Penny Dean and Your Rights

<img src="http://www.opposingviews.com/sites/opposingviews.com/files/imagecache/30... align="right">As we look at this picture, we can't help be reminded of one of Jeff Cooper's rules of gun safety: Never let the muzzle cover anything you are not willing to destroy.

While these people are handcuffed on the ground, the muzzle is clearly pointed at one of them. Is this sworn police officer willing to destroy the man who is laying there handcuffed, and apparently not a threat to him or anyone else?

The standoff ended with brothers Lucas and Jesus Ortiz in handcuffs. Police said just hours earlier, the pair tried to burglarize a home nearby. Action 4 spoke to the burglary victim, who we’ll call “Alex.” She told us she heard a man banging loudly on her front door while another walked around to the back. “I’m a young woman, I’m pregnant, I’m home alone. I’m not going to answer the door – I mean, I know better,” said Alex. Alex said her husband had just left 20 minutes before. Immediately, she knew something wasn’t right and made the split decision to grab her husband’s handgun.

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<img src="http://sayanythingblog.com/files/2013/09/garry-mcarthy-chicago-police-su... align="right" width="200"><p>This sure reads like it&#8217;s walking on the edge of <a href="http://gunsnfreedom.com/chicago-police-superintendent-says-cops-will-sho

<p>A more-than-tough-love father is alleged to have <a title="Son shot in stomach by correction officer father says he's 'all right' - dad facing arraignment" href="http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/facing_shot_arraingment_stomach_Gk5VG... target="_blank">shot his son during an argument</a> about the boy's Saturday arrest for shoplifting, leaving the NYC correction officer facing charges for assault and weapons possessi

A New Jersey State Trooper was cruising down the Turnpike when he rolled up on what, in his eyes, may or may not have been a routine traffic stop initiated by a plain-clothes officer. So the Trooper was leery when he saw the unannounced, plain-clothes police officer in an unmarked van in the same spot. Gun drawn, he walked towards the officer, later identified as Officer Robert Duboue, and demanded he identify himself.

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The peaceful, law-abiding homeowner is being charged with the crime of defending himself and his home, while a firebomber attacks. It is all on video.

Put yourself in his place. What would you do, if you knew you would be charged with a crime for protecting yourself?

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"[T]his case is not about the effectiveness of stop and frisk in deterring or combating crime. This Court’s mandate is solely to judge the constitutionality of police behavior, not its effectiveness as a law enforcement tool. Many police practices may be useful for fighting crime — preventive detention or coerced confessions, for example — but because they are unconstitutional they cannot be used, no matter how effective. “The enshrinement of constitutional rights necessarily takes certain policy choices off the table."

A Noble, Okla., police officer, who accidentally shot and killed a child while trying to shoot a snake, has had his record cleared.

Six years ago, Jack Tracy was fishing with his 5-year-old grandson Austin Haley when two police were called to home on a report of a large snake dangling from a birdhouse. One of the officers, Paul Bradley Rogers, fired two shots from his gun. The bullets missed the snake, but one struck Haley, who was in the woods directly behind the home.

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So says this headline from a video from Eyewitness 9 News in Brevard Co. Fla.

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