Archive for August 23rd, 2019

The (Houston) Chronicle of our times.

Friday, August 23rd, 2019

Two stories from HoustonChronicle.com (not chron.com, which is basically imitation Buzzfeed these days):

Gerald Goines, the Houston Police Department officer at the center of the botched drug raid scandal, has been charged with two counts of felony murder. His partner, Steven Bryant, has been charged with tampering. (Apparently, that’s “tampering with a government record”, though I saw some early reports claim it was “witness tampering”.)

Lawrence has been on the botched drug raid story like flies on a severed cow’s head at a Damien Hirst exhibition, so I’m going to direct you over there for coverage and background. If the HouChron is too obnoxious for you (in terms of subscriptions and ad-blockers) here’s coverage from KHOU (with equally obnoxious auto-play video).

Because the murder occurred in the course of another alleged felony – tampering with a government record – Goines was charged with felony murder. Unlike a regular murder charge, felony murder doesn’t require showing that the defendant intended to kill. Instead, prosecutors just have to show that, while committing another felony, the defendant committed an act clearly dangerous to human life – in this case, the execution of a no-knock warrant – and that it resulted in a death.

In other news, the paper would like for you to know that you can buy guns.

Okay, that’s not quite 100% fair. You can buy Bushmaster M4 assault rifles.

Okay, that’s still not quite fair. You can buy Bushmaster M4 assault rifles…from DPS employees who bought them from the agency.

The firearm is one of over 5,200 the department has sold its employees over the past three years, often at a price below the market rate. With few restrictions on the sales, more than 60 officers have taken home at least four guns each, ranging from 9mm pistols to high-powered rifles equipped with accessories worth thousands of dollars.

The paper apparently found two – yes, two – M4 rifles for sale on “online gun forums” “recently”. That’s two out of “over 1,000” sold since September of 2016. DPS has also sold “over 2,000 SIG Sauer P226 pistols”, and a total of 5,254 guns during that time. So it looks like there’s about 2,000 guns not accounted for in this count. Shotguns? “high-powered rifles equipped with accessories worth thousands of dollars”?

The Texas Department of Public Safety offers employees several opportunities to buy firearms that have been issued to them, including pistols, rifles and shotguns. While Texas state law allows outgoing police officers to buy a single service weapon, DPS lets its retiring troopers purchase up to three.

So it sounds like you can buy up to three guns on your way out the door. But:

There is no limit on how many of those retired weapons an officer can buy thoughout his or her career.

Does this mean you can buy more after you retire? That’s how I read it: it sounds kind of like how my Dad got an old Ford F100 pickup, by signing up for the waitlist at Brown and Root and paying $800. Except for guns.

Also according to the paper: the SIGs were going to DPS troopers for $350 each, and the Bushies were going for “$401-$601 each”. It’s not clear what the difference is between the $400 and the $600 Bushies, but: Mike and I have spent the past few weekends at gun shows, and you can get a pretty nice Smith and Wesson M&P-15 (not the M&P15-22, but the .223/5.56 one) for under $600 if you shop carefully. Right now, CDNN will sell you a SIG P320 for $350, and they have P226s with a factory optic for “too low to print – call”. (I would, but they’re closed now.) At least one DPS guy who was selling his Bushie (the ad’s been taken down now, according to the paper) was asking $975 for his.

I only note this story because it seems like a giant nothing burger, except for (maybe) the question of whether the state is getting a good deal by letting retired troopers buy these guns, instead of selling them to licensed gun dealers for credit towards replacements. But if CDNN is selling AR pattern rifles to the public for $600, and SIGs for $350, I doubt DPS is going to get anything close to that on a wholesale deal with any vendor.

Posted in Cops, Guns, HCDA, Law, Politics, Texas | Comments Closed

Obit watch: August 23, 2019.

Friday, August 23rd, 2019

NYT obit for David H. Koch, for the historical record. (Edited to add: Reason.)

Russ Conway. No, you’ve probably never heard of him, but I think he’s noteworthy.

Mr. Conway was a reporter for the Eagle-Tribune in North Andover, Massachusetts. He covered the Boston Bruins for the paper. And, while doing so, came up with evidence of serious – indeed, criminal – misconduct by the head of the NHL Players Union, Alan Eagleson.

