NCO arrested for refusing to put down weapon
Army Times
By Jon R. Anderson
Staff writer
Posted : Saturday Mar 30, 2013
Army Master Sgt. C.J. Grisham, a conservative military blogger and vocal gun rights activist, was arrested March 16 in Temple, Texas, after a scuffle with a local police officer.
The incident unfolded after someone spotted Grisham carrying “an assault-style rifle” as he and his teenage son were walking along rural roads near the Temple airport west of town, said Temple Police Department spokesman Cpl. Chris Wilcox.
Wilcox said walking on a road with a rifle is not against the law, but “if you have an AR15 or an assault weapon of some type and someone calls that in, we’re going to go and investigate it. I imagine any police department in the country is going to do that in light of all of the shootings that have taken place.”
An officer was dispatched to check things out. Wilcox said the officer approached Grisham and told him to set down the loaded rifle that was slung across his chest so the two could talk.
Instead, Grisham “became very irate and angry and yelled at the officer he was not going to take his gun,” Wilcox said.
A scuffle ensued, with the officer eventually drawing his service pistol and pinning Grisham against the patrol car until backup units arrived. A search also revealed that Grisham, a counterintelligence agent stationed at nearby Fort Hood, was carrying a concealed pistol, for which he had a permit.
The arrest came the same weekend Grisham was quoted in Military Times defending gun rights for troops with post-traumatic stress. He has been open about his own diagnoses following tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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Sunday, March 31, 2013
Fort Hood Master Sgt. arrested for refusing to put weapon down
While I do not agree with what Master Sgt. Grisham did I have to agree with the fact that just because a veteran or member of the military has PTSD, they should not lose their gun rights. They are not the ones civilians have to worry about any more than they have to worry about anyone else with PTSD. Do some commit crimes? Yes, just like the minority of civilians do. Do they commit suicide with a firearm? Yes, the majority use guns but again, as with civilians, most with PTSD do not commit suicide. The means is not as important as the reason. If they had the proper help instead of programs that do not work, we wouldn't see so many killing themselves. If they were not given medications that were not intended to treat PTSD and have terrible side effects, we wouldn't see so many of them going from being willing to die for the sake of someone else into killing someone else.
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Update to this story. It is not as originally reported.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.kcentv.com/story/21860185/local-soldier-says-police-violated-his-guns-rights
Thank you for the link. If you see more on this story, please add the links as well.
ReplyDeleteI don't think, based on the article, that PTSD was the primary issue here. It looks like Grisham refused to comply with the officer. We all are obligated to do that. If he would have complied, the officer would likely have let him go on his way... from what it looks like. I imagine that more will be revealed in time. But, I'm a gun owner, and I'm concerned with all the fanaticism taking place. So I'm sure the officer, with everything police deal with, have even more reason to be concerned when confronted by a person with any firearm who is not complying. I know many officers, and they're trained to take certain actions when dealing with folks with firearms.
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