It is all over the news here in Chicagoland this morning (and late last night): Terry Tank Johnson is arrested for gun ownership. He lives about 2 miles from me, and from what I can tell, this is not just non-news, but a violent criminal act of the Gurnee police department. Unfortunately, the law does not look at it this way.

The Constitution of the United States is incomplete as any non-binding document could be. Its purpose was to restrict government — all government — of trampling basic, inherent rights of the people — all people, including citizens, residents, immigrants and foreigners here and abroad. The Constitution says that Congress may make no law infringing on the right to bear arms. Unfortunately, it really does not go into detail on what that means for individual States and townships.

Terry “Tank” Johnson did nothing wrong. When his house was violated by the Gurnee SWAT team, he was training with the Chicago Bears. His girlfriend and friend were home at the time that the SWAT team bashed down the door with their guns armed and aimed. Johnson’s young children were with the two adults. Johnson doesn’t seem to have shot a gun, made a threat, or done anything that would be considered an act of violence. The Gurnee police department sure did — they violated a man’s property, his life, his livelihood and his privacy. Regardless of what the Constitution says is a limit of government, I denounce my old village for their complete lack of peace in this situation. If Gurnee was concerned about Johnson’s intentions, they should have asked about it.

Illinois requires an FOID card — Firearm Owner’s IDentification card. This, in my opinion, is a terrible idea for any gun owner to have — it gives the State a nice list of who owns a firearm, what type of firearm, and specifics about that ownership. I am a pacifist, I no longer own or operate firearms based on my moral beliefs, but I do support the free will of any man to arm themselves if they please. I believe that the State should have no right to anything that the private citizen can’t have. I believe if the State wants to protect the citizens, they must actually go after REAL victimizers, rather than just peaceful citizens who aren’t in the act of a crime or making verbal or written statements in regards to performing a violent crime against another.

Johnson’s friend at his home was arrested for pot — something that I’m sure wasn’t listed on the search and arrest warrants of the inept Gurnee police department.

I won’t stand for this violation of man’s inherent right to protect their homes from criminals and the State. I’m no camoflauge-wearing, gun-toting, conspiracy-viewing right-wing whack-job, but I sure don’t see what Terry “Tank” Johnson did wrong here. A law that requires firearm ownership is dangerous for the free people of the world, and we should not stand for it. Give the Gurnee Police Department (non-emergency) a call and demand that they withdraw charges and get back to doing what they should be doing: truly patrolling the streets looking for real criminals performing real crimes against real property.

It is time for a new constitution, a truly new one with the most basic unquestionable and undebatable terms for even the simplest person to understand. While I don’t support the State’s right to develop a Constitution, I do believe we as humans must step forward and start saying NO, especially to the State as it exists at the most local level. A new Constitution must tell the State that it has no power over us whatsoever; it must provide for greater punishments for those who work for the State than those that the State governs. The Constitution must show that in no way does the State have control over even a minority who disagree with the rest — it must show that a free man is free as long as he is within his property and threatening and harming no one. We no longer need lawsuits provided by “the people” but rather actual victims of actual crimes where actual property or body was harmed. The enforcers of the law must put their lives at risk beyond just their jobs — they must also put their lives on the line for any fraud, coercion, lies, deceit or corruption.

I’ve stopped shopping in Gurnee for the last year, and I refuse to support the local governent due to a corrupt and disregarding government that is more concerned with collecting traffic ticket income than protecting its citizens. In the case of Terry “Tank” Johnson, he was prepared to defend himself as he knew that Gurnee surely wouldn’t do it. That makes him a criminal in the eyes of the State.

Discuss this article at the anarcho-capitalism forum.

Yesterday’s article on conspiracy theories and government brought me quite a few dozen e-mails in protest from some regular readers of the site and the feed. While I appreciate the input and am striving to reply to everyone, I figured I would put my most consistent replies in a post today just to relieve some tension and frustration I’m sensing from some of my favorite contributors. Don’t forget that we do have an anarcho-capitalism forum where you can create an anonymous account and open the discuss to others — I much prefer forum discussions over e-mails when possible as it gives me new things to consider when others enter the debate. I still welcome and appreciate the e-mails and am not asking them to stop if you don’t like forum discussions.

