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| Time | Text |
|---|---|
| Washington Police Chief Kathy Lanier had this to say when asked about Adam Kokesh's planned 4th of July march into Washington with loaded rifles. | |
| First, I want to clear up, there's a difference between civil disobedience, which I think is this is being portrayed as a civil disobedience, and actually violation of the law. | |
| I mean, there's two different things here. | |
| So, civil disobedience, people come to Washington, D.C. | |
| to protest policies and government policy all the time, it's no problem. | |
| But when you cross into the District of Columbia with firearms and you're not in compliance with the law, now you're talking about a criminal offense and there's going to be some action by police. | |
| So, Chief Lanier wants to make some kind of a distinction between civil disobedience and violating the law. | |
| So, here again is her definition of civil disobedience. | |
| Civil disobedience, people come to Washington D.C. | |
| to protest policies and government policy all the time, no problem. | |
| Note that Chief Lanier characterizes peaceful assembly in order to petition the government as civil disobedience. | |
| But what law does a demonstration break? | |
| When someone exercises their right to protest, specifically recognized by the First Amendment, how is that disobedience in any way? | |
| Since the D.C. | |
| Police Chief hasn't read the Constitution that she swore to uphold when she took office, let's remind her what it says. | |
| The right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. | |
| Chief Lanier. | |
| Going to Washington and protesting government policy is not civil disobedience. | |
| It's an exercise of a constitutionally guaranteed right. | |
| Civil doesn't mean polite. | |
| It means government. | |
| And as we all know from experience, government is not always civil. | |
| Disobedience means to actively and publicly disobey laws that are unjust. | |
| It is violating the law. | |
| Martin Luther King had this to say about violating a court order against him marching. | |
| That I do feel that there are two types of laws. | |
| One is a just law and one is an unjust law. | |
| I think we all have moral obligations to obey just laws. | |
| On the other hand, I think we have moral obligations to disobey unjust laws because non-cooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. | |
| Civil disobedience always involves violating a law. | |
| That's where the disobedience part comes in. | |
| So Kathy Lanier's distinction between civil disobedience and violating the law is nonsense. | |
| What is the law that Adam Kokesh and his marchers would be disobeying or violating? | |
| The very law that was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2008. | |
| In DC vs. Heller. | |
| Now, it's interesting to note that Dick Heller, the plaintiff in the case, was actually a DC cop who was suing for his right to carry a gun off-duty. | |
| Of course, the real precedent for it being an individual right is the Second Amendment itself. | |
| Both the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that D.C.' 's gun laws violate the Constitution. | |
| Washington, D.C.' 's Firearms Control Regulation Act of 1975 specifically outlawed handguns and requires all firearms, including rifles and shotguns, to be kept, quote, unloaded and disassembled or bound by a trigger lock. | |
| That is why I imagine Adam Kokesh and the DC marchers are going to be marching with loaded rifles to illustrate the fact that Police Chief Lanier and the District of Columbia have thumbed their noses at the Constitution and the Supreme Court decision of five years ago. | |
| So, Police Chief Lanier, there is no difference between civil disobedience and violating the law. | |
| But since you maintain there's a distinction, I would ask you, is your refusal to obey a Supreme Court ruling of five years ago that was made specifically about your gun laws, and your refusal to obey the Constitution that you swore to uphold, is that civil disobedience, or is that violating the law? |
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