Kevin Jensen
State Researcher
imported post
http://www.ksl.com/index.php?nid=370&sid=5062470
GUNS, GUNS, GUNS
December 12th, 2008 @ 1:50pm
By TOM CALLAN
The Blackwater defendants, charged with fatally shooting and wounding Iraqi citizens on Sept. 16, 2007, appeared last Monday before a Salt lake City magistrate. The case is heading back to Washington, D.C. for a Jan. 6, 2009 hearing. The magistrate found no probable cause for moving it out of Washington. I found part of the proceedings strangely humorous.
Lawyers for some of the defendants asked the court if their clients could keep their guns. One defendant requested permission to carry a weapon since he is in training to work with the Salt Lake County sheriff's office. The magistrate hesitated but then relented, granting the defendant permission to carry a weapon. But there was one condition: the weapon cannot be taken home. Another defendant wanted to use his firearm for hunting. His lawyer actually told the court that hunting would heal and calm his client's troubled nerves.
The magistrate did not hesitate this time; the answer was no. It struck me as odd that security guards charged with a total of 20 counts of voluntary manslaughter and 14 counts of involuntary manslaughter would insist on the exercise of their second amendment right at such an inauspicious time. They are, after all, charged with the indiscriminate use of firearms on unarmed citizens in Iraq.
http://www.ksl.com/index.php?nid=370&sid=5062470
GUNS, GUNS, GUNS
December 12th, 2008 @ 1:50pm
By TOM CALLAN
The Blackwater defendants, charged with fatally shooting and wounding Iraqi citizens on Sept. 16, 2007, appeared last Monday before a Salt lake City magistrate. The case is heading back to Washington, D.C. for a Jan. 6, 2009 hearing. The magistrate found no probable cause for moving it out of Washington. I found part of the proceedings strangely humorous.
Lawyers for some of the defendants asked the court if their clients could keep their guns. One defendant requested permission to carry a weapon since he is in training to work with the Salt Lake County sheriff's office. The magistrate hesitated but then relented, granting the defendant permission to carry a weapon. But there was one condition: the weapon cannot be taken home. Another defendant wanted to use his firearm for hunting. His lawyer actually told the court that hunting would heal and calm his client's troubled nerves.
The magistrate did not hesitate this time; the answer was no. It struck me as odd that security guards charged with a total of 20 counts of voluntary manslaughter and 14 counts of involuntary manslaughter would insist on the exercise of their second amendment right at such an inauspicious time. They are, after all, charged with the indiscriminate use of firearms on unarmed citizens in Iraq.
