"Militia" Stupidity = Talking Point for Anti-2A Types

[General Geoff]

Nothing under the duty to report statute excuses felons because they're already violating the law.

See Haynes v. United States. Felons by definition need not inform you, regardless of the law, because it would be self incrimination. You can charge them with it, but you would never get a conviction if the defense is at all competent.

If a pat search turns up a weapon that was not declared immediately IAW Alaska law, that person is prosecutable and very convictable.

Only if the guy isn't a prohibited person. He could certainly still be convicted of actual possession of a weapon if he is a prohibited person, but he couldn't be convicted of failing to inform.

 

[General Geoff]

This is America, we DO NOT ASSASSINATE our government officials to protest a law.

From what I read of the article, the plan was only to kill the officials if government agents killed the defendant first. That's not assassination, it's eye-for-an-eye.

From the article:

"At that February 12th meeting COX specifically unveiled his "241" (two for one) plan which called for his militia to respond to attempts to arrest or kill him by responding against state court or law enforcement targets with twice the force and consequences as happened to him or his family," according to the criminal complaint. "If he was arrested, two state targets would be "arrested" (kidnapped). If he was killed, two state targets would be killed. If his house was taken, two state target houses would be burned."

Vigilantism? Yes, absolutely. Assassination? No.

 

[cassandrasdaddy]

The small tinfoil poisoned groups are reviled by everyone outside of the anti government fringe.


the fringe is larger than you might think read here and you find some.

i always thought that informing was to protect ME. that it might keep the cop safe was secondary to me. then again i spent a lot of time actually getting stopped as opposed to imagining it and running through paranoid conspiracies in my mind.

the folks in this article? are filed under "cuckoo for cocoa puffs"

 

[Patriotme]

You can call the groups whatever you want but once a group starts planning the killing of innocent people they have become a terrorist organization not a "Militia."
I wouldn't call the Bloods a militia despite their being armed and ready to defend their "Turf."
A lot of people use the militia titile when they are an entirely different group of gun owners and the media happily reports that these groups are militias. I don't think that we need to join the MSM in using the term.

 

[General Geoff]

You can call the groups whatever you want but once a group starts planning the killing of innocent people they have become a terrorist organization not a "Militia."

The only reason the Founding Fathers aren't labelled by history as terrorists, is because they won.

 

[geekWithA.45]

Posted by remo223:

Oh poor baby. Let me get my violin.

Lets make sure we understand YOUR predicament. You worry about how one loony in alaska is going to make it tougher for YOU to deal with YOUR friends? Are you kidding me?

Its not about you bud. Or your friends. I really couldn't care less what the situation is between you and your friends.

Oh, puhlease.

Seriously?

Do you really believe that I'm talking about some situation between myself and some colleagues in search of sympathy from strangers on the freakin' Internet?

Seriously?



Has it crossed your mind that I'm telling you guys about this so that you can UNDERSTAND SOMETHING ABOUT HOW SOME PEOPLE THINK?


The point that I was trying to make is that some people are going to do things that will feed our opponents talking points, and there's not much we can do about it except to repudiate them.

The other point I was trying to make is that some of our opposition is going to grasp any straw they can get hold of to prove to themselves that their point of view is correct, and there's not much we can do to about that either.

Some people are just nuts, and they're gonna do whatever they're gonna do.

 

[cassandrasdaddy]

plotting to kill troopers just because they were high ranking and lived in your hood is assassination not some sorta squint through one eye close the other vigilantism

trying to portray it as such is another of the kinda things that give traction to anti groups and would it would surprise me to see it posted here

 

[gym]

This is just another confirmation to me that society is going to hell in a handbasket. Killing judjes and police is just not an acceptable topic for me. I could enter into this discussion but why give it any more cedibility. It already should be closed in my humble opinion. We don't do assasination theorys here, do we. And a lunatic is an lunatic anywhere, remember that walpaper hanger in Gremany. People can rationalize anything given enough time and the gift of gab. It's when others start listening that you need be carefull.

 

[HorseSoldier]

IMO, this guys legitimate beef with the law ended when he decided to counter an unjust misdemeanor by murdering judges and LEO's. So yes, I absolutely do hold it against him.

His panties didn't, apparently, get all twisted up because of his sentiments about the Second Amendment. He got all bent out of shape because the court system had the sheer audacity to call to him appear and account for his actions in response to the charges. Not "how dare they enforce this wrong law" but "how dare they try to enforce any law on me."

