BLATHER REVIEW

The Right to Keep and Bear Arms: if you use it, you lose it?

Bill Gates, of Charleston, S.C., was sick and tired of the danger to his family caused by gun-toting drug dealers. See HERE.

"I told the police, 'Bring the coroner and body bags the next time you come out here,' " he said. "Nobody is going to run me out of my home."

At about 4:30 am on Friday, Aug 1st, Bill and his wife were rudely awakened by gunfire on their front lawn, just outside their bedroom window. His wife, Yvonne, screamed and dropped to the floor. Bill thought maybe Yvonne had been shot. He grabbed his shotgun and fired three rounds at the punks, hitting two. A third dirtbag lay wounded from a 9mm bullet taken in the firefight between the the drug dealers.

This was only the latest in a long string of such events. Inside the home -- on a wall facing the street -- is a bullet hole from a previous gunfight on their lawn.

"The good Lord was with me that day because I had just moved my grandbaby from that couch," Yvonne Gates said. "She would have been killed because the bullet hit the couch."

This is the house that Bill grew up in. His parents owned it, and passed it on to him when they died. The drug dealing punks were on his property spraying bullets that occassionally entered the home where there are people inside. Bill Gates had every right to respond to that early morning scumfest in exactly the way that he did.
And the police seem to understand that:

While police did not publicly approve of what Gates did, they filed no charges against him Friday.
"We have no plans to arrest him," Charleston Police Chief Reuben Greenberg said. "We can't see from where we sit where a crime's been committed. People have the right to provide for their safety, and we believe that is what he was doing."

So, can someone explain the reason for what came next?

Gates, who is an avid hunter and proudly displays two large mounted deer heads among the photographs of children and grandchildren in his living room, had all seven of the guns he owns confiscated by the police until their investigation is complete.

Since when do the police have the authority to violate Bill's Constitutional Right to keep and bear arms... when no charges were even filed, and when all of his arms are legally owned? Was there even a warrant issued for the seizure of this property?

Leaving Bill and Yvonne defenseless -- and making a public declaration about their defenselessness -- against possible retaliation from the friends and colleagues of the wounded warloons makes about as much sense as... as... aw hell I dunno... selling the car for gas money.

Bill wont be taking this laying down, though;

He vows that he will be ready if friends of the three men try to retaliate, and he smiled as he said he planned to acquire a gun to protect himself.
"They better make sure they get me if they come back, because if they don't get me, I'm going to kill all of them," Gates said. >"I'm 67 and don't have that long to live anyway."

Well, I don't know 'bout that, Bill. Stick around a while longer, will ya? Some people believe that only the police should be allowed to have guns. We need every person we've got who realizes that those who are threatened have the primary right to defend themselves; not some right to be defended only by their government.

Posted by Tuning Spork at August 4, 2003 10:57 PM