Law & Disorder - Ken's Editorials

I was a social worker many years ago in Chicago where I specialized in street kids. That job brought me in close contact with the young male prostitute population and the gay community. I also worked as a teacher at a police academy and also taught criminal justice at the junior college level. In the absence of those experiences I probably would have simply been struck by fear and hid my children or refused to take them to the park after viewing your piece.

The fact of the matter is there is very little record/evidence of children either seeing or being exposed to improper sex acts in public. To the extent that sexual offenders generally expose themselves literally or figuratively to minors, that class of offender is neither gay nor straight per se but is a pedophile. A pedophile has very little in common with gay men or female prostitutes. (Which by the way although the piece mentioned women as being party to this behavior their entire focus was on men. I am extrapolating that they were referring to prostitutes.)

My experience in these matters is that most folks will react with hostility towards gay men after viewing this. That is the result of `the reporter pushing the fear button on the public. While the behavior described in the segment is foolishly risky and should be discouraged, it is also inflammatory and I believe in this case unnecessarily so.

The Star recently reported that a group of armed men shot up a van of illegal immigrants, killing the driver and wounding an 11 year old boy. Perhaps that would have happened no matter what but it seems to me that the recent wave of public condemnation of Mexican immigrants probably seeded the ground from which such violence sprang.

Let me say in my own defense that I am no scholar. No radio God. I struggle to be articulate and understood. I am an excellent trial lawyer and handgun instructor. But I can't manage my personal affairs. I have been married 2 times, both wives were lovely people. My 2nd wife is the smartest, kindest person I have ever known. The day we split should go down as the stupidest moment of my life, in a life filled with stupid moments.
I am poorly educated. I dropped out of high school at age 16. after 4 years, 2 Chicago public high schools, 1boarding and 1commuter school I was still a junior and wasn't making a lot of headway. I attended one college class in my life. to finish law school required a variety of tutors.
I was a bona fide criminal as a teen ager. I committed the crimes of burglary and drug sales hundreds of times. I gleefully transformed my innocent friends into drug abusers, which was what we all did for each other in 1967. I rallied against the war in Vietnam. I was a hippie gangster.
I meant no harm to others. society saw me as a criminal. I saw myself as a capitalist. My perception of self differed from others. maybe because I was battered as a child. I am short-tempered and have no tolerance for bullies, none, zip!
So I am a ruff tuff, cream puff. I am yin and yang. I am good and I am bad. I fear talking about myself on the air because I fear rejection from all the listeners I never even met. Yet , I have looked down the barrel of a loaded pistol and advised the holder of the weapon that I would terminate them if they failed to terminate me. So, I am fearful and fearless. I can be quite courageous and quite cowardly.
Do I believe in any form of gun control? Nothing is simple, much less people. So how do we simplify an issue like gun control. I want to talk about the use of deadly force. I want to talk about unlawful search and seizure. I want everyone to agree with me. But as I have said on this show before, hardly anyone agrees with me.
Now I am going to go off on a tangent. I do this show because my veiwpoint is not represented in the media. My wanna-be advocates say that the problem isn't guns but it is that federal prosecutors don't prosecute enough gun cases. But see, I don't need government to fix the problem of too much government. Gun control measures will not be thwarted by more reliance on government.
I don't believe there is an unassailable right to keep and bear arms. I don't believe that the drafters of the constitution would counsel against reasonable restraints on firearms in the midst of our present crisis.
