Bloodless Coup

the cnn story, in my view, suggests a gross and unnecessary use of a pretty nasty weapon on a non-violent suspect, but while there's plenty of relativism in the media and in the rhetoric, in a court of law the law applies the same. if -- and naturally it's a big if -- the offender's use of a cop's taser on said cop actually qualifies (and that requires more than a mere criminal information; it requires a court or jury finding him guilty of the charge) as use of a firearm under wisconsin law, then it would qualify equally against a cop who misused a taser to a criminal extent. i'm not naive about the likelihood of such a charge being brought, but it's, say, as likely as a gun charge being brought against a cop, which, albeit rare, does happen.

my guess is taser as firearm is a novel thing that some states -- presumably wisconsin among them -- have gotten ahead of by adding, specifically, to their criminal code. alternatively, it's a matter of prosecutorial creativity, using what will necessarily be a broad definition of "firearm" to include a taser, as a handheld device that deploys a harmful projectile to hit a remote target, or some such. and if the prosecutors succeed in getting this interpretation adopted in wisconsin, that'll be a precedent that will cut in all directions in the future, a be careful what you wish for sort of thing.

i'm a big fan of tasers being recognized as firearms, and their misuse being charged against abusive cops as well as non-cop criminals, because on balance, given who has them, it'll hit cops much harder than others. something like that might be exactly what's needed to curb the patent abuse of the taser we've been seeing ever since cops started carrying them.

more generally, my westlaw password didn't survive some recent computer work on the home laptop, so i'll have to wait until tomorrow to check out the wisconsin statute at the office. needless to say, though, given the vagaries of state criminal codes, it's really not fair to compare statements in ohio and wisconsin, as each is presumably somewhat based upon the respective state's law, which might differ substantially on tasers.

It gets even better: in some states (like, oh, the one I'm sitting in) private citizens are not allowed to own Tasers at all.

It doesn't matter that I jumped through the insane amount of hoops Massachusetts requires for a License to Carry Firearms; I can't have a Taser.

If me and my houseful of kids lived in a rough neighborhood and I needed to be serious about home defense, that would really piss me off.

so mass. law sets it up such that -- hoops aside -- your only powerful home defense option is a gun, but not the nonlethal taser. perhaps they're worried that the whole "nonlethal" thing would tempt you to abuse it, and you can't be trusted with it. oh, wait . . . .

btw, re whether the firearm charge will stand up in Wisconsin, the best precedent i've found suggests not:

As recognized by the parties, “firearm” is not defined under chapter 941. Indeed, the only statutory definition of firearm is found in § 167.31, Stats., wherein the legislature stated that firearm “means a weapon that acts by force of gunpowder.”

State v. Rardon, 518 N.W. 2d 330, 331-32 (Wis. Ct. App. 1994). That's Wisconsin's intermediate appellate court; as to Rardon, the Wisconsin Supreme Court denied review, so it's binding precedent -- "good law," as we lawyers like to say.

But in the absence of a statutory definition, of course, whether that will be modified by another appellate panel or, ultimately, the state Supreme Court, to encompass Tasers remains to be seen.

Thanks for looking into that moon. It just seems absurd to have the double standard (not to mention the double standard that jacflash may own an assault rifle but not a taser).

Actually, I can't own an assault rifle without my local police chief's (entirely arbitrary) permission either, same as with handguns or the right to carry. The only lethal weapon I have anything resembling a "right" to own here is a non-high-cap rifle or shotgun, and I have to jump through a whole series of hoops, "safety courses", and special permissions (and fees, oh, don't forget the fees) even for that.

And even if I jump through all the hoops required for a handgun, and get my local police chief's consent to buy one, my choice of handgun is essentially limited to new S&W or H-K products, because those are the only two major companies willing to spend the money and grief to go through our state Attorney General's "handgun safety testing" program (imposed by fiat, without legislative approval or even oversight, as a "consumer protection" measure) required for permission to sell in the state. And as far as I can tell, S&W only does it because their HQ and factory are here in MA.

See how great is is when the Democrats run everything, without serious challenge?

in talking this over with two colleagues over lunch, one quipped, in closing a hilarious litany of possible "firearms" violations, "what if you write 'firearm' on a piece of paper, balled it up, and throw it at a cop?"

"See how great is is when the Democrats run everything, without serious challenge?"

Jacflash,
On the good side, you won't have to worry about the mag spring wearing out on your P30 if it's only holding ten rounds. On the lousy side, because of these Democrats who Armand assures me are moving to the center on gun control, HK doesn't even make their American version of the SL8 or USC with mags that can hold more than ten rounds. But again on the good side, I'm much less likely to ever think about putting a couple grand down on one of their beautiful rifles.

Errr, there's a bit of a difference between national Democrats running everthing (which they still won't even if Hillary wins given who Bush has stocked the courts with) and Massachusetts Democrats running everything - which I can't see ever happening, except in MA.

Armand: my point, as ever, is that one-party rule is never desirable, even if the party in question is your favorite team.

I get that. My response was more aimed at where Morris was taking that point.

Ah. Well, yes.

Bro,
It wasn't MA Dems who want to ban the FN 5.7 pistol and ammunition, it was sponsored by Senate Dems from NY and NJ and supported by Senator Levin from Michigan. In the House, Reps from PA, CA, RI, NY, VA, NJ, and CT have co-sponsored the bill. Bear in mind that armor piercing ammunition for that pistol is currently restricted to law enforcement, and it is only the non-armor-piercing ammunition that is available to us citizens. They call it a copkiller pistol and ammunition without it ever being used to kill a cop.

