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Sovereign Immunity Needs To Go. |
by Larry Pratt. Gun Owners
of America.
Most people in the 21st century look back on earlier times and
wonder how folks could ever have believed in the divine right
of kings (other than the king himself).
Well, we better wipe that condescending smile off our faces,
because we are no better today right here in the good old U.S.
of A.
The divine right of kings carried with it the notion that whatever
the king did was OK, because the king was the law. Another way
of saying the same thing is the king was considered to be above
the law.Today we have renamed this very mistaken view as the
doctrine of sovereign immunity.
The sovereign is immune from suffering any consequences of his
acts. Sometimes the sovereign (government) graciously allows
himself to be sued in specific, limited cases. But for the most
part, there is no accountability for government officials who
lie, cheat and steal and even on occasion, for those who commit
murder. Remember Ruby Ridge, where an FBI sniper shot in cold
blood a woman holding a baby?
Bob Arwady runs the Ammo Dump, a gun store in Houston, Texas.
His first exposure to the abuses of sovereign immunity came
from a knock on the door from the Texas Commission on Environmental
Quality. After operating his new shooting range for police and
public shooters for four months, the Commission shut him down
with the threat of fining shooters $5,000 for each bullet they
put in the dirt berms used as bullet traps. They claimed that
they had a water sample that proved that those bullets were
leaching lead in dangerous quantities into the stream behind
his range and polluting water downstream.
It turns out that the signed affidavit by the Environmental
Quality officer stating that he had taken the water sample was
a lie. Arwady never got to use his expert toxicology witness
who would have argued that metallic bullets never, ever leach.
They are not soluble. Only lead salts (such as those found in
lead paints) are dangerous.
Arwady's expert testimony was used last year in California to
stop a new EPA attack on lead shotgun pellets. But the lying
government "scientist" never lost a day's pay, let
alone served time in jail for perjury. Perhaps it is a bit much
to expect a prosecutor to press charges against a perjurer he
knew, or had reason to know, was lying through his teeth.
Soon after, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives
(BATFE) brought criminal charges against Arwady. They filed
nine charges claiming that he was illegally selling guns, thus
serving as a source of guns used in crimes. Three witnesses
were used at the trial to show that Arwady knowingly sold guns
illegally (not keeping a record of the customers who bought
them) and that he knowingly soldthem to felons.
One of the witnesses against Arwady was a retired cop who had
stolen guns from Arwady while working for him and then sold
them illegally.
He testified in exchange for a lesser sentence. Another witness
was a gunsmith who had bought guns from Arwady even though he
was a felon. Arwady dealt with him before background checks
were federally mandated, when people simply asserted that they
were not felons.
The gunsmith also testified in exchange for the promise of a
lesser sentence.
The third witness against Arwady was the parole officer who
at one time had supervised the gunsmith. The BATFE (and perhaps
state and county officials) pressured him to testify that he
had called Arwady several times warning him that the smith was
a felon. It turned out that was a flat-out lie.
The parole officer had not supervised the gunsmith for a full
five years before the smith began to buy guns from Arwady. A
motion by Arwady's attorney to charge the parole officer for
perjury was denied by the judge. After all, a lot of BATFE agents,
local cops and state and federal prosecutors might have been
implicated in the lie.
At least the jury acquitted Arwady of all charges. Now Arwady
is facing the loss of his federal license to do business based
on a case the BATFE has developed using information from their
criminal case against Arwady. They do not even blush that this
is strictly and precisely forbidden by federal law (18 U.S.
C. 923 (f) (4)).
I thought it was curious that after months of deliberating,
BATFE announced the day after the November 7 elections transferred
control of Congress to the Democrats that the agency was going
to pull Arwady's license.
So far, Bob Arwady's direct expenses (not counting loss of business)
in defending himself against a string of lying, lawbreakers
with badges exceeds half a million dollars. Gun Owners Foundation
will be helping Arwady with his legal expenses.
Tax-deductible donations can be made to the Foundation so it
can
help Bob Arwady. Donations may be made on line at
http://gunowners.com/donate.htm
or by calling (703) 321-8585. |
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© 2000 - 2010, Oregon Firearms Federation. All Rights Reserved.
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