I am not talking about my right to have guns. I am talking about my rights being saddled with responsibility. I believe in accountability. Citizenship is not an insular event. By definition it is participation in a larger community. But every time the issue of responsibility comes along everyone hides behind the skirts of the 2nd amendment. this ain't your momma. this is adulthood. We got a right to work, and pray. but you can't hold a church service in the middle of the street with traffic. You can't work where you weren't hired.
Every action has a reaction. Every gift has a cost. every blessing has its burden. This is a time of spiritual crisis in our country. this is a time of spiritual bankruptcy. there is a deep divide between the haves and the have nots. And we flock like sheep to spend our money with Walmart while giving lip service to entrepreneurial individuals. We abandon our community hardware stores so we can enjoy the convenience of Home Depot. We want the best, demand the best but will pay the least.
Last segment of show, Ken offered the following; If our country went for a doctor's exam it would be diagnosed with a plethora of physical and mental illness. The good Dr. would do well to prescribe an abundance of antibiotics, anti-psychotic and anti-depressants. we manifest symptoms of serious schizophrenia and heart disease. This is no time to tuff it out. We are past the point of aspirin. A study of rats conducted years ago showed that as the available room for movement was limited and the community enlarged, the rats became increasingly anti-social. So too are our urban environments causing anti-social behavior in humans. The frontier days are gone. So get ready to arrest the fever and attack the infection. Take your medicine like an adult.
For most of us in the gun community that may mean we maybe need to compromise. Maybe if we want to reduce the polarization with our fellow Americans we can take a prescription for personal accountability. Maybe we can quit creating gun bazaars and then refusing to acknowledge that we create an inviting arena for bad people to circumvent any controls on their access to guns. This isn't about the casual exchange of firearms in our little town. This is about the overnight creation of a super gun store in the middle of a big city, that folds up its tent at the end of the day and dissolves into the mist.
Like I said I am no scholar and my personal life is a mess. And I love my guns. But I don't have a problem with knowing who I give a gun to. I don't need an absolute right to sell or give my gun away. As long as there is a legitimate market for my weapons, I need not rely upon the kindness of others for the disposal of my weapons.. You can argue for unfettered constitutional rights, but you can't yell fire in a theatre. No right is absolute when it conflicts with the right I have to pursue life liberty and happiness.
What right is served by an unregulated stream of firearm sales? what harm would come of some regulation of the secondary market place? Forget that the gun control people want to take away the guns and that this is a movement towards the center where the liberal lurks in darkness waiting to take our guns. We aren't giving the guns up. So despite your fear of national registration and confiscation of our guns it isn't going to happen. Not because there are not those who will seek it, but because we will not give it.
There are compromises which may be appropriate and there may be concessions which are legitimate. There is a crisis of violence in our country. We can look anywhere else for solace that it is worse there, than here. But the bottom line is we are having a real bad time of it. And a responsible and accountable gun community doesn't have to barricade the doors against the rest of the country. We can do our share to preserve our freedoms and rights. we can retain the actual right to own and possess while giving up the unnecessary ability to sell our guns any damn time we please.
Now you can come after me and revile me. But I am not the enemy. I am just a simple minded guy who doesn't understand why I am living in a foxhole all the time with my head up our collective ass spouting sound bites about the assault of the 2nd amendment and federal prosecutors causing our predicament. My issue is self- defense, hunting rights and sporting rights. So if I can make changes in the law and still keep my real rights then I am ready to take my medicine.

