He
talked to a promoter who nearly fell off the floor,
he
said, Hold on, let me think for a minute, son.
Then
he said, We just put some bleachers out here in the sun
and
have it on Highway 61... - Bob Dylan, ca. 1965
Belton,
Bell County, Texas – When it comes to look-see pidgin, State v.
Grisham, a Class B misdemeanor prosecution for interfering with an
official doing his appointed duty, is el rancho de luxe
stuff, academy award quality, a fancy French film festival Palm D'or
property of an inspired nature.
 |
| Marine, Armored veteran at recent Open Carry Event organized by M/Sgt. C.J. Grisham |
This
thing has the feel and
smell of a finely tuned psy-op plastered all over it, something a
golf-playing, whiskey-drinking, cigar-chewing group of Generals and
Admirals would cook up to keep their men on their toes and the
Constitutional republic in tune. As Lord Buckley would have said,
“Rompa-de-bompa-de-bomp, ching-ching...Hurray for Slugwell!”
Someone
does not wish for you, the average man or woman, a citizen otherwise
qualified, to keep and bear arms, as guaranteed by the Second
Amendment and the Texas Constitution. At least, they do not in any
significant rough and ready, quick and dirty, chips are down, balloon
is up – fashion - as
We The People know it.
That
someone is in most cases operating behind a badge of one sort or the
other, a civil officer who is working for a living, meeting the man,
making the payments – just doing his or her job. To back his play,
he's got his figures, all neatly compiled by the FBI.
The
figures are grim, the daily accounts of mayhem and murder committed
by some berserk bearer of the last nine yards of hell belching smoke
and fire from the muzzle of a deadly firearm in school yards,
shopping malls, city streets, homes, offices, courtrooms...
The
resulting conflict has become one of the defining and signatory
hassles of the period defined roughly between the BATFE raid on the
Branch Davidian compound at Elk, Texas, and the present day. Itcoincides pretty much with Uncle Sam's adventures in the mideastmaking sure client states such as Iraq continue to cooperate byaccepting the U.S. Dollar as the world's reserve currency in paymentfor crude petroleum hauled in by super tanker. (click here to read about 40 years of war on American soil)
This
defines one of the most central of civil conflicts of the past couple
of decades, and it has reached a boiling point in an "Auxiliary"
County Court at Law before a "visiting" judge in a small
Texas town near the world's largest military installation, Ft. Hood,
where tens of thousands of fighting men and women will be "demobbed"
over the next few years following what amounts to a twenty-year war
by some peoples' reckoning - 40 years by others. Who will stay in
uniform, and who will go?
Here's
a clue. Numerous reports of psychological profiling exist in which
there is no equivocation. Troopers and Marines are asked,
point-blank, will you fire on American citizens if ordered to do so?
It is something of a litmus test, thee or he, me or mine, yours or
ours. According to Snopes, “Rumor has it,”
- For as long as we've been operating this web site (close to twenty years), the three most commonly and continuously circulated types of conspiracy theories have to do with claims that the President of the United States or some other federal agency is about to declare martial law, is readying mass internment facilities (i.e., concentration camps), or is preparing to use armed force against U.S. citizens.
The
attacks on America on 9/11/01 came in the big middle of events and
resulted in the deaths of thousands when terrorists flew fully loaded
jetliners into the World Trade Center on a sunny Tuesday morning,
then attacked the Pentagon and targeted another target many assumed
was the White House from out of a clear, blue sky.
 |
“Whether
or not the picture was real, the emotions
it stirred up certainly
were. It was because of those emotions
that the photograph began to
speed from
inbox to inbox at the end of September 2001.”
-
Snopes.com, “Rumor has it”
|
While
spectacular, it was only one of thousands of similar – operations
- in the sheer and utter terror of urban warfare that is carried out
on the streets of a nation in which the courts have ruled repeatedly
for more than a hundred years that police officers are under no legal
obligation to afford any protection whatsoever to citizens under
attack from anyone – for any reason.
Look it up. (click here for a legal briefing on the subject)
Hey,
these people actually intend to make law in an obscure “auxiliary”
county courtroom – in private – while a retired jurist from
Houston named Neel D. Richardson mouths in his chambers that the
defendant and his wife are a couple of “yokels,” and that he, the
judge, intends to teach them a lesson in “parenting.”
What's
more, what happens at the soldier fort won't stay at the soldier
fort. Just ask Sitting Bull, the folks from Wounded Knee, Geronimo.
The Long Knives make law, and that law sticks in 254 Texas counties,
in cities and towns throughout 50 states.
The
case of M/Sgt. C.J. Grisham is only one of thousands, but in it, the
Sergeant chose to fight against a nameless and implacable foe,
namely, thieves who attacked elderly members of his family by
stealing anhydrous ammonia fertilizer from tanks temporarily stored
on row crop land which members of his extended family own near the
Temple, Texas, airport and an adjacent industrial park last March 16.
