Related: Massachusetts Militarizes Police Forces
Massachusetts Police Disarmed
So that was just a ruse, huh, until the masses calmed down and were not looking?
Also see: Drug War Making a Killing in Boston
Massachusetts Militarizes For Swine Flu Slaughter
FBI Planning False-Flag Terror Attack on Boston
Yeah, ANY EXCUSE will do to TIGHTEN the TYRANNY!!
"State tightens rules on weapons; Revamps program supplying military surplus to police" by Donovan Slack, Globe Staff | January 2, 2010
The state is planning to restart a controversial federal program that supplied local police departments with surplus military weapons, saying it is beefing up restrictions to prevent law enforcement agencies from acquiring caches of exotic arms.
I love this "surplus" military weapons stuff!
You think you WASTED TAX DOUGH and OVERPAID or what, America, if the military is just GIVING the STUFF AWAY!!
I want to know where is MY BAILOUT? Where is MY HANDOUT? Where is MY GIFT SURPLUS??
Governor Deval Patrick had suspended the program in June after a Globe review found that police in some towns were receiving large numbers of weapons without the knowledge of civilian leaders and that, in some cases, they had purchased armaments such as grenade launchers and fully automatic M-16 rifles.
Under new rules detailed by state officials this week, police departments will not be allowed to acquire weapons not typically used in local law enforcement, and they will be required to get permission from local civilian leaders before receiving weapons under the program....
Who is going to stand up to the police chief or whatever? Do you challenge the cop who arrests you? If you do you get a beat down! And who is making money of all this? Weapons-makers? Making weapons we didn't need?
Patrick shut down the program after the Globe reported that 82 local police departments, including those at some state colleges, had received 1,068 weapons during the previous 15 years, including 486 fully automatic M-16 machine guns and 564 M-14 semi-automatic rifles, many without community knowledge....
Letting the people know? In Massachusetts?
See: The Perils of One-Party Politics: The Ruling Party
The Perils of One-Party Politics: Massachusetts' Democracy
Can you see why I'm down on my state and the Democrats?
Never caught that guy, huh, Globe?
What good are more guns going to do there, huh?
And a bit closer to home....
West Springfield plans to retrofit its grenade launchers to fire tear gas canisters in crowd control or hostage situations....
First of all, who would want to take anyone hostage in our stinking metropolis?
You can see the REAL REASON they want this stuff, right?
The military surplus program began in the 1990s and has provided weapons free of charge to local police departments across the country, which pay only shipping costs.
Yeah, well, SOMEONE had to PAY to PRODUCE THEM in the FIRST PLACE, and that would be the U.S. TAXPAYER via the U.S. MILITARY!!
Yeah, the OVERPRODUCTION is FREE STUFF!! You would have BEEN BETTER OFF, Massachusetts, if the stuff had NEVER BEEN PRODUCED!! You would have MORE of YOUR MONEY in YOUR POCKET and LESS TOOLS for TYRANNY -- because this is starting to smell like a BIG LIBERAL DOSE!
So WHAT is COMING DOWN the PIKE, huh, Bay Stater?
Weapons are deemed surplus when the military phases them out in favor of newer equipment, according to the agency that oversees the program, the US Defense Reutilization and Marketing Service....
--more--"
Coming soon, a familiar sight on the streets of Boston:
Police apprehended a 23-year-old man after a standoff yesterday on Humboldt Avenue in Roxbury. They said he had fought Thursday with his girlfriend in Lynn and had fired a rifle. (Dina Rudick/Globe Staff)
Oh, I feel safer already seeing that.
Actually, readers, it sort of frightens me. We don't need all that heavy firepower out here.
Of course, it would be nice if JUST ONCE the AUTHORITIES in Massachusetts would FOLLOW the LAW!
Dozens of gun possession convictions statewide could be overturned in the coming months as state judges interpret a narrow US Supreme Court ruling that found Massachusetts routinely violated the constitutional rights of drug defendants.
