Question Of The Week, 3/30/08

Good morning. I came real close to being real late with this weeks question. I had it in my head that this was Saturday. I think I am late on some other stuff. This weeks question of the week once again comes from my local paper but I've heard about problems with the subject in other areas. Until just over a month ago tasers had not been issued to the Saint Joseph, Missouri Police Department. There have been articles about the police putting them to use in the paper two days in a row now.This is the second one.



Taser use remains controversial nationwide
by Ahmad Safi
Sunday, March 30, 2008



As police Tasers become more common — consider a new term for your vocabulary: excited delirium.

Excited delirium can lead to confrontations with police.

“It’s generally a medical-related condition due to a variety of things, but it’s usually through drug use,” said Sgt. Eric Protzman of the St. Joseph Police Department. “It’s just the unfortunate fact that we then end up having intervention with them.”

A spokesman for Taser International, which currently has its weapon on police belts in 4,300 law enforcement agencies, said the so-called “deadly cocktail” — drug mixing with the natural brain chemical dopamine and high levels of adrenaline — has generally already mixed before officers get on scene.

“Wanting to fight six or seven officers for 10 to 15 minutes is very erratic behavior,” said Steve Tuttle, the spokesman. “The baton strikes, the blows to the face don’t register to the person because pain is no longer a factor. Those normal signals that you would get are shutting down and being disregarded.”

With the addition in early March of the St. Joseph Police Department, now all local law enforcement — from your courthouse deputy to the county deputy — carry these guns that emit an initial 50,000 sparking volts and follow with about 1,200 volts in a five-second spurt.

Mr. Protzman, a certified Taser

trainer, said part of the training includes watching for the series of abnormal behaviors, such as excited delirium. Five officer injuries last year prompted top police brass to go before the City Council and ask for the $30,000 Taser purchase.

Police said in the first month on the street, nine suspects have been Tased and about 30 others threatened with the weapon before they complied.

Police Chief Chris Connally said officers are seeing increased compliance on the street just by having the Taser.

There have been no officer injuries and fewer serious injuries to suspects, he said.

“If you figure we used it nine times and 30 times we didn’t have to deploy it, that’s potentially 39 fights that nobody was seriously injured in — officer or suspect,” he said. “I’d be willing to bet within this first year, we’ll see the same results that other cities have seen with the Taser, where their uses of force have gone down.”

The most high-profile case was the first Tasing incident by officers on March 3. The label excited delirium was bandied about, but police cannot confirm it.

Late that night, two officers tried to put handcuffs on a 26-year-old man with active warrants. He resisted — the fight was on and the three brawled on the floor of a doughnut shop.

According to police, Kory May was Tased “multiple times” as he struggled to run away and kick at officers.

Mr. May thinks he was Tased eight times. Police confirm he was Tased once after he had been placed in handcuffs because he continued to thrash with his legs.

Mr. May hired an attorney and expressed plans to sue the department for excessive force.

“He had to be Tased multiple times to be brought under control,” Mr. Connally said.

Ahmad Safi can be reached at ahmadsafi@npgco.com.

Taser rules

Under police deployment rules:

* Officers cannot draw or display the Taser other than for a justified use of force or for training purposes.

* If an officer decides to shoot the Taser, the officer must give a proper warning to other officers and to the targeted subject.

* The optimal location is the subject’s back, where there is less likelihood to serious injury.



I have read about law suits being filed over taser usage in other areas so I'm going to assume that most police departments have them. Maybe you can remember when they first got them in your area. This weeks Question Of The Week is. Are nine tasings in the first thirty days a bit much?

I'll post my answer in the Comment Section Monday night.

Thanks go to,
The St. Joe. News-Press


God Bless America, God Save The Republic.

Why Ron Paul Still Runs

Newsweek Magazine published an article explaining why Ron Paul hasn't given up. The way things stand right now when election day comes I'll be voting for him. I know he can't possibly win I just want to send the Republican Party a message.

Thanks go to,
Newsweek Magazine.

God Bless America, God Save The Republic.

Question Of The Week, 3/23/08

Good morning. The Question Of The Week has returned and will be posted every Sunday morning. This weeks question comes from an article I read in my local paper. It tells about the paper downsizing, more jobs lost.


Newspaper announces restructuring, job cuts
by St. Joseph News-Press
Saturday, March 22, 2008


News-Press & Gazette Co. has begun implementing a strategic plan to improve its newspaper division’s financial performance and position the company for future growth, president and publisher David Bradley announced Friday.