Why is it that in a country where so many of my friends would zealously guard my right of free speech, so few want to preserve my other rights? If the pen is mightier than the sword, then speech is more dangerous than a gun, and worse in the hands of amateurs. One man with a gun can do only so much damage. Then he is apprehended or terminated. Tim McVeigh, the century's greatest American criminal didn't even have a gun, but he killed over a hundred people and injured hundreds of others. He paid the ultimate price for his acts. But the people that preached the hate that the McVeighs hear and take to heart, can't be executed. In fact many of us who would prosecute McVeigh would protect the Nazi criminals that inflamed him, because their weapon is speech. While you despise what they stand for you respect the right of these militant maladjusted mutants to poison the well that these weak minded McVeighs drink from, while paradoxically spurning my right to protect myself from these 3rd Reich rapping rejects.

It has been argued that I can trust my government to protect me when it can't protect itself. It is argued that our democracy can't be thwarted by narrow minded bigots intent on the overthrow of a principled democracy. Yet you stammer in protest at the election of right wing, moral majority politicians who would lay waste to Roe VS Wade. While you stand tall for your recently discovered right to abortion, you have no heart to defend my long established right to bear arms.

You need not embrace my rights for yourself. In fact, you are free to not exercise any of your fundamental rights. But I respectfully request that you refrain from actively attempting to usurp my rights. I suspect you are driven by fear. Let me acknowledge your fear. It is real, it is valid and it is as follows; it is a fear of violent assault against your home and family. Here is my secret which no one has shared with you. I am afraid of the same thing! I fear the violence that visits when bad or good people lose their mental or moral compass and strike violently whether intentionally or negligently into my life. It is not only bad people who do bad things, good people under the influence of mental illness, drugs, alcohol, or passion do very bad things too. I know you want to keep the demons of darkness from descending on your home and family. I feel your fear. It is mine! While you would feel better disarming us of firearms, I would slip into the chaos of paranoia as I recognize that bad people are more prevalent than guns.

Bad things have been happening for far longer than guns have been around. Evil has been with us before we even knew how to craft a weapon. You would ask me to trust you that no harm will come to me if I let you take my guns? Then ask yourself if you can protect me. Can you silence the crescendo of hate that has been directed at Jews, Blacks & other minorities? Can free speech prevent the rise of another Hitler? Hitler rose to power via politics. He took over Germany not by force, but by ballot boxes filled with the votes of people who were drawn to a leader who made them feel better about themselves at the cost of their humanity.

Are we Americans so superior spiritually, emotionally, psychologically, intellectually and morally to Germans? They build better cars and guns and electronics than we do. They are better educated. They have survived many more years of alterations to their economy, agriculture and infrastructure. Our 200 years of management are infantile and poor compared to the richness and maturity of the European culture. We aren't smarter or more sound of mind body and spirit than they, our language no more articulate or our heritage richer. What we have that all of Europe lacks is a constitution, and its accompanying inalienable rights. All these rights are dependent upon each other. Like the nutritional chart which requires contributions from all the food groups to have a healthy body, it takes a foundation of rights to have a healthy democracy. Many European cities have a richness of dialogue through numerous daily newspapers than do most American cities. London has a cascade of daily opinions which flow from its multitude of dailies, while Tucson has only two daily papers owned by one company. One view point published daily; there is no challenge to the status quo here and no venue to try. But England took the guns. Because despite the intellectual lip service that flows bohemian like from its media, England doesn't trust its citizens. If a gun in my hand is a danger then your mouth is absolutely explosive. The ability to inflame others thru speech is a far greater threat to my well being than a crazed criminal with a gun. I am not a caricature or a cartoon. I am a Jew. I have been run out of every country I ever resided in, and the bigots followed me here, ready and willing to scapegoat me once again for their miseries. Or just as bad, they are ready to convert me in the name of all that is holy, invoking powers greater than Hitler or any human hubris. You would strip me of all I have stood for now, 5,767 years, convinced that you can save me by destroying my culture which is rich in intellect and character and a wealth of spirit. This was achieved while you worked up a good moral superiority. Sorry, I can't give up my guns. I won't give up my guns. I won't be marched to ovens whether they kill with gas or with kindness. I respect your rights to proselytize your religion or your hate. I respect your right to believe differently from me. I respect your right to persuade others to your point of view, whether I agree with it or not. But, I ain't gonna trust you not to misuse your rights, and you are welcome not to trust me to misuse my gun. And I will defend to the death your right to speak freely. But I want you in exchange, to preserve my right to protect my family and home from the criminals and crazies, dope fiends and zealots. And I want you to defend my right to defend my life, liberty and my pursuit of happiness.

The inner city had begun to experience a violent trend in the late 60s. There was a lull in the inner city in the mid 70s as law enforcement reigned in leaders of the crime families. Crime families is accurate as the black gangs in major cities patterned themselves after the New York syndicate aka, crime families. When exactly the new killer emerged I don't know.
Late 80s or early 90s I suppose. A new pattern of violence. Shootings that were not based on control or rivalries. These new shootings seem to be an expression of frustration and/or hate. The target is not focused but rather appears to be anyone who is unlucky enough to be caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. Rather than be an outgrowth of some code and some dealing on the street, the crime and the weapon seem to originate within the home of the shooter or a neighbor.

