The law is the law.
Recently a young woman, Mollie Tibbets, was murdered in Iowa. She had her whole life before her, but it was taken away. Good police work turned up the killer and that’s where we see the cloud of confusion settle over the case. The murderer, one Cristhian Bahena-Rivera, killed her using something that left wounds similar to a knife…but they’re not identifying the murder weapon as yet. What HAS come to light about the murderer is that he followed her as she was jogging…and some might call that being stalked. I know I would.
It turns out that the killer is in this country illegally, and has been for possibly seven years! His employer, Yarrabee Farms, is a dairy farm in the region. The farm owner originally said that he used the E-Verify system to check whether Bahena-Rivera was an illegal alien, saying that he passed the screening. Later, the farm owner admitted that E-Verify was NOT used to check the immigration status of the illegal alien. Isn’t there a penalty for knowingly using illegal aliens in your business? If there isn’t, there certainly should be. By the way, the illegal alien used a stolen or fake identity of an American citizen as he provided the farm with a fraudulent Social Security card.
Bahena-Rivera has demanded that the government and media stop referring to him as an “illegal alien”, even though he does lack legal status to be in the U.S. And, if that wasn’t insulting enough, his attorney, Allan Richards described his client as an “all-American boy working really hard.” Somehow, I find that deeply disturbing, that the lawyer would think that his client represents the best of America. The law says this is murder, and the penalty should fit the crime, I do believe.
The law, according to the Governor of Illinois, Bruce Rauner, empowers police to confiscate firearms from citizens and extends the wait period for gun purchases to 72 hours. So, what does the law do for the folks? Nothing positive. The new waiting period means a single woman being pursued by a stalker now has to hide and/or live behind locked doors for three days while she waits to get a gun for self-defense.
She may, if she wishes, get an injunction on the person but, for anyone that thinks in a rational manner, that’s only a piece of paper, even if it is the law.
A person, intent on doing serious, possibly deadly, harm to another person, is not going to let a piece of paper stand in their way. I’m sure the police have many cases where one person killed another, in spite of the injunction. The reasoning behind this law, and several other states passing similar ones, is that it protects the potential victim. It does not.
The “panic” following the Parkland shooting in Florida spurred some Governors to “do something” and they came up with these laws. The problem with these laws is that they would not have stopped the Parkland shooting, because the family with whom the gunman lived actually took up for him when police came to the house after being alerted that he was a possible threat. (Gun confiscation laws require family members to attest to the danger posed by another family member.)
Moreover, such laws would not have prevented the May 18, 2018, Santa Fe High School shooting in Texas because that gunman used someone else’s firearms. Additionally, the Maryland gun confiscation law certainly did not prevent the June 28, 2018 attack on Annapolis’ Capital Gazette newspaper. Five people were killed in that attack.
What have we learned here, about the law? Depending upon which side of the law you’re on, it can be a good thing or it can be nothing at all. Certainly criminals won’t care about laws either way.
Our Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, says that the right to bear arms shall not be infringed. It doesn’t describe any sort of other law and it clearly says that no infringement will be allowed. I would, as a gun owner, say that my gun is important to me, almost a sacred piece of equipment…a tool to be used in the defense of my family, my home and myself.
The law says that if you enter the United States illegally you are committing a crime and, unless I’m very confused, that makes you a criminal. Why do we have borders, if the law says you’re a criminal when you enter illegally? Because, without borders you’re not a country, you’re just a big open space into which anyone and everyone can pour.
Imagine, if you can, that the law about borders didn’t exist. What would be the consequence of that? The answer is that we would quickly be overrun with people that, most likely, have no skills that we need, would go onto whatever welfare programs might still exist and, in the end, we would wind up being exactly like the country from which they fled. In a decade, it’s a possibility that a BILLION people could come here and they would cause a social upheaval that would quickly spiral into anarchy and civil war(s).
Parting shot: As has been proclaimed many times, we are a nation of laws, so why are we not enforcing them? Many of our problems could be alleviated just by doing that.
Image: CCO Creative Commons; Excerpted from: https://pixabay.com/en/help-hand-offer-despair-depression-3049553/
