Author Archive
Milwaukee Man Shoots Armed Robber
A Milwaukee man only recently acquired his permit to carry a concealed handgun and then found himself in the middle of an armed robbery. As the robber threatened a store clerk with a shotgun, the permit holder was able to draw his weapon and shoot the culprit. The Milwaukee District Attorney said: “He disrupted an act that potentially exposed himself and others to great bodily harm.”
Last week, Cato released a new study concerning the frequency with which citizens use guns in self-defense, along with a map to track such events. We’ve already received many suggestions from readers all over the web and we’ll be updating our map regularly.
(H/T Ann Althouse)
New Cato Study: Tough Targets
Today, Cato is releasing a new study, Tough Targets: When Criminals Face Armed Resistance from Citizens, by Clayton Cramer and David Burnett. The paper makes use of a news report-gathering project to explore in more detail how Americans use guns in self-defense.
The paper makes many excellent points, but I’ll mention just three here. First, the average person tends to imagine that these self-defense situations involve criminals getting shot. Such cases do occur, but the overwhelming number of self-defense cases involve situations where the gun is never fired.
The second point relates to the first. The average person usually does not hear about defensive gun cases because news media organizations do not consider the incidents worthy of coverage. If a burglar runs away from a break-in when he discovers that someone is at the home and is armed, it may only garner a terse mention in the paper, if it makes the newspaper at all. With no shot fired, no injuries, and no suspect in custody, newspeople typically decline coverage. The point here is not to criticize the news media’s handling of such incidents–rather it is just to remind readers that we tend to hear about criminals using guns to perpetrate crimes, but we do not hear about many self-defense cases. In this milieu, it is understandable why many people would develop negative opinions about guns.
Third, when a gun owner does shoot a rapist or is able to hold a burglar at gunpoint until the police arrive on the scene, it is very likely that more than one crime has been prevented. That’s because had the culprit not been stopped, he very likely would have targeted other people as well.
Gun control proponents stress the idea of harm reduction. They say the enactment of firearm regulations will reduce accidents and the criminal use of guns. But if policymakers are truly interested in harm reduction, they must consider the number of crimes that are thwarted by gun owners. Each year gun owners prevent a great deal of criminal mayhem–murders, rapes, batteries, and robberies. Tough Targets gathers dozens and dozens of examples of ordinary people using guns to stop criminal attacks. The defensive use of guns happens much more often than most people realize.
In addition to the paper itself, we have a new page on the Cato web site that will track, to the extent we can, defensive gun cases around the country.
For more information, listen to a podcast interview with co-author Clayton Cramer, or see related Cato scholarship.
FDR and Executive Order 9066
Gordon Hirabayashi died on January 2, at age 93.
The Washington Post obituary notes that the federal government put him in a prison during the 1940s. President Franklin Roosevelt issued many decrees, but the one that would lead to Hirabayashi’s imprisonment, Executive Order 9066, said that thousands of Americans residing on the West Coast had to leave their jobs and homes and promptly report to certain prison camps (“relocation centers”). The feds said actual proof of wrongdoing was unnecessary.
Hirabayashi refused to go along with the program, so he was prosecuted for disobeying the president and jailed. The courts rejected his argument that FDR had exceeded the powers of his office. In an interview in 1985, Hirabayashi looked back on his ordeal and said, “My citizenship didn’t protect me one bit. Our Constitution was reduced to a scrap of paper.”
Even though there are written safeguards concerning due process, habeas corpus, and jury trial, presidents will sometimes assert the power to override all that. FDR did it. George W. Bush did it. And Barack Obama wants to reserve the option to do it.
On January 17, Cato will be hosting a book forum about FDR’s war policies and civil liberties.
Richard Branson: Time to End the War on Drugs
Entrepreneur Richard Branson has just blogged about his recent trip to Portugal where he was investigating that country’s drug policies. Branson cites Cato’s landmark study, “Drug Decriminalization in Portugal,” several times in his post. Here’s an excerpt:
I will set out clearly what I learned from my visit to Portugal and would urge other countries to study this:
In 2001 Portugal became the first European country to officially abolish all criminal penalties for personal possession of drugs, including marijuana, cocaine, heroin and methamphetamines.