Because he's apparently a raving narcissist who can't deal with being treated the same as his fellow citizens, no matter how much he tries to dress that up in something patriotic, pro-2A or whatever else.

 

[HorseSoldier]

Only if the guy isn't a prohibited person. He could certainly still be convicted of actual possession of a weapon if he is a prohibited person, but he couldn't be convicted of failing to inform.

Insofar as I can think of at least one case where this absolutely was not the case, I'd recommend you take it up with the DA for the 3rd Judicial District up here in AK, since I'm sure they can better explain how they prosecuted on that than I can.

 

[General Geoff]

Insofar as I can think of at least one case where this absolutely was not the case, I'd recommend you take it up with the DA for the 3rd Judicial District up here in AK, since I'm sure they can better explain how they prosecuted on that than I can.

The DA has every reason to get a conviction, it's not their job to bring up constitutional objections to the charges. I'm saying that given a competent defense and a judge who adheres to jurisprudence, the charge would be thrown out. And even if a judge lets the charge stand, the appeals process would eventually overturn the conviction (for that charge alone, of course).

 

[kinkinhood]

To play a bit of the side that is counter to the arguement that it shouldn't be necessary, having that law can help prevent an officer from say drawing and firing on someone who happen to have no desire to do any harm to the officer, but they had their wallet right next to where their pistol sits and in the darkness of the twilight the motions can be mistaken as drawing said pistol rather than pulling a wallet out. Yes an officer shouldn't make that kind of mistake, but the officer is still only human and is still capable of misinterpreting a situation.

 

[Hoppes Love Potion]

Sounds to me like the guy just wanted to be left alone. I think the "duty to inform" is BS. How can they legally compel you to do something just because an officer enters your immediate area? They've made it a crime to not speak. That is unspeakable.

 

[Shadow 7D]

Geoff, Fail...

You cite an Alaskan law, then post a link to a FEDERAL case
as far as the 5th protecting them due to the duty to inform,
under Alaskan Law, you don't have to carry, but if you do, you MUST inform, failure to is a CRIME...
And No you don't have to admit it, but you will still get convicted of the illegal ACTION

And people go to jail for it, unfortunately, and sometimes fortunately, all the time,
so PLEASE, NEVER LEAVE GEORGIA, and stay away from Alaska, we don't need to pay for your stay in the pen too,

As for this guy, he had to appear, but he is part of a fringe 'tinfoil hat gang' up here, that CALL THEMSELVES A MILITIA and 'refuse to acknowledge' the US government or 'surrender their personal sovereignty'

They live in the boonies, don't pay taxes, don't get SSN for their kids, or birth certificates etc....

Damn end of the roaders
they would fit in better in cali or washington...

 

[HorseSoldier]

Sounds to me like the guy just wanted to be left alone.

You should probably google Schaeffer Cox if you're somehow getting that out of the cited story about him. He's been trying to interject himself into state and local politics in Alaska for a while. He only decided he wanted to be left alone when he got charged with a misdemeanor and was too much of a coward to show up for his day in court.

How can they legally compel you to do something just because an officer enters your immediate area?

You do grasp the idea that society has been empowering the police with authority to compel people to do all sorts of things for quite a while now -- like since the dawn of civilization -- right? Do you get all quivery in your Bill of Rights every time you drive by a traffic stop?

Here in Alaska we let anyone who's not a felon carry concealed any way they please. If we had a CCW permit system, maybe we'd have a law that revokes that privilege/permit when people fail to inform or otherwise violate our MIW 5 statute (carrying in bars, carrying in people's homes without their permission, etc.).

But we don't -- we've made concealed carry a right, with a total of about three Big Boy Rules attached to it, one of which is you tell a cop you're armed when he contacts you or you contact him. No minimum class or training requirement, no fees for the privilege, no chief of local law enforcement review -- just an expectation that people who're armed act like adults. And frankly it seems to work pretty well up here -- citizens here in Anchorage do decidedly less whining than the collective THR community on this topic for whatever reason. And the people who run afoul of the the law tend to be people who probably lack the maturity or mental health to be allowed arms (Schaeffer Cox being a winning example) or those who are intent on committing crimes. Either way, the law is effectively weeding out people who shouldn't be armed in the first place (to an extent -- MIW 5 is a low level misdemeanor, so conviction doesn't tank your right to carry up here after the fact, unless you wind up on probation where they restrict your right weapons).