A parochial school student goes to her girls only school and settles a rivalry with a classmate by shooting her. Simultaneous to the brutal shootings is the rise in even more brutal killings committed without a weapon. In Chicago, 2 preteen boys robbed a young boy and his younger brother. the robbery culminated in the youngest boy being tossed out of a high rise window. In Florida an oversized 12 year old brutally beat and killed a 5 year old girl he was babysitting. Another young boy killed his neighbor, a much younger girl, and stuffed her body in his waterbed matress. The list would seem to grow unbearably long.

Why are these crimes taking place? What can be done to prevent them? What is the appropriate punishment? The present system varies from state to state. Generally a juvenile will have their fate determined by a judge who approves the transfer of the child to an adult court or requires the case to be tried in a juvenile court. The distinction is usually , if tried in a juvenile court the punishment can rarely exceed the childs 21st birthday. Juveniles can not be incarcerated with adults. The child is held in a juvenile prison until their 17th year and then transferred to an adult prison. If tried as an adult, the same form of incarceration is applied but the sentence shall be identical to that of an adult, up to and including life in prison without the possibility of parole. A juvenile may not be sentenced to death. The task of the judge is to determine if the juvenile will best be served by a juvenile sentence which is to place emphasis on rehabilitation and reformation. The judge generally looks at prior criminal history and prior treatment if any, available resources in the system to treat the child, the nature and seriousness of the offense, and the risk of future harm to the community. The reality is that the heinousness of the offense is the single most significant factor. In other words it is often a political decision rather than a legal decision whether to try the case in juvenile or adult court.
Some medical and psychological doctors say that a teen's mind is still under developement. That juveniles simply do not process information and make decisions like an adult because of the status of their physiology rather than their mentality. The intent that a teenager brings to a crime then would simply be different from an adults'. In the law, most felonies require a "mens rea" to find guilt. That is, there must be a specific intent by the perpetrator to commit the specific crime. Usually it can be said that a juvenile has the specific intent to commit the crime, But should there be a distinction if that intent is truly and significantly different from an adult? Frustration management is different for kids. They must often suffer in silence. They can not quit their family, jump on a plane and take a vacation or go out and buy a new wardrobe. Typically the pain must be bottled up. If the source of their frustration is a bully they may feel powerless to speak out. Adults can change jobs, negotiate transfers, go to the union, or confront tormentors as a means of coping with bullying. Since children don't have the resources or the tools to negotiate these difficulties, is it fair to hold them to the same standard you would an adult when they fail to cope?

This article is disturbing at two levels.
One, it is a reflection of the increasing violence against Illegals that is taking place in Texas and AZ. Second, I note that the reporter calls this a fight "between human-smugglers". How do Anglos wearing green camouflage pants and shirts and wearing military-style berets � three black and one red and spoke limited Spanish, become human-smugglers? More likely they were Minutemen types who conducted a deadly illegal attack against illegal immigrants in an effort to protect the rest of us who are obviously too lazy to kill our landscapers. Or perhaps the reporter is a human-smuggler hater and felt he could advance the cause by demonizing and casting the attackers in said light. I don't actually think that is the case but the framing of the very first sentence in its content and context is either cause for suspicion or just poorly written.

1 dead, boy hurt in attack on illegals

By Alexis Huicochea

ARIZONA DAILY STAR

A fight between human-smugglers left one man dead and a 12-year-old boy wounded south of Eloy on Saturday and officials are asking for the public's help in finding the shooters.

David Norris Jr., 46, of Eloy, about 50 miles northwest of Tucson, was driving a vehicle containing 12 illegal entrants in a farm field near Sunshine and Ellis roads when four heavily armed men in a white full-size van began firing on them, Michael Minter, a Pinal County Sheriff's Department spokesman, said Wednesday.

Norris was killed. One of the illegal entrants, a 12-year-old boy, was shot in the leg, he said. The boy was taken to University Medical Center, where he is in stable condition.

All of the illegal entrants fled from the van when the attack ended and all but one were found, Minter said. It is believed that the one person who was not found may have been shot.

None of the shooters has been arrested, Minter said. They were wearing green camouflage pants and shirts and wearing military-style berets � three black and one red. The shooters spoke limited Spanish.