PA Bill Number: HB335

Title: In inchoate crimes, further providing for prohibited offensive weapons.

Description: In inchoate crimes, further providing for prohibited offensive weapons. ...

Last Action: Removed from table

Last Action Date: May 1, 2024

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What do N.C. and N.Y. cases tell us about cultural mindset? :: 08/05/2015

A potentially controversial federal case announced yesterday against three North Carolina men who are alleged to have “stockpiled weapons, ammunition and tactical gear” and tried to make explosives while preparing for some kind of martial law, and another arrest of an armed tourist at New York’s 9/11 memorial suggest some alarming things about the current cultural mindset.

The North Carolina trio – identified as Walter Eugene Litteral, 50, Christopher James Barker, 41, and Christopher Todd Campbell, 30 – were arrested Saturday, according to published reports. Allegations against the men include attempting to manufacture pipe bombs and re-arm military surplus dummy hand grenades. But media reports also suggest they are in trouble for having lots of guns and ammunition, which – if that really is against the law – could land millions of gun owners in legal hot water.

More to the point, it is also alleged that Litteral “also tried to purchase a firearm and ammunition for Barker, who could not himself due to prior criminal felony convictions,” according to WTVD News. Buying a gun for someone who legally can’t have one is long known to be a crime, as is manufacturing explosive devices. These are the reported allegations. They must be proved in court.

Meanwhile, the New York caper, as reported by the New York Post, has landed a former Marine and Texas mom in trouble because she tried to check a couple of handguns while she toured the memorial. The story says she is licensed to carry in Texas, but how many stories have been published over the past few years about other people, also from other states, who have run afoul of draconian Empire State gun laws? It’s not as if gun laws in New York are a big secret.

Compared to the North Carolina case, the Big Apple story is proverbial "small potatoes." That is, except for the woman involved, and for other citizens who have been prosecuted for bringing guns to New York that they legally own and carry back home.

Perhaps it’s the way the Post reported the story. The newspaper described 31-year-old Elizabeth Anne Enderli of Houston as “a Texas woman treating the 9/11 memorial like an Old West saloon.” That’s pretty much the same way the newspaper, back in September 2013, described the arrest of another “dopey tourist” who was busted for illegally-carried hardware at Ground Zero. At that time, Ursula Jerry of Milwaukee also drew a sneer from the newspaper for treating the site, “and the city in general…like an Old West saloon.”

The late Charlton Heston used to describe this as a symptom of a “culture war.” The New York cases prove one of two things, depending upon one’s philosophy about guns: a) Gun owners need better education about where and where not, to bring their defensive sidearms; or b) Congress or the Supreme Court needs to affirm national reciprocity/recognition or go a step farther and institute “constitutional carry.” That is, any citizen can carry a defensive sidearm in a peaceable manner, anywhere he or she happens to be. Anything wrong with that?

Back in North Carolina, the criminal case against Messrs. Barker, Campbell and Litteral is already bringing out sharp opinions. There are varying degrees of anger-to-outrage over the impression some reports have allegedly created that having lots of guns and ammunition is some sort of crime by itself. Just ask a skeet and/or trap shooter how many cases of shotgun shells he/she has stashed in the garage or the basement. Ask a prairie dog shooter how much ammunition they have on hand, or an action pistol competitor how many rounds they burn up in practice.

Yet, there was one alarming message posted to the WTVD website this morning, that 25 years ago, most people would have dismissed the North Carolina trio as “nuts,” but today there is a different social landscape. “American society is entirely unstable,” the comment observed. “The loons are those portraying these men as loons.” That’s an interesting perspective.

Is today’s cultural mindset that much on the edge? Are we approaching an inevitable social plunge into civil unrest, or have too many people been watching too much television about a zombie apocalypse? Are too many people turning concern about the future into what some might suggest is an eagerness for anarchy?

There’s an adage of unknown origin that states, “May you live in interesting times.” Wouldn’t it be much better to be able to look back and say, “Those were interesting times, and I survived them?”

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