{"id":19211,"date":"2024-03-01T08:28:09","date_gmt":"2024-03-01T13:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/?p=19211"},"modified":"2024-03-03T22:39:04","modified_gmt":"2024-03-04T03:39:04","slug":"biden-and-the-ghost-of-duncan-lemp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2024\/03\/01\/biden-and-the-ghost-of-duncan-lemp\/","title":{"rendered":"Biden and the Ghost of Duncan Lemp"},"content":{"rendered":"

American Conservative, March 1, 2024\"\"<\/a><\/h4>\n

Inside the Latest Biden Showdown With Second Amendment Devotees<\/a><\/h2>\n

by James Bovard<\/p>\n

\n

The White House\u2019s anti-gun campaign threatens to repeat sins of law enforcement\u2019s recent past.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0 “<\/strong>His name was Duncan Lemp\u201d is a common phrase among violent extremists,<\/strong> according to the FBI\u2019s Domestic Terrorism Symbols<\/a> report.\u00a0The Washington Post<\/em> sneered that Duncan Lemp had \u201cbecome a beloved martyr<\/a>\u201d to \u201canti-government extremists around the country.\u201d But Duncan Lemp was wrongly killed in his own bedroom thanks to the same policies that President Biden champions for the nation.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Biden is denouncing \u201cthe rising tide<\/a> of extremism\u201d and demonizing American gun owners to boost his re-election campaign.\u00a0He wants to outlaw rifles with an arbitrary list of characteristics he labels \u201cassault weapon.\u201d\u00a0He is also demanding that states adopt \u201cred flag\u201d laws that entitle police to intervene preemptively to stop gun violence\u2014including by killing the target.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Almost four years ago, on March 12, 2020, Montgomery County, Maryland police launched a predawn SWAT raid that began with smashing in a bedroom window<\/a> and throwing in two flash-bang grenades (which leave people temporarily blinded and disoriented) into the bedroom where Lemp slept next to his pregnant girlfriend. Lemp had posted a photo of a rifle on Instagram, tagged it to his hometown, and added a caption\u2014\u201cgreen tip armor piercing gets the girls wet.” Maryland police used that posting to help get a no-knock search warrant and that became a death warrant for Lemp.<\/p>\n

In his novel 1984, George Orwell warned, \u201cIf you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face\u2014forever.\u201d Lemp, a 21-year-old software programmer, was shot three times without warning by a policeman standing outside a broken window.\u00a0Lemp was lying on his bedroom floor, bleeding profusely and gasping for breath, his eyes open and terrified. Instead of offering first aid, a policeman came forward and placed his boot on Lemp\u2019s throat. Lemp died a few minutes later.<\/p>\n

Police claimed that Lemp had grabbed his rifle before he was killed. But citizens were obliged to take the police\u2019s word since they made no video recordings of their assault. After Lemp was gunned down, a policeman did walk through the house videotaping the wreckage<\/a>, including Lemp\u2019s mother, Mercedes, sitting on her bed weeping inconsolably.\u00a0Mercedes told me in 2021: \u201cI will always wonder whether the police intended<\/a> to kill Duncan from the start\u2014there was never a search\u2026. The way they conducted themselves seems as if they intended to kill him even before the raid began.\u201d Police never sought to question Lemp or his parents before shooting him.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Though the media (except for The American Conservative<\/em>\u2014here<\/a>, here<\/a>, here<\/a>, here<\/a>, and here<\/a>) almost completely ignored the Lemp case, a wrongful death lawsuit by his parents could soon expose shocking police abuses.<\/p>\n

Police justified the preemptive attack by falsely asserting<\/a> that Lemp possessed an Israeli assault rifle prohibited under Maryland law.\u00a0Nine months after the SWAT team killed Lemp, the county attorney issued a report which perfunctorily noted that \u201cupon further review and investigation into the IWI Tavor X95 rifle, it was determined that it was not an assault rifle\u2026. It appears that Lemp\u2019s rifle was a legal \u2018copycat\u2019 made to look exactly like the illegal version of the IWI Tavor X95. Very minute changes such as the overall length of the weapon can mean the difference between an illegal assault rifle and a legal one.\u201d The county government treated its fatal mistake like a paperwork error. In July 2022, the Supreme Court effectively invalidated the Maryland assault weapons law.<\/p>\n

