The Castle Doctrine, Nancy Pelosi Style
By kowalski Posted in Archived — Comments (2) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
From San Francisco, where the NRA recently won a court battle against the city for making it illegal to own guns -- even for personal protection -- came this story, straight from the Haight. This is San Francisco's version of the Castle Doctrine.
The new year kicked off memorably for Donald Burnette and his wife, Deborah Martin, when they were awakened by the sound of someone kicking in the back door of their third-story apartment in San Francisco's Upper Haight about 1 a.m. Jan. 1.
Standing in the kitchen of the Stanyan Street flat was a vision out of a sci-fi comic book: a guy in his early 20s whose body, boots and gloves were studded with spikes, some more than an inch long.
...
"I expected the cops to come through the door at any second," Burnette said. Instead, the minutes just kept ticking by, with the guy refusing to leave."I didn't know what to do," Burnette said. "I got my wife out of the house and just did my best to keep things calm."
...
More time passed. Burnette called 911 again, and was told that there was a police cruiser about half a block away, but that it had gotten a flat tire.The dispatcher suggested that Burnette go down the street and get the cops himself.
"When I got there, I asked the cops what they were doing," Burnette said. "One of the cops said, 'Can't you see we're changing a tire?' "
After some heated words, one of the officers - who thought someone else had responded to the call - finally arrived at the apartment and confronted the intruder.
Emphasis mine, and no further comment required.
Luckily for the hippie family, this particular break-and-entry suspect wasn't interested in anything but hiding from whoever or whatever was chasing him. But the incident amounts to an open admission to any criminal that San Franciscans are sitting ducks, and the police -- well, they just have better things to do in San Francisco than protect someone from a home invasion. Even after they talk to the suspect on the phone.
People might reasonably ask why someone would think they could be so brazen as to forcibly break into someone's third floor apartment and then refuse to leave in one of America's largest cities. It's really no mystery: they know that until very recently, it has been *illegal* for San Franciscans to own weapons to protect themselves.
In 2005, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors made it a crime punishable by a fine of $1,000 and up to six months in jail for anyone to own a gun in their home for lawful purposes. The NRA successfully challenged that law recently in a unanimous victory which ruled that the action by the Board of Supervisors was "null and void."
From January 9:
Fairfax, VA - The California State Court of Appeals announced today their decision to overturn one of the most restrictive gun bans in the country, following a legal battle by attorneys for the National Rifle Association (NRA) and a previous court order against the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.
When I was growing up on my family's farm in sparcely populated Western Kansas, my brothers and I were fixing fence one day when a scary biker thug stopped us. I was away from my brothers, so I walked back to our personal arsenal in the truck. I could tell the biker was nervous as he talked to my brothers, so I picked up our scoped rifle enough for him to see what I had. It's amazing how much effect that has! Anyway, he soon left, my brothers came over to the truck a little shaken, but they knew I had their back and that I wouldn't have hesitated to drop him like all the jackrabbits and snakes we'd all killed our whole lives. Guns don't kill people, brothers with dead eyes do though!
Tim Schieferecke
Standing in the kitchen of the Stanyan Street flat was a vision out of a sci-fi comic book: a guy in his early 20s whose body, boots and gloves were studded with spikes, some more than an inch long.