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Former Demo candidate uses assault rifle
Former Democratic congressional candidate Paul Hackett used an AR-15 to hold three men after their car crashed into his fence. There's a bit of an investigation since this would be threat of deadly force to apprehend people who'd committed misdemeanors.
Amusingly, the Huffington Post carries the story favorably, as "Fmr. Political Candidate Hackett Subdues Three Men With Assault Rifle: "I Had Done This About 200 Times In Iraq"."
It's amusing, since the Huffington Post's regular columnists include Paul Helmke, head of the Brady Center, and Josh Sugarman, head of Violence Policy Center, which should tell you their general orientation as to "assault rifles" and use of force by civilians.
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The guy sounds like an unstable nutcase (of course, he always has). I've read the news article, and there doesn't seem to be any evidence that Hackett or his family were threatened, so this appears to be a very inappropriate use of firearms.
This reminds me of when William Raspberry, a left-wing and anti-self defense commentator shot a teenager who had climbed his backyard fence and was using his swimming pool.
Unfortunately, with many liberals their position seems to be "Look - I'm too unstable to be trusted around firearms, so everybody must be, as well."
RKV, the HuffPo likely shouldn't be taken as indicative of the Democratic Party in general. at least, i sincerely hope not - their lineup includes (in addition to the VPC shills) gibbering lunatic Deepak (spit) Chopra.
Paul Hackett was a lawyer for years before he decided to volunteer for duty in 2004 at the age of 42. Not surprisingly, a highly educated, middle aged man wasnt sent into combat. He was a civil affairs officer for 7 months.
If we take his "200 times" claim at face value, he seems to be claiming that he particpated in such combat activities at a rate of one per day without a break for 7 months, despite being in a non-combat role.
Some have questioned whether he participated in any arrests at all, let alone 200 of them.
David,
I'm fairly certain that was Carl Rowan, not Raspberry (the latter also not meeting your description of left-wing or anti-self-defense, either.)
It was Rowan, and he got off on charges of possession of an unregistered handgun inside the Chicago city limits, too. He might not have been left-wing or anti-self-defense, but he was definitely anti-gun-rights.
Another example of "guns for me but not for thee."
Do stop over to the HufPo and read the comments. About half the posters have no clue. The Democratic Party really does hate gun owners folks. No matter how hard they try to keep that impression under wraps.