Hey, folks, please accept my apologies for being away from the blog longer than usual. It\u2019s the month from Hell for me: two classes for armed citizens, two for cops, and one for both, plus a couple of trials. One of the latter comes from an officer-involved shooting (OIS) and I\u2019ll be speaking for the officer who fired at his trial later this month; the other saw me speaking for an armed citizen who shot two people to protect himself, his wife, and his special-needs child. It just went to verdict yesterday, after I spent three days at the Public Defender\u2019s Office and in the courthouse in the city where it happened.<\/p>\n
The verdict was no verdict: the jury deadlocked. Eight of the twelve voted to acquit in what most trained people would have seen as a clear-cut self-defense shooting. Two voted to convict. And two jurors couldn\u2019t even come to a decision. (Silly me: I always thought that if you couldn\u2019t decide if the defendant was guilty or not, that constituted the very definition of \u201creasonable doubt\u201d and the vote should be for Not Guilty.)<\/p>\n
Since this outcome means the case has not been adjudicated fully yet, I can\u2019t talk about it here. However, I did notice one interesting thing.<\/p>\n
At least four cops testified for the DEFENSE of the armed citizen, including at least one lawman who was on the scene immediately after the shooting.<\/p>\n
People who are independent by nature and avoid government interference with their lives as much as possible, don\u2019t get to see how government \u2013 and the government\u2019s appointed authorities \u2013 actually operate day to day. They seem to fear the police. With almost 36 years wearing a badge now, but having been an armed citizen before I pinned on the shield and knowing that I\u2019ll be one when I turn that shield back in \u2013 I have a foot in each world. And I can tell you this: the majority of America\u2019s street cops are on the side of citizens who lawfully and righteously protect themselves, with guns or otherwise.<\/p>\n
Leroy Pyle, a seasoned street cop who is now retired and can freely say the things he said in support of armed citizens when he was still in uniform \u2013 and took a lot of crap for it \u2013 has started a new organization that hopes to bring together those natural allies, the law-abiding armed citizens and the police who are sworn under oath to serve and protect them.<\/p>\n
Next week, I\u2019ll be running two different classes for ILEETA, the International Law Enforcement Educators and Trainers Association, at their annual conclave. Several hundred police trainers will attend ILEETA.\u00a0 The National Rifle Association will have a booth there, and some of their instructors will be teaching.\u00a0 By contrast, the Brady Bunch and the other anti-gun groups will be notable by their absence.<\/p>\n
This, I submit, should tell you something\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hey, folks, please accept my apologies for being away from the blog longer than usual. It\u2019s the month from Hell for me: two classes for armed citizens, two for cops, and one for both, plus a couple of trials. One of the latter comes from an officer-involved shooting (OIS) and I\u2019ll be speaking for the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":6428,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-786","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}