It
wasn't his first go-round. He and another guy gave thieves a merry
run for the money more than a year previous when faced with the same
situation, a high speed auto chase in which he, Grisham, bore a rifle
in anger, hoping against hope he would catch the thieves who pilfer
anhydrous from his family's farms prior to spring planting, using the
substance for “cooking” the deadly illicit methamphetamine known
as “crank,” or “crystal.”
That's
the stuff that makes peoples' teeth fall out in a few years and
leaves them looking like zombies from a horror movie while they walk
around looking for something to steal to support their habit.
His
next stop, the Council chambers at City Hall, saw his entreaty
falling on deaf ears when he pleaded with officials to repeal, or at
least nullify unconstitutional local strictures against carrying
firearms inside the city limits. The mayor told him it wasn't their
place to do so, that public safety and common sense called for
keeping the laws in place, despite constitutional guarantees of any
God-given right of self defense – or the like. Tut tut.
But
the notion that fighting men and women should not be allowed to keep
and bear arms – admittedly, the implements of war – is
fuzzy-visioned and soft-headed when you stop and realize that their
enemy is on every corner, selling gasoline, cigarettes, beer, milk,
bread, chips, dips, sodas and sandwiches.
He
knows what they they drive, has their credit and debit card numbers
on tape, video of their license plates, their faces, their smiles and
frowns, and a pretty good idea of when they come and go from home to
work, thence to hearth, home, kith, kin and kinder. Surely, even the
most obtuse social observers know this; the least wide awake among us
are able to perceive that which is on the face of this ridiculous
dispute.
War
persists.
It
is carried out on a daily basis on the streets and avenues, alleys
and corners of this nation, on our own soil, and not some desert
republic.
According
to a leading think tank based at the University of Maryland, terror
has never been more rampant, with 5,100 attacks through June of this
year, a rise of 69 percent in 2012 over the previous year, and a jump
of 81 percent more fatalities. CNN trumpeted the figures in an
exclusive report released earlier this week.
Sgt.
Grisham took his son on a 10-mile hike. He armed himself with an
AR-15 and a ..45 cal. semiautomatic pistol, for which he holds a
concealed carry handgun license.
When
a police officer named Steve Ermis arrived, alerted by a frightened
social services provider who safeguards the rights of children for an
advocacy service, he demanded that he give him his weapon
immediately. Ermis is a beefy harness bull with 27 years in the bag
on the Temple force, and a bunch more previously.
 |
| Governor Rick Perry |
A
Dashcam caught what happened next, and the public is not allowed to
see it. Officer Steve Ermis jammed the muzzle of his pistol into the
back of Grisham's neck, bent him over the hood of a police car, slid
the muzzle around to jab it into his ribs, unsnapped the sling of his
rifle, and stomped on his foot. Then he took the pistol, all the
while saying he needed to check his qualifications to have such a
weapon. He ignored the fact that Grisham volunteered to show him his
concealed carry handgun license, a document which the state “shall
issue” when an applicant has proven freedom from mental defects, a
felony record, a background as a sex criminal, and pending
indictments.
One
thing the video makes very clear. Neither man showed any apparent
interest in lowering the constantly escalating conflict to a dull
roar. They stoked it up and let it rip.
None
of the records of this case are available to the public. County
Attorney Jim Nichols says any time a case is open and pending, its
records are sealed - in this case, he told an investigator, by the
judge's order.
However,
the County Attorney, the custodian of those records, when handed a
written request for the court order sealing them, said she has no
such order on file.
Court
officials have similarly excluded the public from the courtroom.
Acting
on a public information act request from a staff writer of the local
daily newspaper, officials revealed the veracity of the defense
team's allegation that the venire was “stacked” with public
officials and their relatives, men and women who serve as police
officers, jailers, and clerks, made up more than half the venire of
40 summoned, from which attorneys picked a jury of six. When they
jury returned the less than unanimous verdict and the Court polled
them, the public was again excluded, the matter kept under official
censorship in the interest of “ethical” rules. Because of the
mistrial, a change of venue will be sought by Blue Rannefeld, lawyer
for the defense.
 |
| Black powder revolver arrest of "Tom Jefferson" at the Texas State Capitol, Austin, Oct. 26 |
In
the meantime, a rally and protest in the forecourt of the Shrine of
the Alamo extolled the constitutional aspect of the right to keep and
bear arms; numerous citizens have been arrested for carrying loaded
black powder revolvers on the grounds of the State Capitol at Austin,
and a rally on Saturday, December 14 at the front lawn of the Texas
Department of Public Safety headquarters building on North Lamar
Boulevard is planned for those who will carry black powder revolvers
to protest for their constitutional rights to self defense under
arms.
Deadly
weapons of that type are not classified by state law as “firearms.”
No comments:
Post a Comment