Congressional hearings: BATFE and H.R. 5005 (merged)

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Blackwater

This has future Blackwater involvement written all over it. Consider also the fact that the Posse Comitatus Act is under attack by the corrupt in DC, and do the math...

They know the pot is rapidly coming to a boil because of their actions, and they want to make sure any vocal opposition to the imminent socialist state is quickly and effectively silenced...and have a law to point to afterwards to spin it so that they look justified ("Hey, these guys were extremists! And we abided by our Constitutionally-granted power to stop them...")

The funny thing is, Blackwater mercs and similar groups, for all the hype, would not stand a chance against the American citizens. They think they are up against a bunch of disorganized amateurs...maybe they are, for now. But the minute they do anything stupid, they'd find out what half a nation full of trained individuals can accomplish in the arena of self-defense.
 
This absolutely does have Blackwater written all over it.

In the Katrina situation they actually took Blackwater guys straight back from Iraq and DEPUTIZED them. Straight from the streets of Bagdahd to being deputies in the US.

Bad bad idea.
 
Phetro said:
The funny thing is, Blackwater mercs and similar groups, for all the hype, would not stand a chance against the American citizens. They think they are up against a bunch of disorganized amateurs...maybe they are, for now. But the minute they do anything stupid, they'd find out what half a nation full of trained individuals can accomplish in the arena of self-defense.
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First, Blackwater only employs US citizens, to the best of my knowledge. 2nd, the Blackwater staff I played with over there are as patriotic as any American, if not more so. 3rd, why are you assuming that they would want a fight anyway?

Edit: Another thing - a merc is someone who will fight for anyone for money. I am not a merc - I chose my side and stuck to it; I was a contractor, damn proud of the work I did and received mention for courage under fire. If you want to badmouth anyone, mind your aim :fire:
 
As opposed to straight back ...and into our communities? our Churches? our schools? back to their regular jobs in society? gasp! The horror!

By the way, what is the "wrong" in anyone being deputized if they are properly selected and supervised?
 
That is horrible for this guy who went through trial. His life is screwed and there's no recourse. He won't get his savings back and he won't get his career back. He's just screwed. The best thing for him to do is to continue in his current dead-end job until retirement, and at least he'll get a pension, health care and a chance to build up some savings.
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No justice whatsoever...

Think about this kind of crap when someone gives you that old saw about "working within the system".
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And this is how they treat an LEO... I hope I never find out firsthand what kind of red-carpet-treatment they're rolling out for Joe Average. If what happened to this guy is the best result one can hope for, working outside the system will probably be cheaper.
 
As opposed to straight back ...and into our communities? our Churches? our schools? back to their regular jobs in society? gasp! The horror!

By the way, what is the "wrong" in anyone being deputized if they are properly selected and supervised?
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1. Who is doing the deputizing, and
2. What the deputization is for, like oh, say...disarming citizens in New Orleans, perhaps? I haven't heard that they participated in that atrocity, and I hope they didn't...but who knows?

I'm not "anti-Blackwater" or anything--in fact, I've heard good things about them and their skill level in combat--I just think they ought not to be able to operate on American soil.
 
Well I may be anti-Blackwater

I have heard things but not checked if they are substantiated related to child prostitution in other countries where they have been given work to do. I am hoping someone who has a clue can post about the veracity of such statements. I don't like the idea of having LE privatized at all. If we can't even keep regular LE accountable how can we expect to keep them accountable?
 
What's wrong with coming straight from Bagdahd to New Orleans?

I'm not anti-Blackwater either. Nothing wrong with them. The problem with taking guys directly from Iraq to New Orleans is that the instincts and split-second decision making you do in Bagdadh is very very different from what is appropriate in a disaster recovery operation in the US. I don't have a problem with Blackwater helping out in disaster relief. I do have a problem with deputizing people who may not have any law enforcement experience, and I have a problem with taking people (almost all of them with military experience but no LE experience) directly from a hot combat zone and putting them into a policing type role in the US. That's asking for trouble.
 
Gentlemen:

As to the fact that some will receive "special privilege or consideration", likely true, however what is new about that? You and I might be less than happy with the facts of the matter. That's a matter of personal taste. In the northern part of the world, is tends to get cold in December. The fact that we might prefer warmer weather changes nothing.