Jail time was replaced with offer of therapy. (The argument was that the fear of prison drives addicts underground and that incarceration is much more expensive than treatment).
Under Portugal’s new regime, people found guilty of possessing small amounts of drugs are sent to a panel consisting of a psychologist, social worker, and legal adviser for appropriate treatment (which may be refused without criminal punishment), instead of jail.
Critics in the poor, socially conservative and largely Catholic nation said decriminalizing drug possession would open the country to “drug tourists” and exacerbate Portugal’s drug problem; the country has some of the highest levels of hard-drug use in Europe. The recently realised results of a report commissioned by the Cato Institute, suggest otherwise. …
Portugal’s 10 year experiment shows clearly that enough is enough. It is time to end the war on drugs worldwide. We must stop criminalising drug users. Health and treatment should be offered to drug users – not prison. Bad drugs policies affect literally hundreds of thousands of individuals and communities across the world. We need to provide medical help to those that have problematic use – not criminal retribution.
Read the whole thing. Check out the recent Cato conference on the Global War on Drugs here.
The Iraq War: 20 Years, Not 9
Here are two newspaper accounts about the conclusion of the Iraq war:
The New York Times: “Almost nine years after the first American tanks began massing on the Iraq border, the Pentagon declared an official end to its mission here, closing a troubled conflict that helped reshape American politics and left a bitter legacy of anti-American sentiment across the Muslim world.”
The Washington Post: “Nearly nine years after American troops stormed across the Iraq border in a blaze of shock and awe, U.S. officials quietly ended the bloody and bitterly divisive conflict here Thursday, but the debate over whether it was worth the cost in money and lives is yet unanswered.”
There is a problem with those accounts. The United States has been at war in Iraq for twenty years, not nine! George Orwell warned us not to confuse war with peace, but we are clearly falling into that trap. More here.
Unconstitutional Patrols and Second Class Citizens
It does not happen in the suburbs, but in the city, the police will sometimes just pounce on people who are not doing anything wrong and if you complain or ‘mouth off,’ things can get much worse. Here is an excerpt from a ruling handed down today in DC.
What is most disturbing about this case is the result: a young man in the community . . . who was engaged in peaceful activities (mowing the lawn, smoking a cigarette) and who the police knew at the time they stopped him was not doing anything unlawful, is approached by aggressive officers engaged in aggressive unconstitutional patrols, and this young man ends up being punched in the face with such force that he receives a black eye, kicked numerous times in the back, thrown on the ground, sprayed in the eyes with pepper spray, and finally, he receives two convictions on his record for assault on a police officer. . . . But for this unconstitutional police policy, appellant Crossland would not have suffered a physical attack on his person and would not have had these convictions on his record. Instead, he would have had a rather ordinary day in his community mowing the lawn and smoking a cigarette, a day he probably wouldn’t even have cause to remember, and it is very disturbing that the police in this case are essentially being rewarded for their unconstitutional behavior and aggressive unconstitutional police policy which was the direct cause of a highly volatile situation which led to this young man’s eventual convictions for assaulting them.
The full opinion can be found here [pdf]. One judge says he hopes the police will be admonished for violating the rights of individuals–aggressively confronting people who are not doing anything wrong–and wonders whether he is being naive and unrealistic. Sorry to say that he is being naive and that’s part of the problem. If the young man had gone along with the illegal stop and frisk and the officer left the scene after ten minutes, there would have been no real legal remedy available and that’s why these tactics are used over and over again.
Author David Shipler spoke about this kinda thing at Cato a few weeks ago. Related Cato work here
Today Is Bill of Rights Day
Today is Bill of Rights Day. So it’s an appropriate time to consider the state of our constitutional safeguards.
Let’s consider each amendment in turn.
The First Amendment says that “Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech.” Government officials, however, have insisted that they can gag recipients of “national security letters” and censor broadcast ads in the name of campaign finance reform.
The Second Amendment says the people have the right “to keep and bear arms.” Government officials, however, make it difficult to keep a gun in the home and make it a crime for a citizen to carry a gun for self-protection.
