wherein the sufferer is convinced that different individuals are, in fact, a single person capable of changing their appearance at will. It was named after 19th-century Italian actor Leopoldo Fregoli. Fregoli was notorious for his ability to alter his appearance during a stage production. As you might imagine, not a lot of folks suffer from this disease.
One of the more common forms of psychosis, however, is paranoid schizophrenia. This unfortunate malady typically results in delusions and hallucinations, usually auditory, that blur the lines between what is real and what isn’t. While there are some great medications that can help treat this problem, if left to its own devices, paranoid schizophrenia can make it all but impossible to lead a normal life. And then there was Robert, who took everything to the next level.
I met Robert on a Monday morning. While on my inpatient psych rotation as a medical resident, I got weekends off. That meant that if someone showed up acting strangely in the ER over the weekend, the ER guys would just tuck them away on the psych floor. As a result, you just never knew what would be waiting for you when you showed up for work on Monday morning.
Robert was a simply incredible physical specimen. He looked like an African-American Arnold Schwarzenegger circa 1984. The guy was just huge. He was also articulate, engaging and friendly. He began acting weird over the weekend, so his family took him to the ER. Once there, he swallowed a drywall screw and the hypodermic needle off of a syringe he retrieved from the sharps container. That earned him a ticket to the psych floor.
Robert, whose name has been changed to protect privacy, shot a total stranger with a .38 revolver for the most unsettling of reasons.
Robert had worked in a sketchy part of town, so he began carrying a .38 revolver for protection. One day, he passed several Hispanic gentlemen on the side of the road. One of the voices in his head told him that a particular member of the group was going to hurt somebody. He further explained that this individual, if left to his own devices, might actually hurt Robert.
Therefore, he drew his weapon and shot a total stranger five times in the belly because the voices in his head told him to do so. This got the attention of local law enforcement. Robert subsequently spent the next five years in prison. As near as I could tell, the only thing he did for those five years was lift weights.
Robert had only been out of prison for about 30 days when we met. He stopped taking his medications, something the voices in his head directed him to do whenever they needed him to be “thinking clearly,” and, predictably, began acting weird. We got his meds regulated, packaged him up, and sent him home.
Roughly one-fifth of Americans suffer from some sort of diagnosable mental illness. Fortunately, very few are as severe as Robert. While his chart proclaimed that he suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, Robert was convinced that it was something altogether more.
Assault Critters
Handgun Control, Inc., should be proud of Dennis Amber. After all, the 45-year-old could have used a firearm to assault his girlfriend in her suburban Pittsburgh home. Instead, he used a 15 lb. snapping turtle, which he lugged to her house, then tried to persuade it to bite her.
The attack failed, possibly because Snappy’s full-auto sear was broken — or maybe Amber didn’t know how to work the “safety.” He was charged with assault anyway.
“Fire Superiority”
Los Angeles resident Ike Hudson might have considered the possibility of return fire when he pulled the trigger of his shotgun, but doubtless never dreamed — not in his worst nightmare — of the response he received. Now he’s suing for $339,875, claiming damage to his home, therapy costs, and a severe case of post-traumatic stress disorder.
Hudson says he was armed on the night of May 3, 1992, as the L.A. riots raged, because he feared another man who was trying to grab his girlfriend. When two Compton P.D. officers knocked, he fired a shotgun blast through his door, wounding both cops.
They didn’t have to call for back-up, though. Behind them were several more police officers, sheriff’s deputies, and U.S. Marines who saw Hudson’s muzzle flash and immediately returned fire, blasting the house with 185 rounds of small-arms fire.
Hudson’s lawyer, B. Kwaku Duren, says his client fired accidentally. If the jury believes that, they’ll probably thrown in an extra $5 for fresh underwear, too.
Disney Technique
In San Diego’s community of Normal Heights, frequently referred to as “Abnormal Heights” by residents, a stick-up man employed the “Disney Technique” of robbery with more success.
The suspect walked into a Pay Less drug store with a leashed Doberman and threatened the clerk with “imminent bite.” While Fido growled and drooled, the suspect filled a bag with cameras and other goods, then fled with his accomplice in a Chevrolet Monte Carlo.
Witnesses couldn’t say for sure if the Doberman was a Standard Sporting Canine of the dreaded “Assault Dobie,” which is known to be capable of rapid multiple bites.
Neither Senator Feinstein nor Senator Boxer were available to comment on whether or not this would lead to prohibitions against dogs with more than 10 teeth, or registration of dogs which are black, have military-style collars, and come equipped with a protruding “grip,” like the Doberman’s menacing-looking bobbed tail.
Certainly such animals have no legitimate sporting purpose, and enjoy no constitutional protection.
Regardless of the fallout from this incident, it is expected to simply fuel the already raging debate over concealable Schnauzers, said to be the “critter of choice” of terrorists and drug dealers.
by Arjun Singh
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced on Saturday the creation of a new entity to train state and local officials on procedures to apply “red flag” laws that temporarily prevent certain individuals from owning a firearm.