As for HR 5005 gutting the 1986 Machinegun Ban, perhaps so, perhaps not. It strikes me that the problem originated with the 1934 act, that is The National Firearms Act of 1934. That POS has got to go, my view of things. Unfortunately, I do not see that happening, partly due to inertia, partly due to lack of guts in The Congress (House and Senate).

If memory serves, then Major George Chinn, USMC, who wrote what might well be the definitive work on automatic weapons, had something to say about the 1934 act. Nothing he offered was the least laudatory or complimentary.

As to Blackwater or any of the other military contractors lately, or in some cases not so lately come to life, I submit that they are the more or less natural outgrowth of political decisions taken by the "duly constituted civilian authorities" of major nations, either that, or they are the end result of what is an ongoing exercise of CYA, a game often played by political types, to the detriment of the people they supposedly serve.

While the Man On The Street might not care for the fact that these contractors exist or for whatever it is that they actually do, that is tantamount to the same people complaining at the fact that it tends to get cold in December, in the northern hemisphere. In December, it gets cold, and that's it, unless you can figure out a way to change, modify or "improve" the antics of the above mentioned political types, and the games that they play.
 
Re yesterday's BATFE hearings, this from JPFO

ALERT FROM JEWS FOR THE PRESERVATION OF FIREARMS OWNERSHIP
America's Aggressive Civil Rights Organization

March 29, 2006

JPFO ALERT: BATFE Hearings Quietly Reinstated

On March 21, we mentioned that Part III of the BATFE
Congressional Hearings -- originally scheduled for
March 28 -- had been removed from the House Judiciary
Committee calendar and "postponed indefinitely"
( http://www.jpfo.org/alert20060321.htm ).

Quietly, and without fanfare, the hearings were
reinstated, and held as scheduled on March 28.

While we were not able to attend due to the duplicitous
manner in which the hearings were conducted, a webcast
and witness statements are available at
http://judiciary.house.gov/oversight.aspx?ID=228 .

- The Liberty Crew
 
Blackwater?

I've been a lurker in this part of the forums for a bit. I'm not one to interject at all, since a lot of what's said is typically self explanitory and easy to pick up on, even to someone who may not have known a thing about the topic before reading (such as, at times, me) -- and simply because I'm not interested in contributing to any debates on the internet. However, and not to take away from the topic, I'm curious to know what this "Blackwater" thing is.
 
Blackwater is a US-based security company that trains and sends security-staff world-wide - http://www.blackwaterusa.com

For some background, you need to satisfy the following criteria if you wanted to join them:

Must have minimum of one (1) year experience in providing protective security services in: special operations, US military special forces, US Secret Service, or other federal agencies, commercial executive protection services, or law enforcement experience (i.e. US Military Police/Criminal Investigation Division, local & state law enforcement agencies).

PLUS these BSC Requirements:
Must be willing and able to deploy overseas for at least 6 months.
Must be a U.S. Citizen, proof of citizenship required (copy of Blue Tourist Passport)
Must be able to pass a general health physical.
Must be able to obtain a Secret Clearance.
Weight must be proportionate to height.
Must be able to pass a physical fitness test.
Must present and maintain a neat and clean appearance.
No history of major illness or mental disorder.
Experience must be verifiable, submit a DD-214 or other paperwork that can be independently verified.
Must have an Honorable Discharge.
Must possess good written and verbal communications skills in English.
No felony or violent crime convictions (NO WAIVERS).
No personal bankruptcy or outstanding credit deliquency within seven years.
No DUI or illegal drug use history within seven years.
No spouse abuse or domestic violence conviction.

Edit: 3 employees of DynCorp, not Blackwater, were fired for using prostitutes in Bosnia
 
Did you notice how many times Kirsten Rand said, "more gun stores than gas stations?"

She looked like she had a corn cob up her backside.

Rick
 
I have heard things but not checked if they are substantiated related to child prostitution in other countries where they have been given work to do. I am hoping someone who has a clue can post about the veracity of such statements. I don't like the idea of having LE privatized at all. If we can't even keep regular LE accountable how can we expect to keep them accountable?
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No no, that was Dyncorp. Dyncorp has been involved in nearly every government contractor corruption scandal you can think of.