Related: Supreme Court Administers Truth Serum to Massachusetts
Coakley's Missing Case
It's SO EMBARRASSING considering how POLITICALLY SMUG the liberal Democrats are around here. You CAN'T EVEN SAY Republican around here without a snide look, and yet there cherished Democrat dictatorship is sickeningly lawless and corrupt!
The 5-4 ruling by the nation’s highest court, issued this summer, forced Massachusetts prosecutors to abandon the state’s historic practice of using written lab reports in drug trials to prove that seized materials were illicit drugs. Now they must have drug technicians available in courtrooms to testify and be cross-examined about procedure, and the state Appeals Court is applying the same standard to gun possessions.
Yeah, that PESKY CONSTITUTION and BILL of RIGHTS, huh, Massachusetts?
And over the past several months, based on that ruling, the state Appeals Court has overturned a handful of gun possession convictions because ballisticians were not available to testify that the guns worked when they were test fired, according to attorneys and officials....
***********************The Supreme Court case concerned the appeal of Luis Melendez-Diaz who was arrested with two other men in Boston in 2001 for allegedly dealing drugs.
Here we go again with the DRUGS!!
Just LEGALIZE the s*** and CLEAN THIS ALL UP, will ya!?
The three were placed in a police cruiser. Police officers searched the cruiser after the men got out and found 19 plastic bags of cocaine hidden.
Go ahead and legalize it; I'm not going down to the corner store to get any of that s***.
Technicians at the lab at the state Department of Public Health made the determination that the substance was cocaine, prompting prosecutors to submit three “certificates of analysis’’ at trial.
How can you trust anything that comes out of a state lab anymore?
Melendez-Diaz objected to the admission of the certificates without the testimony of the analysts. Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the court, said such defendants have a constitutional right to confront lab analysts, in part because the experts may feel pressure to manipulate the evidence to favor prosecutors.
Naaaawwwwwww, they NEVER DO THAT!!!!
It sounds heretical, but God Bless Scalia for UPHOLDING the BILL of RIGHTS on this one!!!
--more--"
And with or without more guns, the gang-banging ghetto never changes:
"Police, activists urge cease-fire; Ask gangs to put down guns this holiday season" by Maria Cramer, Globe Staff | November 28, 2009
Probation officers have focused their curfew checks on people deemed to be the most dangerous. Impact players who have been shot have been relocated outside the city for their own protection and to prevent retaliatory gunfire, said Mark Prisco, chief probation officer of West Roxbury District Court.
And courts are ordering more gang members arrested on charges like gun possession to be relocated outside the city and equipped with global-positioning system devices so they cannot return.
Not in MY TOWN?!?!?!!!!!!!!
Related: Hothampton
Now I'm starting to wonder.
NO WORD on ANY ARRESTS YET despite the POLITICAL BRAVADO and and PHOTO OP!!
Prisco said of the myriad strategies, “I think it saves lives.’’
By shoveling off some violently-disposed criminal to some other community?
Ah, Massachusetts hospitality through and through!!
And I guess the guns are needed for this exercise in extortion, huh?
Police said numerous companies were involved in the crackdown, dubbed Operation Clean Sweep.....
At a dozen checkpoints, 85 transport vehicles were investigated, and 52 violations were discovered....
In a joint investigation between Brockton police and state Department of Transportation officials attached to the Registry of Motor Vehicles,’’ investigators cited drivers of school vans and station wagons for dozens of violations, including driving without a proper license and safety issues including bald tires and overloading vehicles so much that some children were not being properly secured in car seats or seat belts.
So the COPS STAKED OUT PLACES and WAITED to HAND OUT REVENUE-MAKING TICKETS, huh?
So HOW MANY RAPE, ROBBERY (including this one), and MURDER CASES are sitting idle while they are watching cars pull up to the curb?
And this idea that WE DON'T CARE about OUR KIDS is insulting!
