Let me duck down behind some cover here. Yes! I think that felons should be allowed to purchase – and carry – firearms.I’m still down here. Are you finished with
rotten eggs and tomatoes? Okay, I’ll stick my head back up.
Felons should be allowed to carry guns!
Before I continue, let me state clearly that I am no happier about armed robbers, murderers and rapists having firearms than you are.
So why do I take this position? It’s really a no-brainer. Violent criminals do not go to local gun store and fill out Brady paperwork to buy their firearms today, but they still buy them on street and carry them. They will always buy them on street and carry them, no matter what Herculean efforts are made by law enforcement to stop this. Yet a portion of my paycheck goes toward taxes to support enforcement of an unenforceable law. Police officers who do not have time to do one tenth of their jobs must waste time and effort trying to enforce said unenforceable law.
The criminals law was written for completely ignore every single law that inconveniences them, especially this one!
Laws against felons purchasing or owning firearms are a real hand job, folks. It’s all just another way your government has of bilking you out of money and convincing you – wrongly – that your government is actually doing something about crime, while it victimizes those who really do try to go straight after a mistake.
What a criminal waste!
Is cost of enforcement my only objection to law against felons purchasing and/or carrying firearms? I only wish it were!
My biggest objection is because our legal system is broken. It is no longer either fair or reasonable. People are labeled as “felons” today who are in no way dangerous criminals.
You don’t believe me? Your privilege. But I am going to tell you three stories here that are absolutely true. My only deviation from hard fact is to change names to protect “felons” involved, all of whom happen to be personal friends of mine.
Keep in mind that I am a law-abiding citizen – unusually so for this day and age. I am nearly fifty years old. My adult criminal record consists entirely of three minor speeding tickets. Period. I am a concealed handgun license holder, a concealed handgun instructor, and owner/manager of a licensed investigations firm in Texas. So I’ve passed a bunch of FBI checks, and I am officially certified to be so clean I squeak.
Why, then, do I count three felons among my closest friends?
Well, let’s take a close look at those “felonies.”
Case #1 concerns my oldest friend, Terry. She and I grew up during seventies. We weren’t particularly wild compared to folks we hung out with, but way back in those days Terry did occasionally smoke a little grass. Being a fairly sharp consumer even in her youth, Terry would usually go in with a couple of other folks and buy a quarter pound of grass about once a year. This left her with an ounce or two for personal use and cost her very little money.
Do math. One quarter pound is four ounces. Up to four ounces was a misdemeanor in Texas, even decades ago when this all took place. Terry never, never bought more than a quarter pound for just that reason. On occasion in question, Terry had picked up her quarter pound and already delivered two ounces to her other partners. When her house in San Angelo was raided, there was a grand total of two ounces in her freezer.
She was a real drug mastermind, folks. She kept stuff in her freezer because it would take her a year or more to smoke up an ounce, let alone two.
Why were there four and a half ounces when she went to trial? I’ll leave answer to your imagination, but I’ll give you one big, ugly hint. We are talking about San Angelo, Texas police department here.
Terry did her four years probation and hasn’t touched stuff in decades since. She was a foster parent for years, and is now adoptive parent of two beautiful little boys. A criminal? Don’t make me laugh!
So why is she forever barred from purchasing, owning or carrying a firearm for self defense? She does not even have right to keep a firearm to defend her children! Is this right or fair?
Case #2 involves a neighbor I have only known for about five years. Iris is about my age, so she was seventeen about thirty years ago. In any event, thirty long years ago, at ripe old age of seventeen, she stupidly wrote some bad checks and got prosecuted for it. Like Terry, she did her probation, went forth and sinned no more.
Today she is an ordained minister, for crying out loud! Yet, she is legally barred from defending her own life. Does this make sense to you?
Both of preceding cases were prosecuted in Texas, under Texas law. My third and final case is much more complicated – and much, much more frightening. This was a federal case, and it actually involved prison time.
Brace yourself for a very ugly look at your federal government and extremely unprofessional reasons behind many prosecutions!
First let me give you cast of characters here:
Seth was my first husband. He was a police officer and just about most violent and dangerously psychotic human being I have ever known. As I have told a number of people over years, Seth taught me what wrong end of a Colt .45 tastes like. I hope never to see him again.
Bill was my skydiving instructor and a parachute rigger/manufacturer. He remains to this day one of my closest friends.