 

[Shadow 7D]

If we had a CCW permit system, maybe we'd have a law that revokes that privilege/permit when people fail to inform or otherwise violate our MIW 5 statute (carrying in bars, carrying in people's homes without their permission, etc.).

They never abolished the CCW when the legalized concealed carry with out a license. If you want reciprocity, you have to get your CCW from the troopers.

 

[HorseSoldier]

True. Like you say, folks only get them if they're concerned about travel out of state and reciprocity, but they are available.

 

[.338-06]

As for this guy, he had to appear, but he is part of a fringe 'tinfoil hat gang' up here, that CALL THEMSELVES A MILITIA and 'refuse to acknowledge' the US government or 'surrender their personal sovereignty'

They live in the boonies, don't pay taxes, don't get SSN for their kids, or birth certificates etc....

Damn end of the roaders
they would fit in better in cali or washington...

I really don't think they call themselves a militia, they call themselves 'sovereign citizens' and if you google the term there's a lot of information-from both sides.

Fairbanks is chock full of warm, wonderful people. The radical fringe up there (both ends of the spectrum) seems to be an order of magnitude worse than other places.

 

[Cosmoline]

but if you think that this guy is wrong for standing up, you must be drinking the cool aide. If we stood up as one people, we might have half a chance against these devils that "govern" us.

He didn't "stand up" he refused to tell a trooper he was carrying. He's a complete loon, and has nothing to do with Alaskan gun owners or the right to keep and bear arms.

This is ALASKA. If you want to change a law, you can! It's actually not that difficult assuming you get enough people to agree with you. But in this case, the mandate to inform makes sense in context and is not unpopular. We have TREMENDOUS freedom when it comes to firearms. Both under the codes and in practice. I have exercised that freedom as have many others. One area of potential trouble is when an armed citizen and an LEO have some interchange. The mandate to inform prevents any misunderstandings and makes it clear you are a good guy. It works, and it's not oppressive.

I actually don't think some of you understand anything about this state. Law enforcement barely even exists in most of it. Even if the LEO's wanted to be some oppressive anti-gun regime like the NYPD, they don't have anywhere near the manpower to do it. So you can live your whole life here and have no interactions at all with unformed officer apart from traffic infractions. You can live your whole life as a GENUINE HERMIT and have no interactions with anyone whatsoever. This guy has gone out of his way to cause troubles and get into trouble because that's the kind of person he is. A nogoodnick.

He apparently thinks he has some control over a genuine militia of armed Alaskans. He does not. Most Alaskans are armed, and most Alaskans are in the militia per statute. This joker does not lead us.

Unfortunately as noted above this state gets more than its share of end of the roader nogoonicks. Including refugees from the Montana Militia, the Freemen, the common law court movement and the sovereign identity movement. They're all sad, sad jokes to us. How oppressed am I supposed to feel living in a state where the government runs my shooting range and I ride a bike around town with a huge rifle strapped to my back? These jokes need to go back to the lower 48. And since that's where we send most of our prisoners, I expect that's precisely where they will be going.

I don't always see eye-to-eye with our local LEO's and I certainly don't see eye-to-eye with most judges. But to try to set up some kind of "sovereign" cell and make plans to assassinate people is absolutely way over the line.

Unfortunately, the aptly-named Cox has tried to glom on to our movement by declaring himself the head of the Second Amendment Task Force. Kind of like me declaring myself Pope I suppose. But it is unfortunately up to us to denounce the worthless waste of salt and have nothing whatever to do with whatever revolution he thinks he's leading. These people are insane.

From what I read of the article, the plan was only to kill the officials if government agents killed the defendant first. That's not assassination, it's eye-for-an-eye.

It's conspiracy to commit terrorist acts to protect his little wanabe revolutionary cell. It's conspiracy to undermine MY government by threat! I take that very personally. I want that whole bunch in prison and I want them to lose their Alaska privileges. At least the Jihadist over in King Salmon had the common decency to make a hit list of outsiders. He was pretty friendly with the locals.

