Monday, October 30, 2006

Say WHAT?!

It's really late but I just had to put up a quick post about this. You can title this "Judge Rules Inmates Have Right To Bear Arms". A Maryland inmate was recently acquitted of first degree murder after an instruction given as follows:
On Friday, Judge North read a short passage to the jury that included this statement: "A person may arm himself in reasonable anticipation of an attack."
The offense happened in the same facility where an officer was killed last July. Enough said.

9 comments:

Sarebear said...

GAAAAHHHHHhhhhh!!!

If you don't have the right to vote . . . . you don't have the right to bear arms!!!! geez.

They take away some rights for a REASON.

STUPIDITY REIGNS.

So sad that today is not April Fool's and this isn't a joke . . .

Dinah said...

What about the right to arm bears? (sorry, I couldn't resist)

ClinkShrink said...

Arm-bearing bears--now there's a grizzly thought. But what if the bear already bares arms? I'll go out on a limb and say that they're gunning for trouble. You don't need to rifle through history for incidents involving bearly legal weapons like claws and teeth.

Now packing pachyderms, there's the real issue.

Help...help...stop me before I pun again...

Steve & Barb said...

... Oh, deer!

Agnes said...

If inmates could actually count on protection from each other while incarcerated there would be no need for them to arm themselves. If you thought someone was planning to attack you, and you didn't think you could count on someone else to protect you, you'd find a way to protect yourself--unless you're stupid or have a death wish, that is. Self defense isn't a right given to you by the government. Self defense is a right that cannot be taken away. The inmate in question was convicted of 2nd-degree murder. Was he not?

ClinkShrink said...

Exactly, Agnes---he was convicted of second degree murder, not acquitted. Even with the ridiculous jury instruction his guilt was mitigated but not eliminated. He did not have a right to carry or use a weapon in prison. No inmate has that right. And yes, the government has an absolute right to take that weapon away from prisoners and to charge them with new offenses if necessary to maintain institutional security.

Agnes said...

Maintain institutional security? Maintain? Now there's a joke. Good luck with that.

Hey. My word verification is vnngggun.

Too funny.

ClinkShrink said...

Hey, I'm an optimist. And "maintain" is easier to type than "try to minimize fighting to the extent that nobody gets severely brain damaged or killed".

And my word verification was 'eiocg', obviously a secret communication meaning:

"Easily injured, of course gunning."

Agnes said...

The world needs optimists. I reckon life could get boring for cynics without them.