Personal Freedom

I wonder sometimes where our country will be in fifty years.  Earlier, one of the news networks reported on a man that had been arrested for discharging a firearm in the city and causing “risk of death”.  Now that seems like a valid reason to arrest someone doesn't it?  Of course it does, we can't have people just randomly shooting in town, it's dangerous.  However, there was a little more to the story.

The man, Mr. George Greir, was preparing to leave his home with his cousin when he was confronted by several Hispanic gang members (MS 13) in the driveway of his home.  Mr. Greir stated that he returned to into his house and called police; meanwhile fifteen to twenty other gang members had walked onto his property and surrounded his cousin.  Mr. Greir stated that he retrieved a rifle from inside his residence and fired four shots into the ground in front of his house in order to scare away the gang members.  Mr. Greir said that the gang members fled the area before the police arrived. 
Now here’s the kicker, when the police arrived, Mr. Greir was arrested for firing a weapon.
YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!!!!

I am an American citizen; I have a right to defend myself, my family, and my property.  I should not have to wait until someone is using force against me before I defend myself.  Once again, I propose that common sense should dictate the actions of jurisprudence in our country.  My father taught me as a child that once you realize that physical violence is immanent, make sure to get in the first blow.  History teaches that he who strikes first strikes best, and the first punch normally decides the fight.  Now, this is common sense, country thinking mind you, and most liberals will never understand the concept.

Several years ago, while working as a neighborhood police officer in my city, I was called to assist a city inspector at a residence where the home owner had become irate.  When I arrived I found the inspector hiding behind his vehicle and an elderly man sitting on the front porch with a shotgun leaned on the wall beside him.  The old man welcomed me up onto the porch but refused to allow the inspector to come onto his property.  The old man explained to me that the inspector had come to his house and told him that he was being fined because his grass was too high. 

I looked at the grass, and it was almost knee high.  However, the yard and house were otherwise clean and neat.  There was no trash, no weeds or anything that would give one the impression that the property was not being looked after.  The old man explained that his lawnmower was broken and had been in the repair shop for two weeks.  The man said as soon as his lawnmower was repaired, he would mow the grass, but he would not accept a ticket.  The old man stated that the inspector threatened him and said that in addition to the ticket, if his grass wasn't mowed by the end of the day, the city would mow the grass and he would be billed for it.  The old man told the inspector that this was his property; he had lived in that house for fifty years and did not need anyone mowing his grass for him.  He told the inspector that the city had better not come onto his property and that he would shoot anyone who stepped foot on it.  He then retrieved a shotgun from inside his house to prove that he would defend his property.

Now that sounds extreme doesn't it, here's the problem;  I don't think it is.  I actually see the old man's point.  He has lived in that neighborhood for fifty years and watched it deteriorate.  You could stand on the sidewalk in front of his house and see half a dozen homes where there was no grass in the yard at all, just dirt and trash.  The house across the street had an old car up on blocks and the house hadn't been painted in years. The old man is forced to deal with gang members, drug dealers, thieves, and vagrants already, now the city government is giving him grief.   Why did the inspector bother this old man and not concentrate on some of the other houses?  Probably because he decided it would be easier to write a ticket to an old man who was less likely to challenge him than some of the other residents in the area.  That inspector was wrong.

I felt for that old man, I even offered to come over that afternoon and mow his grass for him on my own time.  He thanked me and refused the offer saying that he would handle his own chores.  You see even at his age, he was to prideful to allow someone else to do something he was able to do himself.  I told the city inspector that the man wasn't a threat, and that if he would have listened to the old man instead of threatening him, the entire incident could have been avoided.  The inspector left in a huff, without citing the man.  The old man thanked me and told me that he was sorry for taking up a policeman's time for such a small thing.

This is an example of the personal freedoms we, as Americans, are giving away.  I am the one in control of what happens on my property, it belongs to me not the government.  If I want to lie naked in my yard eating Cheetos and drinking buttermilk it is no ones business but mine.  The government is slowly crawling into our lives more and more every day.  President Obama and his progressive cronies have already made the decision to spend trillions of your tax dollars.  They have put our family’s future at risk with their health care program and are chopping away daily at our individual rights.

I leave you with this quote from Benjamin Franklin:

He who would sacrifice liberty for security deserves neither.