The changes will affect most departments of the company’s flagship newspaper, the St. Joseph News-Press, as well as the community newspapers it publishes in Kansas and Missouri.

Several positions will be eliminated in St. Joseph, Mr. Bradley said. Among those, he said, is the position previously held by opinion page editor and columnist Mark Sheehan. Mr. Sheehan’s last day with the newspaper was Friday.

“We respect everything Mark has contributed to the News-Press, but we have made the decision that the work of the opinion editor can be shared among several other staff members in the newsroom,” Mr. Bradley said.

He added that a severance package would be offered to employees who lose their positions because of the restructuring.

Dennis Ellsworth, News-Press executive editor, will add the title of editorial page editor and direct the editorial board.

The changes across the company’s newspapers, when fully implemented over the next several weeks, are expected to reduce operating costs substantially while ensuring that core business functions are supported and continue uninterrupted, Mr. Bradley said.

“Our situation mirrors what is going on throughout the newspaper industry,” Mr. Bradley said.

“The slowing economy has severely impacted advertising revenues, particularly in such large categories as automotive, real estate and telecommunications. At the same time, our fixed costs, especially for newsprint and fuel, are climbing quickly. Our customers are feeling the pinch, too.

“We really are faced with no other responsible alternative to cutting our operating costs as prudently as we can and working to restrain cost increases passed on to our readers and advertisers,” he said.

The changes announced Friday included a large-scale reorganization of the company’s suburban newspaper group in the Kansas City neighborhoods of Johnson County, Kan.

Other Kansas newspapers owned and operated by the company include the Atchison Globe, the Hiawatha World, the Miami County Republic in Paola, the Louisburg Herald and the Osawatomie Graphic. Other Missouri newspapers in the group include the Warrensburg Daily Star-Journal, the Kearney Courier, the Smithville Herald, the Liberty Tribune, the Raytown Tribune and the Sun News papers based in Gladstone.


Lets look at part of what David Bradley had to say again, “Our situation mirrors what is going on throughout the newspaper industry,”. This weeks Question Of The Week is. Could Mr. Bradley be saying that his paper is losing money because so many people are now turning to the Internet and all of it's blog sites for their news and information?

I'll post my answer in the Comment Section Monday night.

Thanks go to,
The St. Joe. News-Press

God Bless America, God Save The Republic.

Would be proper to say that the right protected in

I was just checking my e-mail and found an interesting one from Gun Owners Of America. In case you hadn't guessed it is about the Supreme Court making a decision on the meaning of the Second Amendment, "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." I always thought that was pretty easy to understand, it's not real long and it doesn't have any real big words. One of the questions that's now being ask is, "would be proper to say that the right protected in
the Second Amendment shall not be "unreasonably infringed"?








Wednesday, March 19, 2008


Gun owners had their day in court on Tuesday, when the U.S. Supreme Court
heard oral arguments in the DC v. Heller case, which involves a challenge to
the DC gun ban.

Absent some world-shaking surprise, it is pretty clear that there are five
votes on the Supreme Court to declare that the Second Amendment is an
individual right.

That fact alone should be enough to settle the argument over gun control and
protect gun owners' rights. But as we all know, that's where the battle over
the meaning of the Second Amendment begins.

More to the point, Justice John Paul Stevens asked Alan Gura, the attorney
for Dick Heller, if it would be proper to say that the right protected in
the Second Amendment shall not be "unreasonably infringed"?

To our shock and horror, Gura answered "yes." He did qualify his answer
somewhat by saying "we don't know" exactly what this "unreasonable standard
looks like." But he conceded a significant amount of ground with his
answer, because any ban would be "reasonable" to Chuck Schumer and Sarah
Brady.

Truth be told, we do have a proper standard for interpreting the Second
Amendment. The language doesn't say anything about "reasonable" or
"unreasonable;" it simply says the right of the people "shall not be
infringed." It's a shame that even people on "our side" don’t fully
understand that.

That's why when USA Today looked at all the briefs which had been submitted,
the editors decided to use GOA for the opposing voice in today's editorial.
The editors told our attorneys that GOA had an argument that was
distinctive.

Indeed we do. GOA's brief says:

[T]he argument that "the right of the people" is subject to reasonable
regulation and restriction tramples on the very words of the Second
Amendment, reading the phrase -- "shall not be infringed" -- as if it read
"shall be subject only to reasonable regulation to achieve public safety."

