{"id":19281,"date":"2024-03-11T09:23:29","date_gmt":"2024-03-11T13:23:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/?p=19281"},"modified":"2024-03-11T11:27:27","modified_gmt":"2024-03-11T15:27:27","slug":"will-the-ghost-of-duncan-lemp-haunt-gun-grabbing-politicians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2024\/03\/11\/will-the-ghost-of-duncan-lemp-haunt-gun-grabbing-politicians\/","title":{"rendered":"Will the Ghost of Duncan Lemp Haunt Gun-Grabbing Politicians?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Will the Ghost of Duncan Lemp Haunt Gun-Grabbing Politicians?<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/h1>\n

by Jim Bovard<\/a><\/span> | Mar 11, 2024<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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If you post a photo of a rifle on Instagram, tag it to your hometown, and add a caption like \u201cgreen tip armor piercing gets the girls wet,\u201d Maryland police can cite that to get a no-knock search warrant and kill you in a pre-dawn assault on your bedroom.<\/p>\n

In his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four<\/em>, George Orwell warned, \u201cIf you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face\u2014 forever.\u201d Duncan Lemp, the 21-year-old software programmer who posted the rifle photo I\u2019ve just described, was shot three times without warning by a policeman standing outside a smashed-in window at 4:42 am. Lemp was laying 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

As President Joe Biden campaigns for re-election by vilifying gun owners as \u201cextremists,\u201d new details are coming out about one of the most brazen and deadly cases of ideological targeting. T<\/strong>he FBI\u2019s Domestic Terrorism Symbols report lists<\/span><\/a> \u201cHis name was Duncan Lemp\u201d as a catchphrase among suspected extremists. Millions of Americans could face deadly perils from the government based on the same principle\u2014ignorance of the law\u2014that Maryland used to justify shooting Lemp.<\/p>\n

Tomorrow will be the fourth anniversary of Lemp\u2019s death. At 4:42 am on March 12, 2020, a Montgomery County, Maryland SWAT team arrived outside of the bedroom where Lemp slept next to his pregnant girlfriend in his parents\u2019 house in affluent Potomac, Maryland. One team of SWAT cops used a battering ram to smash in the front door of the Lemp home while setting off flash-bang grenades. Simultaneously, another cop stepped up to a bedroom window, smashed it with a fireman\u2019s pike tool, and pulled back the curtains. Two flash-bang grenades were thrown into the bedroom. Another police officer stepped up to the broken window with a rifle and quickly shot Lemp three times. An official report later noted that \u201cother members of the SWAT team were tasked with deploying \u2018flashbangs\u2019 outside the residence to disorient the senses of the occupants of the house as to what was happening.\u201d<\/p>\n

Police justified the preemptive attack by falsely asserting<\/span><\/a> that Lemp possessed an Israeli assault rifle prohibited under Maryland law. Police snared a no-knock warrant from a judge in part because Lemp had allegedly made \u201canti-government\u201d and \u201canti-police\u201d comments, according to confidential informants recruited by the police, and accused Lemp of being part of militia groups.<\/p>\n

Lemp had no history of violence but was outspoken on social media about championing the Second Amendment. His last tweet declared:<\/p>\n