Quote of the day—Gerry Spence

The police, as in every police state, would simply level their charges and lead the defendant to his blind-folded stance before the firing squad. During Randy Weaver’s trial, an agony for him that he endured for nearly three months, I found the minions of the law—the special agents of the FBI—to be men who proved themselves not only fully capable, but also utterly willing to manufacture evidence, to conceal crucial evidence and even change the rules that governed life and death if, in the prosecution of the accused, it seemed expedient to do so.

Gerry Spence
From Freedom To Slavery: The Rebirth of Tyranny in America
First St Martin’s Griffin Edition: May 1996
[The 1990’s were exceedingly dark days for gun owners. The shooting of Randy Weaver’s son and wife by Federal agents and then the trial of Weaver and Harris could be considered the turning point. The egregious behavior and arrogance of the Feds enraged gun owners and inspired thousands, if not millions, of people who had never owned guns to purchase them. The Weaver shooting took place less than 20 miles from where I lived at the time and I was among those that became a gun owner shortly thereafter.

This blog, Boomershoot, and a great number of significant events in my life were the result of what happened at Ruby Ridge.

That was over 20 years ago and many of the freedom activists I know don’t remember the events or that it even occurred. And many that do probably don’t understand the significance of that event in today’s fight for freedom. The Federal government learned some important lessons as a result of that incident and the response of the American people. The “militia movement” was part of that response and it was a real wake up call to the Feds.

But I’m not sure it was the lesson we wanted the Feds to learn. My impression is they learned it was too risky to begin using naked force to subjugate the people. They did not reverse course.

They grudgingly accepted we have at least some narrowly defined right to keep and bear arms but attacked our economic base, our privacy, and regulate the minutia of nearly every activity. The “assault weapon” bans, TSA and Obamacare are just the most obvious infringements of our freedom.

There are probably 10s of thousands of regulations which by themselves would be laughable and easily dismissed if it weren’t for the fact they are each tiny links in huge and heavy chains that enslave us through the daily sapping of our time and money to avoid committing numerous crimes each day. Ultimately these laws can, and probably will, be used to create the police state Spence warns us of. And it will all occur with firing only the occasional, and almost entirely ignored, shots.—Joe]

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16 thoughts on “Quote of the day—Gerry Spence

  1. Yes, as a cop in those days, I, too, knew the FeeBees. They supposedly were there to help local cops, what with all their “expertise” and all. Instead, they lorded it over local cops as if there were an actual pecking order.

    One thing near and dear to YOUR heart, Joe, would be marksmanship. The FBI had an unlimited ammo and gun budget, but when I’d shot next to them on the range, we had people who easily outshot even their armorers, with the exception of full-auto fire, whick we never practiced except for SWAT, Deputies didn’t have access to schmeissers.

    The FBI is known for picking 10mm, a caliber with heavy recoil, and failing to consider that the jump from 9mm and/or revolvers could not be managed by 25% of their agents. The retreat to Shorty Forty was pre-ordained.

    I could regale you with tales of investigative/case law boo-boos, missed opportunities and booted surveillance, but THAT bandwidth doest exist.

    No, the FeeBees aren’t gods, they are just cops. We all know that cops make mistakes, and so does the FBI, but unlike most local jurisdictions, the FBI has a management which ASSUMES that mistakes will be made, but REFUSES to be open about mitigating them or preventing them in the future.

    THAT’S what is wrong with the FBI. A Horiuchi can happen in any organization, that’s bad enough, but it’s what happens next that counts. A good organization learns from such a mistake, but the FeeBees just circled the wagons and the teachable moment was lost.

    • I think deplorable markmanship is almost a given in law enforcement, except among LEO who also happen to be gun enthusiasts. I’ve taken numerous intermediate to advanced classes in pistol and carbine, in classes that were well-attended by cops, and even SWAT team members. Almost without exception my buddy and I were both faster and more accurate than the best that SWAT had to offer.

      When I was with Microsoft and used to arrange some of these classes – which were occasionally filled out by LEO attendees to get the necessary enrollment numbers – it used to piss them off royally that they were consistently outshot by a bunch of software geeks.

    • “We all know that cops make mistakes, and so does the FBI, but unlike most local jurisdictions, the FBI has a management which ASSUMES that mistakes will be made, but REFUSES to be open about mitigating them or preventing them in the future.”

      With all due respect, Rivrdog, this mentality has trickled down into numerous police jurisdictions with predictable and unpleasant results.

      Now who watches the watchmen?

    • One of my best friends decided that working in the FBI crime lab was her dream job. She went to college and graduated with a triple major (Forensic Science, Criminal Justice and Psychology). She moved to DC and eventually got hired by the FBI to work in the crime lab.

      She hated it.

        • I can’t remember exactly why she hated it because she worked there back in the ’80s. Maybe the corporate culture wasn’t a good fit? She stayed there for a couple of years but eventually quit.

    • “We all know that cops make mistakes…”
      So you think the events at Ruby Ridge were a mistake? That’s cute.

      I guess we’d have discuss the sense of the word as you’re using it. For example;
      To make the decision to go to war, or to join in on an existing war, aginst the constitution is a mistake. Having made the decision, shooting someone during the war is intentional. Actually it was all intentional, at least in light of the clear and simple meaning of the constitution.

      Or are you saying that the feds showed up with a sniper on an innocent man’s property because they were actually going out to rifle practice on vacation in North Idaho and took a wrong turn or received bad directions to the shooting range? THAT would be a mistake, but then actually killing people once there would still be intentional, unless you’re asserting that they couldn’t tell a living human being from a steel target or something.

      Or are you saying that it was a mistake to follow orders from the Clintons? We need to be clear on these things, because they’ll be happening with increased frequency, and cops will of course be in the middle of the deep shit they’re now willingly helping to create if they don’t figure it out fucking quick.

      • It happened during the Bush (1) adminstration.

        But other than that you are correct. The snipers were given “shoot on sight” orders. That was far from a “mistake”.

        • Correction noted, again. Thanks. You’ve made that point before, and I have Waco, TX so engraved onto my mind that the Clintons (and Reno) pop up in both cases.

          One Progressive is very much like another, and the Bush dynasty is definitely Progressive in their mindset.

          So just how many “mistakes” can we identify?
          Taking an oath to uphold the constitution and then
          Joining in on the war against the constitution.
          Singling out gun owners as priority targets.
          Trying to conflate racists and conservatives, when we all know that the Democrats, Progressives and Eugenicists were in bed with the KKK, the Bolsheviks, the Fascisti and similar leftist groups all along.
          Framing Randy Weaver.
          Doubling down when Weaver refused to roll over.

          The list is long, and at each step the choices were made in favor of evil and in direct contradiction to everything the United States were supposed to stand for. We could say that making those choices, one after another after another after another, were “mistakes” but they were certainly very willful and very calculated “mistakes”. More are on the way.

  2. They’re using politics as a distraction while they build the police state using the bureaucracy. Anyone notice how this government shutdown charade has been used to wipe the NSA and IRS stories off the front page?

    • I still want a trial for the Fast & Furious gun crime, and another for the scandal behind the Egyptian embassy attack? You’re exactly correct. They’re using a never-ending parade of scandal to keep us off kilter, but how many are actually falling for it? Far less than they wish, I submit. I know life-long leftists who are starting to wake up.

      You know the Soviets would knock off some of their most ideologically committed supporters once the SHTF because the shock of what had happened was enough to turn them around. In other words; the most useful idiots are usually among the first to be put up against the wall and shot by their handlers.

  3. “It covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.” – Alexis de Tocqueville

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