Mr. Eagleson, he wrote, had, among many things, skimmed money from players’ disability payments; lent union funds to friends and associates at favorable rates; and billed the union for personal expenses, including a London apartment and Wimbledon tickets.
He also reported that Mr. Eagleson had promised that the N.H.L. players’ pension fund would profit from the Canada Cup — which was held five times between 1976 and 1991 between teams from Europe, the United States and Canada — but that little was left after subtracting questionable expenses.

His reporting was published as a series in the paper, and was a finalist for a Pulitzer. It was later expanded into a book, Game Misconduct: Alan Eagleson and the Corruption of Hockey.

Even better, his reporting led to investigations in the US and Canada, and a 1994 Federal indictment on 32 charges. Mr. Eagleson pled guilty to three counts of mail fraud in 1998, and was ordered to make restitution to the union. He was also convicted on fraud charges in Canada, and was sentenced to 18 months in prison. (He served six months.) In addition, Mr. Eagleson was disbarred and forced out of the Hockey Hall of Fame.

What Mr. Conway uncovered about Mr. Eagleson occasionally disgusted him. He recalled one player, Ed Kea, who suffered a brain injury when he was checked into the boards during a game in 1983 while he was with a minor league affiliate of the St. Louis Blues.
“Al Eagleson didn’t even have the common decency to go visit the family,” Mr. Conway told Maclean’s. “He wouldn’t aid them in the insurance process. He was gone. Crush up the cigarette pack, throw it out. Next!”

Posted in Obits, Politics, Sports | Comments Closed

More gun crankery.

Friday, August 23rd, 2019

This morning’s Linkswarm covered that story that’s been going around about the reporter who thought it was easier to buy a gun than to buy cold medicine. (Spoiler: she apparently didn’t realize you have to fill out a Form 4473 and go through a background check to buy a gun. The story is being presented as “she failed the check”, but the way I read it, the check was never done because the address on her driver’s license did not match her home address.)

Here’s a flip side to this story. Some background: a guy was arrested in one of our local parks earlier this week. He was carrying multiple weapons: “a loaded 9 mm handgun with an extra magazine, a collapsible baton, two knives, and an assault-style rifle loaded with a 30-round magazine and fitted with a stand, scope and tactical light.”

Ignore for the moment the question of what “an assault-style rifle” is (I haven’t been able to find any photos of the rifle in question, but I wouldn’t be shocked if it turned out to be a tarted-up 10/22). The gentleman in question was charged with “unlawfully carrying a handgun and a baton and deadly conduct”. He also had an arrest warrant out of Harris County.

More background: Michael Cargill owns a local gun shop, Central Texas Gun Works. Mr. Cargill is a prominent local Second Amendment advocate, who is frequently quoted in the local media when they run gun related stories.

Mr. Cargill sold the gentleman his rifle about a month ago. Now, it doesn’t exactly look good to be selling guns to folks who have open felony arrest warrants for domestic violence. But Mr. Cargill has an explanation for this, and it’s a doozy:

…he sold Broesche the rifle in July after waiting three days for a background check. Cargill said the felony warrant should have prevented Broesche from purchasing the gun but it didn’t come up in the check.

…

Cargill blamed that lapse on courts in Houston, which he said did not notify the National Instant Criminal Check System that Broesche had been charged with a felony. “When you have a warrant for your arrest,” Cargill said, “that triggers a denial for purchasing a firearm.”
Courts, sheriff’s offices and other local law enforcement agencies across the state often fail to notify the background check system of charges or when people are released from jail on bail, Cargill said. He said he frequently sees people’s applications to purchase a gun delayed because of an arrest, but the National Instant Criminal Check System’s database sometimes doesn’t include additional information related to the disposition of the cases, which can determine whether they are eligible to purchase a firearm.

See also.

Nut graph:

Cargill said state leaders need to ensure that current gun laws are being followed, rather than create new ones.

So the courts aren’t reporting information that impacts background checks. Meanwhile, the usual suspects are calling for “red flag laws”, when we can’t even trust the police to get the right person anymore than we can trust the government to list the right people on the no-fly list.

Posted in Guns, Law | Comments Closed