This is the misrepresentation (either they're uninformed jumping on the anti-gun bandwagon or they're, as Baltar would say, just LYING) the broad coalition of Democrats use in their agenda to take guns away from ordinary citizens, just as happened in New Orleans after Katrina. Of course, when you have one reporter saying they shot a five seven round through a vest (no word on how old the vest was, what kind of kevlar it was), the same Dems so very eager to assail the Bush administration over using old vests in Iraq despite their concerns about lesser effectiveness forget all that and assume that all five seven ammo must penetrate all vests, all the time, because reporters don't lie or have agendas. Your Congress at work.

Congress at work? Ummm - how? I haven't seen them pass this thing you are talking about. And that was my point. There are hundreds of Democrats in Congress, but gun control issues are not something they are united on. Not. At. All. And I mentioned MA, b/c that was what jacflash was talking about. That wasn't about Congress at all.

And there is no such thing as a "broad coalition of Democrats" seeking to "take guns away from ordinary citizens". Turn off Rush or whoever is feeding you such nonsense and come back to planet Earth. It's nice here - and there are lots of guns that aren't going anywhere to make you happy.

As to your specific gripe - uh, what the hell are you talking about? Was the reporter wrong somehow? I mean either the bullet went through the vest or not. If it did, s/he was correct. If not, s/he was wrong. To expect a reporter to turn such a story into an in-depth examination of which types or ammo go through which vests is really kind of peculiar. That level of detail is rarely in any story on any issue.

As I recall, when I first met jacflash back in the 1990s, and we discussed controls on the ownership of certain firearms in MA, the governor of that fine state was a certain W. Weld, Republican, and the state legislature was experiencing quite the upsurge in Republican representation.

Or no?

The worst of these controls were passed in 1998, after W.W. got bored and gave up the job. And the legislature hasn't been even remotely Republican in decades... in fact, on a local level, the party has been very nearly gerrymandered out of existence. With Romney gone there's very little GOP organization left here at all.

For all intents and purposes, our two parties in MA are the working-family-Catholic Dems and the Cambridge-moonbat-Dems. It's... different.

"As to your specific gripe - uh, what the hell are you talking about? Was the reporter wrong somehow? I mean either the bullet went through the vest or not. If it did, s/he was correct. If not, s/he was wrong. To expect a reporter to turn such a story into an in-depth examination of which types or ammo go through which vests is really kind of peculiar. That level of detail is rarely in any story on any issue."

Right, because guns are bad or guns are good, right? Why should we dare to expect a comprehension of complexity from Dims or their lib media? Unfortunately, that level of detail that I will not argue is rarely in any story on any issue is central to the point. The armor piercing type of ammunition that is already restricted to law enforcement and military is, as I think I said, already restricted. But the libs hear a news story about how a bullet from this gun can pierce a bullet proof vest, and suddenly all bullets fired from it are armor piercing (go back to the Ven diagram if you can't figure the flaw here) and the gun is a "copkiller," despite there being no record of this particular type of ammunition ever killing a cop.

You talk about Limbaugh, but you ignore that this is patent playing to the lib base, the same people who think all war is bad also think all guns are bad, and yes that lacks the appreciation of complexity (or as I like to call it, intelligence). And first you argue that Jesse Jackson and Sharpton don't represent Dims, and now you argue that at least four reactionary and/or corrupt senators plus elected reps from at least seven different states also don't represent the Democratic Party. While I'm glad to know that you disown Schumer for not being a typical Democrat, would you mind listing just exactly which Democrats do and do not represent Democratic interests, so that I can catch you in this shell game I think you're playing here.

Because as I recall every time Pat Robertson and a few other extremist folks say anything racist or inflamatory, you and/or Binky assume they speak for conservatives in general. So why, if you're being rational, does it not work when the shoe's on the other hand, so to speak.

1. Quite the rant, but you didn't answer my question. Was the report factually accurate. You've got a much better case for Big Corporate Media wanting to take away our guns if it wasn't ... but you aren't saying that here.

2. "Reactionary"? I don't think that word means what you think it means. Though of course they might be "reacting" to gun violence in their consitutencies. Shocking that ... And what's with the "corrupt" slur? Exactly what about favoring these laws is corrupt?

3. And, again, in case my point wasn't clear - that Democrats X, Y, and Z favor something doesn't mean that most Democrats do. Is Sen. Schumer more of a spokesman for the party than Al Sharpton - well, duh. But that doesn't mean he's a spokesman for the party on issues of gun control.

" . . . the lib base, the same people who think all war is bad also think all guns are bad, and yes that lacks the appreciation of complexity (or as I like to call it, intelligence)."

i'm a little man in a little city with a little group of "lib base" friends, and i don't know a single one who thinks all war is bad (indeed, i know only a couple who think afghanistan was bad, and i'm not among them), or a single one who would take away all guns.

why don't you just call us all aliens, call for the extermination of non-terrestrial life, and get on with whatever baby-eating rituals it is you and your fellow republicans do when the "lib base" isn't looking.

seriously, dude, you're just silly. arguing with you is like arguing with a tree.

Ah, the lib base! I can even hear Rush's voice in my head when I read it.

Just for the record, one could dig back a few years through bloodless and find plenty of posts in which all three of us have said that we aren't (nor do we generally support positions which are strictly) anti-war. What we have said repeatedly is that we are anti- stupid foreign policy including poorly conceived and executed (and hence, stupid) wars.

We are joined by some of the most warmonger-y of IR scholars (hardly the "lefty base") in this assertion.

Likewise, the idea that all guns are bad.

Which brings me back to something we have all said, and I will paraphrase in Baltar voice since he is in class at the moment: "Morris, now you're just making shit up!"

Right, because guns are bad or guns are good, right? Why should we dare to expect a comprehension of complexity from Dims or their lib media?

I wonder if you have the capacity to step back and appreciate just how perfectly self-undermining these two sentences of yours are. "Comprehension of complexity", indeed.