For the second time this year, police and transportation officials have uncovered serious violations in surprise inspections among drivers of vehicles carrying children to elementary schools and day care centers....
Nothing better to do, huh?
--more--"
And in ALL the TIME I have been reading the Boston Globe this is the ONLY TIME I SAW ANYTHING even remotely resembling a PRO-SECOND AMENDMENT piece.
ON A BEAUTIFUL May morning I leave my house and walk a short distance to a shop advertising "sporting goods and firearms." As I approach the counter, a man asks if he can help. Trying not to stammer, I say I want to buy a gun. I have various stories prepared to explain my odd request but he simply asks, "Do you have a permit?" When I say no, he says that I need one from the police, which they will issue only after I have taken a gun safety course. This costs around $100. I leave the shop clutching not a deadly weapon but several phone numbers.
The following morning, I step into a room where a man is sitting at a table with half a dozen handguns. We shake hands and he asks what I want a gun for. "Self-defense," I say, and, worrying that this is implausible, quickly add something about friends in Maine who hunt. But again, there is no need to elaborate. "Right," says my teacher.
Over the next two hours he patiently explains a subject in which he is an expert and I an utter novice. When I first pick up an unloaded revolver, my hand trembles, and it takes me several attempts to pull the trigger (which, by Massachusetts law, is set to pull at 10 pounds). He explains the differences between various handguns - single action and double action, revolvers, semi-automatics, automatics - how to load them, how to store them safely in a house or car. Massachusetts, as I am gradually learning, has the strictest gun-control laws in the country.
And we still have all this crime and killing?
The implications of these laws are many. My teacher describes in detail what counts as self-defense: You must be able to prove that your life, not merely your property, is in danger. At the same time, you must avoid excessive force. He recommends firing twice and then waiting. When you shoot someone, he explains, unless you're lucky enough to hit a major organ, shock is what makes a person drop. The new hollow-point bullets - which are recommended for self-defense - are good because they expand to tear more tissue.
I pass the multiple-choice quiz and my teacher issues me a certificate and wishes me luck. I am ready for the next stage: applying for a class "A" permit, which will allow me to carry a concealed weapon. I phone the Cambridge police and learn that this costs $100. Along with my certificate, I must provide proofs of residence and citizenship, and write a letter stating the purpose for which I want a firearm. The permit takes four to six weeks. As I am rapidly discovering, Massachusetts offers no quick route to legal gun ownership.
The right of the people..... the founding fathers knew what they were talking about; they were being occupied at the time.
But drive only 45 minutes north and everything changes. In New Hampshire, money and a valid ID will get you a handgun, although the dealer - a Federal Firearms Licensee - will conduct an instant background check by phone. Assuming you are not a prohibited person, at age 21 you can buy a gun and carry it openly.
I do not plan to make this drive, nor, currently, to apply for a permit. I decided to investigate buying a gun after the most recent mass shooting in Binghamton.
Related: Bluebird in Binghamton
Bluebird Flies From Binghamton to Pittsburgh Overnight
I'll never see a mass shooting the same again -- like so many other things.
How was it, I wondered, that everyone else knew how to do this? Besides a multitude of facts, I learned two things during my inquiries. The first is that despite my feeling that I was doing something momentous - crossing into the country of gun owners - other people took my desire for citizenship in the nation of the armed for granted. It was my previous lack of desire that needed explanation.
Yes, why would you not want to stand up for your rights?
The second is that being a citizen of this kind is not as hard as I imagined. My hand shook when I picked up that revolver, but, two hours later, when my teacher took me to the range, I loaded a .22, raised it and squeezed the trigger. I hit the target five times out of five. If the magazine had held more bullets I'd have kept shooting.
Margot Livesey , a guest columnist, teaches at Emerson College, and is author of "The House on Fortune Street."--more--"
Also see:
Invasion of the Police State
Police to Unconstitutionally Disarm Boston Residents
Gun Grab in Boston
Boston's Fascist Street Sweep
Boston's Advancing Police State
