Monday FGS

A Home Grown for Hondo

Lansing man charged with brandishing rifle at motorcyclist during protest

By: Kara Berg
LANSING — A Lansing man has been charged with brandishing a weapon during a We the Free People of Lansing protest.

Gregory Richardson, 43, is accused of brandishing a rifle June 17 at a motorcyclist as the man tried to get through the intersection of East Michigan and Foster avenues, which is where protesters were at the time, according to video of the incident.

Richardson turned himself in to police Thursday and was arraigned on one count of brandishing a firearm in public. He was released on a personal recognizance bond.

Richardson’s attorney, Lucas Dillon, said Richardson is not affiliated with We the Free People of Lansing. Protesters reached out to a pro-Second Amendment group Richardson is a member of and asked for security. On June 17, Richardson was acting as a security guard for the group.

Dillon said the statute for brandishing a weapon lines up pretty accurately with the facts of the case. The one difference is that the statute specifies it is not illegal if acting in defense of others. That’s what Richardson was doing, he said.

“He’s not going to let a motorcycle ride through a crowd of people,” Dillon said. “He’s never done anything wrong in his life…He’s a family man who supports the Second Amendment.”

Dillon hopes they will be able to resolve the case through a diversion program.

Video shows a group of protesters lined up on Michigan Avenue as a man on a motorcycle stops at the intersection. He is on the north side of the intersection on Foster Avenue; the protesters are lined up east of him.

“You’re not going this way. This way is not an option,” protest leader Paul Birdsong said, according to the video.

Another man says: “If you’re going to run us over, I’m going to protect my crowd.” It is unclear if Richardson or another man with a rifle said this. The video shows Richardson pointing his rifle at the motorcyclist; the other man has his rifle angled to the ground.

“You can’t ride anywhere in this direction,” Birdsong said. “The problem is, we told you to stop and you revved your engine.”

The motorcyclist argues with the group of protesters. He said one of the two men with a rifle “took the safety off.” It’s not clear in the video if the safety was off.

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Read the rest here: Lansing State Journal

The Armed Citizen
American Rifleman

Man Found Shot in Pasadena; Police Investigate Potential Link to Intruder Shot by Resident in San Gabriel

BY BRIAN DAY
A man was found shot in Pasadena late Monday following what he told police was a robbery, but investigators were looking into the possibility the shooting was connected to an incident in which a resident shot a home intruder in the neighboring city of San Gabriel a short time earlier, authorities said.

A 26-year-old Alhambra man called police about 8 p.m. and reported he had been shot during a robbery in the 700 block of South Euclid Avenue, according to Pasadena police Lt. Pete Hettema.

He had been shot in the leg, the lieutenant said. Working through a Mandarin translator, the wounded man told police he was shot and robbed of his wallet by two masked men.

But police found no evidence of a shooting or robbery in the neighborhood.

Around the same time, police in San Gabriel notified neighboring law enforcement agencies of a suspect on the loose who had just been shot by a resident during a home break-in, Hettema said.

Detectives were looking into the possibility the man who turned up wounded in Pasadena was the suspect from the San Gabriel burglary.

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Read the rest here: Pasadena Now

My right to free passage is superseded by a mob with brandished weapons, Delta Whiskies and Whiskettes? I don’t THINK so, but that would be a fight for another day, in the courts.

“If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government that is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.” — JAMES MADISON

Category: "Teh Stoopid", Feel Good Stories