 

[Shadow 7D]

Hey Cosmo, I forget (ok I admit I haven't reread the statues lately)
Is defense of officer before or after defense of family (<<--as defined under the Domestic Violence statue)

Any who, I got the Militia stuff from reading either the Frontiersman or the Daily News Miner. Really don't see why the guy didn't just show up to the court, It's just Class B misdemeanor

http://www.touchngo.com/lglcntr/akstats/Statutes/Title11/Chapter61/Section220.htm

Oh and BTW, you don't have to tell any cop near you
it says:

"(A) that is concealed on the person, and, when contacted by a peace officer, the person fails to"

 

[cassandrasdaddy]

how did they end up so deep in the tax hole? that they needed a revolution to get out? and what do they do for money? to eat?

 

[HorseSoldier]

The federal government's complaint in the tax case can be read here, though it does not explain how the tax debt was accumulated (and how the female half of the couple racked up $92,000 in tax debt in one year).

 

[HorseSoldier]

Further news on Schaeffer Cox and company in the Fairbanks paper here. He was already running his mouth publicly about having his supposed followers/henchmen killing State Troopers if they attempted to enforce a court order regarding him losing a custody dispute in January. Doesn't seem very mysterious why the FBI would have been able to get warrants for wiretaps all over this guy. And doesn't look like his sole gripe with the court system was because of his profound respect for the Second Amendment.

 

[Zoogster]

To play a bit of the side that is counter to the arguement that it shouldn't be necessary, having that law can help prevent an officer from say drawing and firing on someone who happen to have no desire to do any harm to the officer, but they had their wallet right next to where their pistol sits and in the darkness of the twilight the motions can be mistaken as drawing said pistol rather than pulling a wallet out. Yes an officer shouldn't make that kind of mistake, but the officer is still only human and is still capable of misinterpreting a situation.

It does not prevent that. In fact it heightens the alertness of the officer, increasing how quick they will be to draw over a perceived threat because they have just been informed of a deadly threat.

Without the requirement you also have the option of informing if you feel in a specific situation it will reduce the chance of a misunderstanding.
That can be a good choice, if going for your wallet will uncover it, or a LEO will be patting you down and discover it.


If however you are pulled over for a routine ticket, the officer is feeling out the situation, then you inform them of a deadly threat to their safety they would have never even known existed, it places you in greater danger.
You would have never exited the car, the gun is secure and out of sight, and they would have never known about the gun, but now you have put the gun directly on their mind, and the thought of that gun will be quite active in their mind the entire time they are dealing with you.
That did not increase you safety, it actually decreased your safety.
Yet it never increased the officer's safety because if you were a bad guy that was going to use it you wouldn't have told him before using it.
So it puts you in more danger, and doesn't put the officer in any less.


There is similar situations. Say you are a good samaritan, or a witness to another crime, or giving a statement of an event you are not directly involved in, or...
Cops come, they are not focused on you at all, they don't care about you, they are dealing with the criminal if they are present, focusing on the criminal and victim or those directly involved, fact finding, and trying to gather the details. You and what you are doing would be the last thing on their mind.
Suddenly you inform them as required by law that you are carrying a lethal threat.
You go from being nobody on their consciousness to very prominent. Out of some crowd or group of people you become one of those they are most aware of. What you do, how you move.
Did it increase your safety? No. Quite the contrary.
Would it have increased their safety if it was a bad guy? No.
In all honesty it might even decrease their awareness of other threats because a larger percentage of their attention is on you than otherwise would be, even when dealing with other people.

It should not be a legal requirement, it should be a discretionary voluntary thing. Something you do based on the situation, whether they will run across it or see it or may see it at some point during your contact with them. Not every time all the time, putting them on high alert for no reason.

 

[Cosmoline]

Again, I don't think you understand Alaska. Telling an officer you're armed doesn't set off alarm bells or put them on "high alert." Quite the contrary. I've notified officers in a few direct dealings I've had with them in the past, and it hasn't been a major issue at all. They don't freak out about it. This would probably be different in much of the lower 48, where carrying a firearm is unusually and already comes with licensing requirements.

If you tell them, right off, then they know several things. They know you're armed and where the firearm is. They also know it's unlikely you're going to try to shoot them, having just told the officers about your CCW. Alternatively, if you don't tell them and the situation ends with you being taken into custody for some reason, they're not going to suddenly stumble across or see a hidden firearm during that process. THAT is liable to get them worked up.

"No surprises" is a really good policy in such circumstances.