The Third Amendment says soldiers may not be quartered in our homes without the consent of the owners. This safeguard is one of the few that is in fine shape — so we can pause here for a laugh.
The Fourth Amendment says the people have the right to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures. Government officials, however, insist that they can conduct commando-style raids on our homes and treat airline travelers like prison inmates by conducting virtual strip searches.
The Fifth Amendment says that private property shall not be taken “for public use without just compensation.” Government officials, however, insist that they can use eminent domain to take away our property and give it to other private parties who covet it.
The Sixth Amendment says that in criminal prosecutions, the person accused is guaranteed a right to trial by jury. Government officials, however, insist that they can punish people who want to have a trial—“throwing the book” at those who refuse to plead guilty—which explains why 95 percent of the criminal cases never go to trial.
The Seventh Amendment guarantees the right to a jury trial in civil cases where the controversy “shall exceed twenty dollars.” Government officials, however, insist that they can impose draconian fines on people without jury trials.
The Eighth Amendment prohibits cruel and unusual punishments. Government officials, however, insist that a life sentence for a nonviolent drug offense is not cruel.
The Ninth Amendment says that the enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights should not be construed to deny or disparage others “retained by the people.” Government officials, however, insist that they will decide for themselves what rights, if any, will be retained by the people.
The Tenth Amendment says that the powers not delegated to the federal government are reserved to the states, or to the people. Government officials, however, insist that they will decide for themselves what powers they possess, and have extended federal control over health care, crime, education, and other matters the Constitution reserves to the states and the people.
It’s a disturbing snapshot, to be sure, but not one the Framers of the Constitution would have found altogether surprising. They would sometimes refer to written constitutions as mere “parchment barriers,” or what we call “paper tigers.” They nevertheless concluded that having a written constitution was better than having nothing at all.
The key point is this: A free society does not just “happen.” It has to be deliberately created and deliberately maintained. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. To remind our fellow citizens of their responsibility in that regard, the Cato Institute has distributed more than five million copies of our pocket Constitution. At this time of year, it’ll make a great stocking stuffer.
Let’s enjoy the holidays but let’s also resolve to be more vigilant about defending our Constitution. To learn more about Cato’s work in defense of the Constitution, go here. To support the work of Cato, go here.
Mandatory Minimum Sentences
Federal Appellate Judge Andre Davis has penned an op-ed about mandatory minimum sentences. Here’s an excerpt:
As a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, I learn of many personal narratives. Tony Gregg’s bears retelling.
Mr. Gregg was a user, a seller, a “snitch” for the FBI. His early life was marked by abuse and instability, suicide attempts, jails and prison stays. As a drug user, Mr. Gregg resorted to selling crack cocaine — not kilos, but several grams at a time out of a hotel room in a run-down section of Richmond, Va.
Not unexpectedly, he was arrested and convicted. A district judge sentenced Mr. Gregg to the mandatory term of life imprisonment, required by statute, at the discretion of the prosecutor, for a third conviction of a felony drug offense.
When Mr. Gregg’s case came before me and my colleagues on appeal, there was nothing we could do but uphold the sentence of life in prison. The appellate court, like the disapproving trial court, found its hands were tied.
I do not believe Mr. Gregg deserves life in prison — the kind of sentence often imposed on convicted murderers — but I am handicapped by mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines, set by the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986.
And Mr. Gregg’s is far from the only story that underscores the kind of handcuffing by mandatory minimums that U.S. judges habitually face.
After 25 years of watching countless Tony Greggs serve out impossibly long sentences for transgressions that would be better served by drug treatment and social safety nets, I say with certainty that mandatory minimums are unfair and unjust. They cost taxpayers too much money and make very little sense.
For more information, vist the FAMM web site.
Drug War Update
When a war is not going well, one response is to escalate. There has been a lot of escalation in the drug war. Here are two recent examples:
1. Federal agent loses his job for questioning the wisdom of the drug war. Some government officials do not like the fact that the group “Law Enforcement Against Prohibition” (LEAP) has a growing membership.