"Public safety" is frequently a canard that tyrants hide behind to justify
their oppressive policies. Writing in USA Today, our attorneys Herbert
Titus and William Olson stated:

No government deprives its citizens of rights without asserting that its
actions are "reasonable" and "necessary" for high-sounding reasons such as
"public safety." A right that can be regulated is no right at all, only a
temporary privilege dependent upon the good will of the very government
officials that such right is designed to constrain.

For the rest of the editorial:

For the GOA brief, and other important documents and briefs in DC v. Heller:


I don't know about the rest of you but I feel that our Founding Fathers were some pretty plain spoken easy to understand folks that said what they meant and meant what they said. I'd dare to say that they would find the idea of this case having to go before the Supreme Court was pretty unreasonable.

Thanks go to
Gun Owners Of America.

God Bless America, God Save The Republic.

Second Amendmet, A New Law?

Last night my Grand Daughter said something about a new law that will make it legal to have guns in your home. I'm thinking that was just the way something sounded on TV. I'm pretty sure she has heard the Second Amendment (A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.) mentioned around here before. I did find an article about it in my morning paper today.


"Second Amendment in the cross hairs?
Gun owners weigh in on 'right to bear arms'

by Jimmy Myers
Wednesday, March 19, 2008






For the men in Mike Jones’ family, carrying a gun is a rite of passage.

“I think for people my age,” he said while loading a 17-round, 9 mm clip at a local shooting range, “it’s a link to the Old West.”

With the Second Amendment up for discussion in the U.S. Supreme Court this week, gun owners like Mr. Jones are waiting to see if the “right to bear arms” is redefined. The issue was raised due to the District of Columbia’s handgun ban, the constitutionality of which has been questioned.

“We’re not going to like it if you try to take our guns,” Mr. Jones said on whether the court sides with a faction that insists the writers of the Constitution intended that only militia members can legally own guns. “ ... Probably be a lot of guns that come up missing.”

Joe Collins, manager at Dean’s Gun Shop, pulled a sign from behind a long rack of guns Tuesday and skimmed his fingertip across the words in the Bill of Rights.

“The right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed,” he said, replacing the sign. “You can’t have just military and law enforcement owning guns. If you’ve got that, you might as well have Hitler back again ... I think an individual has the right to own a firearm.”

Mr. Collins guessed that about 60 percent of area gun owners are hunters while the rest are collectors and shooters. A smaller percentage own guns for the purpose of protection.

“Most of them could care less,” he said of enthusiasts who use the firing range attached to the shop. “They just want to come in and punch paper.”

Dr. Jonathan Euchner, assistant professor of government at Missouri Western State University, said he doesn’t expect a ground-breaking decision on the case. His thought is that the Supreme Court, being slow-moving and conservative, will duck the issue.

“They may decide the case,” he said, “but they’re not going to decide it in a sweeping way that reinvigorates the regulation of guns or sends the gun lobbyists into the streets dancing.”

Jimmy Myers can be reached at jimmym@npgco.com."


It doesn't sound like most folks are to worried about this but there's something about the Supreme Court making a decision on any of our rights that bothers me. It's kind of like hearing someone say I'm with the IRS and I'm here to help you.

Thanks go to,
The Saint Joe News-Press

God Bless America, God Save The Republic.

Where Nothing Can Go Wrong

I got an E-mail alert/warning from the good folks over at Jews For The Preservation Of Firearms Ownership (JPFO) this morning. One of the things I kept thinking about while reading it was a 1973 science fiction movie staring Yul Brynner, Westworld, where nothing can go wrong. For some strange reason the idea of robots, armed much better than Yul was in the movie patrolling the streets to keep us safe just doesn't give me a warm fuzzy feeling.

Thanks go to JPFO

God Bless America, God Save The Republic.

I Was A Little Surprised

I've been without a working computer and the Internet for a few months now so I got a little behind. My local paper was all I was reading. So I was a little surprised when I read this New York Times article. Jack Kevorkian running for office. Some feel that a lot of our elected officials should do some jail time. So if he is elected he'll already have that out of the way.

Thanks go to The New York Times.

God Bless America, God Save The Republic.

I'am Back

Yes, I'm back on-line and I'm here to tell you that life without your computer or the Internet is a nightmare. I lost my E-mail address book and some files but life goes on.

God Bless America, God Save The Republic.