\u201cVery minute changes\u201d is the key to the assault weapons controversy. Tweaks to official regulations can convert millions of American gun owners into felons overnight.\u00a0Biden talks of \u201cassault weapons\u201d as a catch-all term to designate any firearm he disapproves. Biden is championing a revival of a federal assault weapons ban despite evidence that the prior ban had little or no impact on homicide rates. Perhaps Biden is seeking to avoid controversies over \u201cvery minute changes\u201d by calling for a blanket prohibition of private ownership of semi-automatic weapons<\/a>\u2014which could require confiscating 50 million guns.<\/p>\n

Biden is also championing a national red flag law that would give a federal seal of approval for preemptively seizing guns from alleged troublemakers in every city and county in the nation. Lemp was not killed in a red flag raid\u2014the police made no effort to commandeer his weapons before the pre-dawn assault. But the same type of ideological targeting that police used in the Lemp case could proliferate with a national red flag law<\/strong>.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Lemp was targeted in part because he allegedly made \u201canti-government\u201d and \u201canti-police\u201d comments,<\/strong> according to confidential informants recruited by the police, who also\u00a0accused Lemp of being part of militia groups. (His parents denied that charge). Lemp, who had no history of violence, was outspoken on social media championing the Second Amendment. His last tweet declared: \u201cthe constitution is<\/a> dead.\u201d Three months later, so was Lemp. Before he was killed, he had texted his mother that he might be targeted by police \u201cbecause I exercise my constitutional<\/a> rights.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anyone who vigorously criticizes and opposes politicians and bureaucrats could be labeled a wacko who cannot be trusted with a gun.<\/strong> How easy would it be to forcibly disarm peaceful citizens? Former Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf posted a graphic on Twitter in 2022 showing how Red Flag laws could provide practically automatic disarmament. After a woman sees a \u201csocial media contact\u201d post \u201cphotos of guns and cryptic messages,\u201d she calls the police who sway a judge to entitle them to \u201ctemporarily\u201d seize his guns. \u201cCryptic messages\u201d suffice to prove someone is a threat who must be forcibly disarmed. Wolf declared that \u201cred flag laws allow us to take action when someone who has a gun begins to act erratically.\u201d But the Bill of Rights did not contain an asterisk entitling government officials to nullify the Constitution any time they believed private citizens were erratic. The vapid standard that Wolf championed would suffice to confiscate weapons from any gun owner who publicly vigorously criticized the government.<\/p>\n

Police have covered up almost all the details of their actions against Lemp, whose slaying was ignored by the same local Democratic politicians who rushed<\/a> to condemn Minneapolis police for killing George Floyd. But court filings by the Lemp family lawyer Terrell Roberts\u00a0as part of the wrongful death lawsuit revealed a key element of the Lemp case that could endanger millions of other Americans.<\/p>\n

Do police have the right to preemptively attack gun owners for failing to comply with laws they never knew existed?<\/strong> Police justified assailing Lemp because he allegedly violated a Maryland law that prohibits firearm possession until age 30 by anyone convicted of certain offenses as a juvenile.\u00a0Lemp was convicted as a teenager for second-degree, non-residential burglary (which could have meant stealing pumpkins from a farmer\u2019s barn). But Lemp was unaware of that law and was officially approved to purchase firearms by both Maryland and federal background checks.\u00a0It was apparently easier for local police to shoot Lemp than to simply question him or his parents. T<\/strong>he county government has thus far refused to reveal whether police ever considered any alternative to peacefully detain or arrest Lemp prior to attacking his bedroom.<\/p>\n

The same principle imperils legions of Americans thanks to recent arbitrary federal decrees.\u00a0Hundreds of thousands of gun owners became felons when they did not surrender or destroy \u201cbump stocks,\u201d which President Trump outlawed after bizarrely claiming that the rifle attachments that enable rapid scattershot fire were actually machine guns. The Biden administration embraced that decree and defended it in oral arguments at the Supreme Court on Wednesday.\u00a0Biden issued his own decree ordering anyone who owns pistol braces<\/a> (used to stabilize firearms) must register those accessories with the federal government or face harsh penalties or prison. To justify his edict, Biden idiotically declared that putting a brace on a pistol \u201cmakes them where you can have a higher-caliber weapon<\/a>\u2014a higher-caliber bullet\u2014coming out of that gun.\u201d Even CNN fact-checkers groaned over that howler.<\/p>\n