2. Police agents tell judge in a warrant application that DVDs that educate citizens about their constitutional rights make certain organizations suspicious. Really. Since the film in question, “10 Rules for Dealing with the Police” premiered at Cato, maybe undercover officers are now attending our events. Neill Franklin, executive director of LEAP, spoke at Cato about the 10 Rules educational DVD and he says that film ought to be used in police training–to show agents how to respect the constitutional rights of people in the community.
Ethan Nadelmann recently spoke at Cato on the prospects for drug policy reform. And the NYT had a good piece on the militarization of police tactics yesterday.
For more Cato work on drug policy, go here.
Jury Nullification and Free Speech
Federal prosecutors are pressing their case against Julian Heicklen, the elderly man who distributed pamphlets about jury nullification. A lot of things are said about jury nullification and much of it is inaccurate. But whatever one’s view happens to be on that subject, I would have thought that the idea of talking about (and that includes advocating) jury nullification would be a fairly simple matter of free speech. We now know that the feds see the matter very differently. (FWIW, my own view is that in criminal cases jury nullification is part and parcel of what a jury trial is all about.)
In response to Julian Heicklen’s motion to dismiss his indictment on First Amendment grounds, federal attorneys have filed a response with the court. Here is the federal government’s position: “[T]he defendant’s advocacy of jury nullification, directed as it is to jurors, would be both criminal and without Constitutional protections no matter where it occurred” [emphasis added]. This is really astonishing. A talk radio host is subject to arrest for saying something like, “Let me tell you all what I think. Jurors should vote their conscience!” Newspaper columnists and bloggers subject to arrest too?
If Heicklen had been distributing flyers that said, “I Love Prosecutors. Criminals Have No Rights!” there would not have been any “investigation” and tape recording from an undercover agent. Any complaint lodged by a public defender would have been scoffed at.
First Amendment experts will know more than I about the significance of the “plaza” outside the courthouse and whether or not that’s a public forum under Supreme Court precedents. The feds make much of the fact that the plaza is government property. Well, so is the Washington mall, but protesters have been seen there from time to time. The plaza, however, is not the key issue. Activists like Heicklen would simply move 10-20 yards further away (whatever the situation may be) and the prosecutors seem determined to harass them all the way back into their homes, and even there if they blog, send an email, post a comment on a web site, text, tweet, or use a phone to communicate with others. After all, so many people are potential jurors.
Judges and prosecutors already take steps to exclude persons who know about jury nullification from actual service. And the standard set of jury instructions says that jurors must “apply the law in the case whether they like it or not.” But the prosecution of Heicklen shows that the government wants to expand its power far beyond the courthouse and outlaw pamphleteering and speech on a controversial subject. Once again the government is trying to go over, around, and right through the Constitution.
For previous coverage and additional info, go here, here, and here.
Grand Jury Reform Needed
The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers has just released a new report calling for reform of the federal grand jury system. Here’s an excerpt from the foreword to that report:
The same respect that the founding fathers had for the grand jury has faded in the modern criminal process. Undeniably, few institutions written into the U.S. Constitution manifest such disparity between design and practice as the federal grand jury. For an accusatory process that on its face emphasizes the role of the citizen, the grand jury is a patently un-democratic body. Indeed, the 94 federal grand juries across the country function more like feudal duchies, in which federal prosecutors exercise virtually unchecked power to indict. I say this having sought countless indictments before grand juries and having overseen the Justice Department’s work to promulgate uniform rules for federal prosecutions, including grand jury proceedings. Simply put, the federal grand jury exists today, for the most part, as a rubber stamp for prosecutors. This means that the grand jury no longer protects citizens from unfounded charges, government overreaching, and miscarriages of justice.
Those are the words of Larry Thompson, a former top ranking official in the Department of Justice who oversaw the work of federal prosecutors between 2001-2003. A link to the full report can be found here.
For Cato scholarship on this subject, go here.
A Global Initiative for Drug Policy Reform
The Beckley Foundation has just launched an important initiative in Great Britain and their new website has a gold mine of research related to drug policy.
On Tuesday, Cato hosted a conference on Ending the Global Drug War (those talks coming online soon).
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