A second Open Letter to Eric Holder, this time explicating the obvious about misadventure, “decapitation” and spasm.
“In re U.S. vs. Olofson”
Dear Eric,
When I began this letter some days ago, I was pleased to hear at the time that the subject of my first letter to you back in May — the case of that friend of mine whose life was threatened by your employees — was thought to be shortly coming to a safe, legal resolution. It was expected then that the ATF would have to throw one or two perjured employees under the bus, the agency was going to have to change the way they do business and that your department would have to pay a bunch of money to people you would rather not.
Still, I thought then, if we all get out of it alive that’s more than some of your employees had cooked up before your intervention. That’s a good thing.
However, while I still thank you for your hands-on response, I learned today that my optimism may have been premature. This is extremely unfortunate, for as I have said before, there will be no more free Wacos.
This is doubly discouraging coming on the heels of the Supreme Court’s refusal to hear the final appeal of David Olofson, the Wisconsin father of three whose malfunctioning semi-automatic rifle was used against him by your employee, ATF Agent Jody Keeku, to attack and imprison an innocent man under color of law.
There are two things about this case that bode future evil. First, there is now no legal way out for anyone who has a malfunctioning semi-auto rifle. Can they legally take it to a gunsmith to have it fixed? What is to prevent anyone with such a broken weapon from going to jail at the lowliest ATF agent’s whim?
Here’s what folks are having trouble digesting:
- By your department’s failure to restrain Keeku’s outrageous conduct in returning the weapon to the ATF Testing Branch after it had been found by them NOT TO BE A MACHINEGUN but simply a malfunctioning semiauto rifle, with the demand that they retest it until they came to her opinion;
- By the trial judge’s refusal to allow defense experts to even examine the weapon; and
- By the appellate court’s blind refusal to allow a new trial based on these and other prosecutorial misdeeds,
the Federal government — that’s you, Eric, as the nation’s highest-ranking law enforcement officer — has put every owner of a semi-auto rifle on notice that they cannot count on the protections of the rule of law.
Secondly, and even more dangerously, if we can no longer count on a fair trial in a case of obvious ATF misconduct, then rationally, we have no reasonable expectation of a fair trial at all. In that case, we then are faced, when approached by any law enforcement officer attempting to enforce any gun law, with a Hobson’s choice:
- Submit, and be railroaded unfairly into prison, or
- Resist, and endure not only the personal consequences of that defiance, but also the likely consequences of a regional or even national conflagration.
As Attorney General and loyal servant of the President, you will, of course, dispute our conclusions. But Eric – only a fool would deny these unintended consequences of this patently unfair case. You are not a fool. As such, you need not believe that we are correct in our conclusions, but make no mistake — WE believe we are correct, and are thus adjusting our options accordingly.
This practical reality, added on top of your department’s previous misadventures going back to Ruby Ridge and Waco (and the subsequent successful cover-ups), make inadvertent violence, even accidental civil war, ever more likely.
Look, I’m not a leader of any organization. I’m just an Internet scribbler who sees things more clearly than most. It happens that a number of folks agree with me. Yet, on a good day my blog gets only about 5,500 hits. In Internet terms that’s miniscule. Chump change. But I have had certain experiences in dealing with out-of-control government agencies over the past 16 years which gives me insights into possible futures, most of which scare the crap out of me and ought to scare the crap out of you, too.
Back in the Nineties, my friend and New Mexico militia leader Bob Wright learned that the ATF planned a raid on some innocents in his area. He asked the FBI Special Agent in Charge to meet him and when he arrived at the appointed place Bob opened with these words:
“You know, back in the Sixties, the left in this country advanced the opinion that if the people who actually fought the wars could sit down and talk things over, there wouldn’t be any wars . . . We’re here to test that theory.”
I write to you today with the same desire to avoid conflict, and precisely because the threat of accidental causation is there, I will speak as bluntly to you now as Bob did then to the FBI. We do not have time for faux politeness and insincere pretense. For we are potentially, thanks to your employees and their reputation over the past twenty or more years, on the brink of a spasm of violence unlike anything this country has ever seen.
If they are worth what you are paying them, your analysts must be telling you how dangerous is the mood in this country right now. And if their reports are not reaching you, then certainly the monthly tallies of firearm and ammunition sales are.
This march towards the abyss did not happen overnight, and it will not go away of itself. Smart, capable people are looking at the world around them, and here is what they see:
- The suppurating wound of Waco and its aftermath is still festering;
- The prospects for armed government misadventure (be it ATF, FBI, DHS, or any of the other hordes of armed Federal agents stalking the land) growing day by day;
- The increasing realization on our side that the “Waco rules” (i.e., “kill as many witnesses to government malfeasance as possible, indict and convict any survivors, and obstruct any attempts at independent investigation”) still obtain;
- By the recycling of former Clinton Administration officials in the current Administration, the present Federal law enforcement mechanisms remain staffed by people who believe, as they did in the Nineties, that they can do anything we can’t physically stop them from doing; and
- Unprecedented levels of electronic surveillance, both within and without the traditonal Constitutional restraints against governmental overreach, being directed against all American citizens, especially who those dare to criticise Leviathan government.
Eric, it doesn’t take a social scientist to understand that things are quickly going to get out of hand unless somebody pulls back from the brink.
Not to put too fine a point on it, Eric, but that somebody is you. YOU are the nation’s highest-ranking law enorcement official. YOU must restrain your employees from illegal actions. YOU must get a handle on not only out-of-control agencies like the ATF, but the entire panoply of Federal law enforcement agencies. And, most importantly, YOU must reassure us that you will return these agencies to the rule of law and the constitutional restraints that the Founders put in place.
You must understand that as firearms owners we are done backing up. For 75 years, since the National Firearms Act of 1934, the federal government has encroached upon our tradional rights to liberty and property and each time we backed up, grumbling.
No more.
It is YOU who need to consider backing YOUR employees out of OUR faces.
Tags: attorney general, holder, justice, sipsey street
Get the RSS