Law School Conservative

By: Carlos S. Ramirez

Ladies and Gentlemen, after three long, stressful weeks of law school finals we are back!

Why not re-open this blog with the usual pointing out of liberal non-sense.

In this CNN Story, the ACLU and other soft on crime groups are complaining about how the death penalty is “cruel” and “torture” because of an obese inmate in Ohio. In a definitely non-standard case, of the type the media and the ACLU love to make look as common place, an Ohio inmate’s execution died 2 hours after his planned execution time and after 10 tries at securing a vein to administer the lethal coctail.

According to the ACLU, 10 attempts to insert a catheter into the inmate’s vein is equal to torture.
Do life saving treatments administered by doctors count as torture now? According to the ACLU’s reasoning it is. Unless of course, ER staff trying 10 times to find a vein on an overdosing man with a long history of intavenous drug use is not torture, in the eyes of the ACLU, but “life saving treatment”.

Once again, this story demonstrates the lack of logical reasoning in the ACLU’s thinking. They seek to extrapolate from the prolonged execution of a convict (don’t expect me to feel sorry for him, he murdered someone in cold blood, he deserved to be executed), to claim that this happens in all executions and that they should be stopped because this is unfair.

I’d like to remind the ACLU, that as far as executions go, the U.S. is the most humane nation in the world. I’d also like to ask the ACLU, who claim that executions are “due process violations” and “cruel and unsusual punishment”, who exactly provided “due process” and protection against “cruel and unusual punishment” against the condemned convict’s victims?

Of course, since the ACLU can’t answer that, I’m going to leave it be, and just continue my claim that the ACLU is wrong.

By: Nathan D. Fox

Read this brief article about another Virginia school shooting by a foreign national student at the Appalachian School of Law in 2002.  This was one of the incidents that lead up to Virginia’s ban on guns anywhere on college campuses.  However, while the storylines are somewhat parallel, their resolutions are markedly different.

At Appalachian, two students acting independently of one another, reached for their own weapons upon hearing shots in an administrative building.  Unfortunately, the facts surrounding the apprehension of the shooter were unreported by many news outlets according to World Net Daily.  At Appalachian, both Tracy Bridges and Mikael Gross ran to their vehicles and retrieved their legally obtained, permitted, handguns to apprehend the shooter.  After succeeding in apprehending the shooter and disarming him, the shooter was then detained by several unarmed students until authorities arrived.  However, this incident was not without tragedy as 3 people were killed before the shooter was detained.  Fortunately, it was only 3 individuals.

What is the relevance you ask?  This is an example of why law abiding citizens should be allowed to arm themselves.  This is not a cheap political rant or NRA talking point.  This is a plain and simple justice argument.  Why should law abiding citizens be forced to endure their own slaughter without a means of recourse? (a recourse which coincidentally is preserved in our Constitution…see Amendment numero dos for those inclined to habla Español)

A second problem I have with the VA Tech shooting is that the PC plan of non-resistance worked to its worst end.  The students, who sadly have been trained to seek cover and hide, were sitting ducks waiting for their demented executioner.  This literally makes me irate.  I recall in elementary school how our teachers taught us to handle this type of situation: sit and wait with the lights off and the door closed.  Does this make any sense?  This is the logical equivalent of a child who says, “if I close my eyes I can’t see you, so you can’t see me.”  I am about to say something unpopular and possibly offensive, so buyer beware.

The PC liberal-left has succeeded in undermining a key vertebrae in our American backbone of liberty over death.  Somehow in our comfy suburbanite desire for safety over all, we have taught our children that it is better to sit an let evil run rampant, hoping it will pass, than fight evil, and confront it (violently if necessary).  This is an outrage.  To my knowledge, there was one 76 year old man, Liviu Librescu, who fought back at VA Tech and sacrificed his own life so that others should live.  May God rest this man’s honorable soul.   Mr. Librescu, unfortunately, knew a thing or two about evil.  He was a Holocaust survivor and probably had a sound knowledge of the reality of human evil.  However, the liberal left would have you believe that the best course of action is to sit on your hands and sing “Cumby-a.”  This does not work as evidenced most recently, and sadly, at VA Tech.  Wouldn’t it be easier to confront evil if law abiding citizens were allowed to have the tools to get the job done?  Regardless, individual action is sometimes the best means to solve a problem.  For example, if Todd Beamer (“Let’s Roll,” 9/11/01) chose to sit on his thumbs on his ill-fated flight over PA, there may have been a helluva lot more casualties on 9/11.  The liberal left will never admit this though.

If you really want crime control, and an end to unlawful violence, arm your law abiding citizens.  You will hear the liberals out there begrudging America’s “gun culture,” and other things in attempt to blame America for Cho’s outrageous conduct at VA Tech.  However, the truth is it is their liberal ideology and acceptance of Cho’s hatred, and the gun-free school zone that allowed this tragedy to happen on the scale that it did.  If parents and students really want safe schools, it is high time, regardless of views of gun control, that parents demand a change.  Unfortunately there are 32 more victims of the sit-and-hide-under-your-desk policy.  Our will to fight back is broken, who will fix it?

By: Carlos S. Ramirez

Early this morning a gunman with unknown motivations rampaged through two buildings in VA Tech’s campus. Reports vary from 22 to 32 dead.

Needless to say, I will stay on top of this story and post updates as they are available.

Please keep the students, faculty and staff of Virginia Tech, as well as their families in your thoughts and prayers.

UPDATE: The shooter is dead, no details on whether he killed himself or if he was shot by police.