The National Extreme Risk Protection Order (ERPO) Resource Center is an entity created under the DOJ’s Office of Justice Programs (OJP) that will both educate and assist local officials when they initiate legal proceedings to obtain “red flag” orders that rescind an individual’s right to bear arms based on the belief that they pose a risk of harm to themselves or others, according to the DOJ’s press release. The individuals to be trained are “law enforcement officials, prosecutors, attorneys, judges, clinicians, victim service and social service providers, community organizations, and behavioral health professionals.”
“The launch of the National Extreme Risk Protection Order Resource Center will provide our partners across the country with valuable resources to keep firearms out of the hands of individuals who pose a threat to themselves or others,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in the press release. “The establishment of the Center is the latest example of the Justice Department’s work to use every tool provided by the landmark Bipartisan Safer Communities Act to protect communities from gun violence.”
Red flag orders, or ERPOs, have previously been supported by gun control advocacy groups.
“Gun violence is a complex issue that requires comprehensive solutions. Extreme risk laws are an evidence-based tool that can help prevent many forms of gun violence tragedies before they ever occur — suicide, interpersonal violence, and mass shootings alike,” Brady: United Against Gun Violence, a non-profit organization that advocates for gun control, wrote on its website.
ERPOs are issued by state courts in civil proceedings to prevent persons from purchasing or possessing firearms should they be deemed likely to use them to harm themselves or others, the press release explains. Twenty-one states along with Washington, D.C. have passed such laws.
“OJP’s investment in ERPO programs demonstrates the Department’s commitment to addressing the gun violence crisis in the United States,” Assistant Attorney General Amy Solomon wrote in the press release. “This crisis cannot be solved at one level of government. We must use all of our resources and collaborate at the federal, state, and local levels to find innovative, evidence-based, and holistic solutions to help keep American communities safe.”
Measures such as ERPOs have been opposed by conservative groups, who argue that they are abused to deprive individuals of rights under the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment, which establishes that “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
“So-called ‘Red Flag’ orders, or Emergency Risk Protection Orders, are designed to empower the government to confiscate Americans’ firearms without due process of law,” the National Rifle Association’s Institute for Legislative Action wrote in 2022. “Aside from allowing run-of-the-mill malicious actors to indulge personal grudges against law-abiding gun owners, in the current politically-charged environment, these laws enable the government to target those with First Amendment-protected political views the government disfavors.”
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Arjun Singh is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation.
Photo “Merrick Garland” by The United States Department of Justice.
Opinion
NSSF®, The Firearm Industry Trade Association, applauds Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb and Utah Gov. Spencer Cox for signing the NSSF-supported Second Amendment Privacy Acts in their respective states. The laws will bar the use of a firearm-retailer specific Merchant Category Code (MCC) for banks, credit card companies or financial service providers to track the lawful sale of firearms and ammunition.
Both governors signed their laws, Indiana’s HB 1084 and Utah’s HB 406, in their respective states last week. NSSF worked closely with legislators in those states to bring legislation to protect private and legal purchases from exploitation. The laws are designed to protect the privacy of lawful and private firearm and ammunition purchases from being abused for political purposes by corporate financial service providers and unlawful government search and seizure of legal and private financial transactions.
“Corporate banks and the federal government have already proven they will run roughshod over Second Amendment and Privacy rights. The need to safeguard private and legal purchases of firearms and ammunition by law-abiding citizens has never been greater,” said Lawrence G. Keane, NSSF Senior Vice President & General Counsel. “NSSF thanks both Governor Holcomb and Governor Cox for their leadership in signing these laws that will protect the rights of the citizens in their states. No American should fear being placed on a government watchlist simply for exercising their Constitutionally-protected rights to keep and bear arms.”
It Violated The Fourth Amendment Rights Of Law-Abiding Citizens
The U.S. Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) admitted to U.S. Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) in a letter that it violated the Fourth Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens that protect against illegal search and seizure when it collected the credit card purchase history from banks and credit card companies of individuals who purchased firearms and ammunition in the days surrounding Jan. 6, 2020. Treasury’s FinCEN had no cause, and sought the information without a warrant, to place these law-abiding citizens on a government watchlist only because they exercised their Second Amendment rights to lawfully purchase firearms and ammunition.
The idea of a firearm-retailer specific MCC was borne from antigun New York Times columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin and Amalgamated Bank, which has been called “The Left’s Private Banker” and bankrolls the Democratic National Committee and several antigun politicians. Amalgamated Bank lobbied the Swiss-based International Organization for Standardization (ISO) for the code’s creation. NSSF has called on Congress to investigate Amalgamated Bank’s role in manipulating the ISO standard setting process.
Indiana and Utah join Florida, Idaho, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Texas and West Virginia with laws protecting citizens’ Second Amendment privacy. Several other states are considering similar legislation. U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) introduced H.R. 7450, the NSSF-supported Protecting Privacy in Purchases Act, in the U.S. House of Representatives. California’s Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law requiring the use of a firearm-retailer specific MCC and Colorado is considering similar legislation.
About The National Shooting Sports Foundation
NSSF is the trade association for the firearm industry. Its mission is to promote, protect and preserve hunting and shooting sports. Formed in 1961, NSSF has a membership of thousands of manufacturers, distributors, firearm retailers, shooting ranges, sportsmen’s organizations, and publishers nationwide. For more information, visit nssf.org