Quite a few e-mails had made a point that there is a lot of information that I don’t know of, based on the confidential and top secret status. I am aware that a few of this site’s regular readers come here with .MIL and .GOV addresses, so I understand that some people may know more about particular security issues than I ever will. I can appreciate that. I also appreciate that there ARE employees of the State that consider themselves pro-freedom; freedom being defined from my perspective of less State, not more. While I’m not a fan of his, I have always loved Peter Kropotkin’s famous quote: freedom cannot be given, it must be taken.

Others have said that they feel more secure knowing that the State has secrets about security threats and is using those secrets to increase the defense of the residents within the nation. While I concede there is a remote possibility of that fact, I also know that we’re a nation of 300 million individuals located in one of the largest land masses in the world. I’ve studied war theory and facts for 15 years, and the likelihood of a war being brought to the US is slim to none. Culturally everyone around us is morally opposed to war, so I’m confused as to who exactly would attack us, how they’d finance it, how they’d get it past national, state and local defense, and what they would expect to gain. I hate to think that 300 million individuals truly believe that a small group of untrustworthy individuals who have repeatedly proven their inability to do what is right would actually care about any of the individuals that they’re sworn to protect and defend. I have no proof that any politicians cares about anything but their own power and position — if someone can find a law or an action that shows otherwise, please let me know.

A few have said that there are secrets that will definitely be revealed at some point in the future, and that those in the know are aware of how to combat the threats without revealing the secrets today. My problem is that those “in the know” in the 60s and 70s were duped by the highest ranking officials. This continued even up to today (we now have OPR investigating the NSA’s massive network of lies and fraud against its own citizens). I’ve read, in great detail, almost every book on the subject (not conspiracy whack jobs but reliable sources such as James Bamford and Ellsberg) over the years, and I am always surprised at the history of even powerful politicians and agents of the State being lied to by the topmost ranking officials. When you are entrusted with certain secrets, how are you sure that they’re not concocted by others in the regime? That is the problem with conspiracies that deal with secrets and classified information — by the time the information is finally released, everyone involved is long dead, and no one recalls what the concern was at the time decades earlier.

There might be information that is top secret and classified that seems scary based on the way the information is written and presented. The few people who mentioned this “fact” also said that they are happy that my words have no power in opening the secret information to public display. I can appreciate that and many are thankful that nothing I say now has much power to make any changes, but you have to understand that I am just as scared of the extreme power that our own government has acquired in my lifetime. I’ve spent time in the DDR before the fall of the wall, and in the USSR before it collapsed, and I’ve personally witnessed how terrible a massive State can be. When someone has secrets, I usually don’t care. When someone has secrets and has the infinite ability to use force without accountability or proof, I have to call to judgement the reasoning behind the secrets that are referred to when that infinite force comes into use.

All I know is that the situations where war was provoked seems to always leave more dead, wounded and disabled than any war I’ve seen where we’ve run with our tail between our legs. My most recent research is on the drive to war in Bosnia and Somalia and the things our own government said to the public and to departments within the government — the lies and deceit were enough to scare anyone to act quick; in the end we just see more discord and poison brought to the populace.

What is better — to cry wolf over and over and over and repeatedly show that our machinations were unjustified and our motivations were false (at a cost of thousands or hundreds of thousands of lives); or actually witness an attack on our country and learn to close the holes that left us defenseless.

One last thing to say — I am fully aware of the inability of the US government to defend the country, my community, my family and my own person from a minor attack which would cause much more loss of life if a few were performed at the same time than would a major attack that would be incredibly costly and dangerous to perform for the attacker. I am shocked at how much defense has become an eyewash and offense has become the new defense. I’m _NOT_ demanding that we exit international conflicts or open each and every department to full public reporting tomorrow — I’m demanding that certain tasks that place the rights of NON-GOVERNMENT individuals (citizens, residents and aliens here and abroad) be available for review so that we know that we’re not being lied to again.

Discuss this article at the anarcho-capitalism forum.