By: Carlos S. Ramirez

Well it seems that Jim Webb (D-VA) got one his aides in trouble.

Yes, Senator Webb sent an aide into his office building on capitol hill with a bag. In that bag was a loaded gun.

Wait, aren’t concealed weapons illegal in DC? What happened to the aide? What if it had been the Senator carrying the piece?

Yes, guns cannot be carried in DC without an impossible to obtain permit (believe me, I tried).

The aide spent the night in jail.

Had it been the Senator, here’s what would have happened: NOTHING

The Senator doesn’t need to go through the metal detector, his bag isn’t searched.

A few years ago, Kay B. Hutchinson from Texas tried to register her pistol in DC and get a permit, she was denied. There are a lot of inconsistent rules in disarmed victims zones such as the District of Columbia, where private citizens can’t carry a handgun legally, but criminals who don’t care about the law do.

Which brings me to another point, why target gun laws at everyone? The fact is, that a for guy who is willing to rob, rape, assault, batter or even murder someone, packing heat illegally isn’t too much of a stretch.

Places like DC somehow allocate more moral superiority to a victim, who was murdered, robbed and raped than to someone holding a licensed, concealed handgun with smoke coming from the muzzle and a dead attacker at his or her feet.

While I applaud Jim Webb for taking steps to defend himself, I have to shake my head in his direction. By failing to follow the law, however arcane, Webb gave gun-banners like Diane Fienstein and Chucky Schumer ammunition (yes, I appreciate the irony). Or did he, really? I actually wonder what these hot air bags will say now that one of their own got caught doing what they want the rest of us plebeians not to do.

While Webb may be able to get his aide off the hook, here is what happens to the rest of us when we, even with a carry permit, make the same mistake.
Anyway, that was my little rant. I hope this brings up a new debate about how concealed carry permits should be more liberally issued to qualified individuals.

By: Carlos S. Ramirez

In this post about how the Roanoke times, in a show of reckless disregard for the safety of people who DON’T carry firearms, published a list of persons who have a VA Concealed Carry License, including their home address.

Now, I have to say, I have a concealed carry permit. I have two actually, Pennsylvania and Florida. With those 2 permits I can carry in 30 states. If someone published a list of carry permit holders and their home address, a burglar would smart up and know that at my place, they run the risk of getting shot.

There is one class of individuals out there, where 100% of all its members support gun control restrictions: criminals.

Gun control restriction laws affect law abiding citizens. Only someone who follows the law will pay the fee and go through the process to get a permit to legally carry a concealed firearm.

A criminal doesn’t care. He doesn’t wait until he’s 21, he doesn’t go get fingerprinted, he doesn’t pay a fee. He carries a gun that he bought on the streets. Didn’t go through the NICS (National Instant Check System) process, didn’t have to report the sale to police.

Now, if I want to buy a gun, I go to a store, fill out three forms, wait 45 minutes for NICS to clear me, and let the PA state police have a record of where and when I bought the gun and what its serial number is. In some states, I would have to wait several days before I took possession, and in other states, the state police would fire the gun, and collect the shell case and bullet for ballistic fingerprinting.

The criminal didn’t do that.

While I will eventually spend much more time deconstructing the illogical arguments behind gun restrictions, all I have to say now is this: If we outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns.

By: Carlos S. Ramirez

Frank Melton, the mayor of Jackson Mississippi, is in no uncertain terms a hypocrite.

Melton is a member of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s coalition of anti-gun mayors. Melton has taken his anti-Second Amendment ranting to the next level by calling for a ban on gun shows in Jackson and authorizing Jackson police to randomly stop cars and search them for “illegal” guns, a clear violation of God knows how many Constitutional Rights. Now, I’m all for taking guns off the hands of felons, drug addicts and gang members, but not at the expense of having law abiding gun owners’ rights infringed, but I digress, so that discussion will have to wait for a later time.

It seems though, that Mayor Melton has some gun troubles of his own. Last November, Melton pled guilty to carrying a concealed firearm without a license. How ironic, no? An anti-gun crusader, caught packing heat without a license. No wonder Frank Melton doesn’t want you to have gun. (For a timeline on Frank Melton’s recent transgressions, click here, link opens in a new window.)

Sadly, that transgression wasn’t enough to get Melton kicked off Bloomberg’s sham coalition. However, poetic justice, never to be undone, came back and gave Melton a piece of its mind: last week, Melton was arrested and jailed for violating his probation.

Doesn’t Bloomberg want to go after criminals? Because it seems to me that in his pathetic crusade to entrap la abiding gun dealers into breaking the law, he is hurting those of us law abiding gun owners who do things the right way, while letting the criminals who buy and sell guns on the streets of his city get away with murder (sometimes literally). Speaking of criminals who get away, Frank Melton is still mayor of Jackson, and I’m willing to bet he’s still packing, illegally.

Thankfully, not all is lost in Jackson. Some law-abiding citizens in Jackson are still willing to risk their lives for the safety of others. Last Sunday, as dozens of people watched in horror, a man brutally attacked his wife outside of a city store. As this was happening, a man ran to the scene, pulled out his concealed weapon, and ordered 42-year old Henry Wilson to stop. He then held Wilson at gunpoint until police arrived.

The woman, Grace Wilson, is recovering from her wounds in a Jackson hospital. Wonder what Frank Melton thinks about this courageous man, who carrying a weapon legally (the police did not release his name, they only said that he is licensed to carry a concealed firearm) stopped a brutal attack.