I wouldn't work for them again. They treated us like dirt in Qatar, to top everything else off.
 
Dyncorps runs the maintenace where I work also. They treat their workers very poorly.

Here is an interesting link if you think HR 5005 is designed to make things easier for Blackwater (and others like them) to do our "dirty" work.

http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/06/front2453824.0319444444.html

I am not trying to bash the BW guys, I think the vast majority of them would refuse to do anything to other Americans.
 
I'm going to have to watch Robocop again...

I'm not anti-blackwater either (especially when they're in another country).

I am VERY anti "special treatment".


One good thing about this law is that it does allow new machine guns to be procured by fed contractors with no regulation on what they can then do with them, correct?
 
Lots of stuff about private security contractors there huh. Looks like the gov. is getting ready to send blackwater after the soon to be insurgency of Americans in America.

The Hessians are coming! The Hessians are coming!
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I was thinking the exact same thing. This is the first step to quietly and slowly moving towards the sub-contracting of tyranny. We're just reading the writing on the wall, others would consider this paranoid. I say:

Bring it on.

They'll get the "Fallujah Treatment"...extra crispy.


Just like the Dallas police thread, I reject any special treatment of police over civilians. Likewise, no security firm should have any special treatment over civilians. None of these groups should be armed better than the militia. Or at the very least, the militia should have equal and fair access to the arms that the establishment and their mercenaries for hire have access to.

Note:
I also rejected "cop carry"...which was the biggest mistake ever. We had some serious threads on here on that subject. I ask now that some time has passed...exactly HOW did authorizing cops or retired cops to carry nation-wide help CIVILIAN concealed carry efforts? Or is the effect going to materialize after 10+ years? :rolleyes: That bill did nothing more than to extend the divide between authority and civilian. Good job guys!
 
I did some more thinking about this bill today and I posted this in the other other HR5005 thread.

The act does not create any loopholes in 922(o) (86 ban) that we can use. The only real exemptions are for government paramilitary/security contractors. This is a straight up Mercenary Enabling Act.

It is also NOT a chipping away at anything. All the stuff that is abolished was already killed by lawsuits or by redundancy with other statutes. As before, all the people the government controls get all the toys they want, there are just more of them than before. Everyone else gets jack.

Obviously, this is a very bad bill and we should oppose it. It is worse than doing nothing by a long stretch.
 
I also rejected "cop carry"...which was the biggest mistake ever. We had some serious threads on here on that subject. I ask now that some time has passed...exactly HOW did authorizing cops or retired cops to carry nation-wide help CIVILIAN concealed carry efforts? Or is the effect going to materialize after 10+ years? That bill did nothing more than to extend the divide between authority and civilian. Good job guys!
Click to expand...

I basically agree with everything your saying, but I must point out that cop carry has helped us non-cops a little bit. In places that are absolutely no CCW, where CCW is culturally repulsive, like Hawaii and Illinois, it is good to force them to accept that non-locals are packing. That's an especially big deal in HI. If non-locals, outsiders are packing, then shouldn't we be allowed to pack also? That's the logic it could introduce to some small degree.

Ok, it's a small effect, but maybe it is already having a little effect. HI actually had a shall-issue bill introduced. It didn't get anywhere but it's a beginning. I think that cop-carry may have been a factor in that. A small factor, but part of it. Every little bit increases the momentum towards eventually having shall-issue in every state. There may be a few holdouts that never get there, but it's getting closer every year and every bit of momentum helps.

As far as HR 5005, I'm with Beerslurpy on it.
 
As a general principle I am against cop carry.

As a practical matter, I recognize that most places already have "non cop carry" to the point that this bill will only put the retired LE camel's nose under the tent in the strongly anti-gun areas.

I feel that some retired cops are also troublemakers that dont appreciate being told they cant carry in their state of retirement so this sets up anti-gun jurisdictions for confrontations they will lose. Once they start to accept that the rule can be broken without the earth cracking open to swallow their city, it makes civilian liberalization measures easier to pass later on. Not a lot easier, but easier than nothing.

Slipperly slope works in both directions. Google for Volokh's slipperly slope paper, it was published in Harvard or Cornell Law Review I think.
 
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