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> Alert 9/23/2019: Warning!
Utah's "Cannabis" Bill Designed to Entrap Gun Owners
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Warning! Utah's "Cannabis" Bill Designed
to Entrap Gun Owners
Alert for 9/23/2019: Senate Bill 1002 (Entrap Gun Owners over
Cannabis),
unanimously passed
in last week's "special session", is designed
to lure gun owners into participating in a complex and
convoluted gun control nightmare.
Rather than protecting gun owners from federal Statute
Enforcement Agents (SEAs), or even clearly warning them they
must surrender their firearms under federal code in order to
participate, SB 1002 introduces language designed to deceive
them into falsely believing that state SEAs will respect their rights. Gun
owners who participate in this program will potentially open
themselves and their families to unjust harassment, arrest,
incarceration, and ruin.
Jump down to any topic:
1. Participation = Admitting You
are Violating Federal Gun Control Code
2. Only a Matter of
Time before Patient/Supplier Data are Leaked
3. Deceptive
Language Designed to Entrap Gun Owners
4. Your Rights
Pre-Exist the Formation of Any Government
5. Appropriate
Action
"We're
just here to help you!" |
1. Participation = Admitting You are Violating Federal Gun
Control Code
Gun owners who participate in Utah's cannabis program open
themselves up to terrible criminal liability.
The federal regime's "Firearms
Transaction Form 4473", which gun owners are compelled to
complete before purchasing firearms from businesses, states:
"Are you an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana or any
depressant, stimulant, narcotic drug, or any other controlled
substance? Warning: The use or possession of marijuana remains
unlawful under Federal law [sic] regardless of whether it has been
legalized or decriminalized for medicinal or recreational
purposes in the state where you reside."
Arthur Herbert, Assistant Director of Enforcement Programs and
Services for the federal regime's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco,
Firearms and Explosives (ATF), clarified the offensive intent
of this language:
"...Any person who uses or is addicted
to marijuana, regardless of whether his or her State
has passed legislation authorizing marijuana use for medicinal
purposes, is an unlawful user of or addicted to a controlled
substance, and is prohibited by Federal law [sic] from
possessing firearms or ammunition. Such persons should answer "yes" to question
11.e. on ATF Form 4473 (August 2008), Firearms Transaction
Record, and you may not transfer firearms or ammunition to
them. Further, if you are aware that the potential transferee
is in possession of a card authorizing the possession and use
of marijuana under State law [sic], then you have 'reasonable
cause to believe' that the person is an unlawful user of a
controlled substance. As such, you may not transfer firearms
or ammunition to the person, even if the person answered 'no'
to question 11.e. on ATF Form 4473." [bold added]
Source: "Open
Letter to All Federal Firearms Licensees," by Arthur
Herbert, ATF, Sep. 21, 2011.
This means that if you answer "no" on ATF Form 4473, but
utilize cannabis in any form, you are deemed "guilty" of a
federal crime, and can be subject to years of re-education in
a federal gulag. Mere possession of a firearm during the
period you are utilizing cannabis is likewise punishable.
"Your
firearm poses a threat to our peaceful agenda." |
Consider the recent case against Bryan Melchior, former co-owner of
the Utah Gun Exchange. Statute Enforcement Agents (SEAs) alleged
that he was in possession of cannabis, a plant that grows naturally in
the earth and causes no harm to anyone else. Because
of Melchior's alleged possession of cannabis, in the eyes of
state and federal SEAs and politicians, he was magically
transformed into a "restricted person," meaning he was
prohibited from owning or possessing any firearms.
Source: "Utah Gun Exchange co-owner charged with intending to
distribute more than 1 pound of marijuana, other THC products,"
by Paighten Harkins, Salt Lake Tribune, Jan. 11, 2019.
Nevermind the
hyper-militarized state and federal thug squads who violently
raid Utah homes, or the
other grotesque human
rights abuses they perpetrate. Their psychotic public
relations smear campaign is clear: Firearms without a natural plant
is tolerated
(barely, for now). Firearms with a natural plant makes
you an evil monster who intends to harm others.
Think that is an exaggeration? Consider gun owners in Hawaii who participated in their state's cannabis
program, and then were shocked to learn that,
"In November 2017, just three months after the opening of the
state's first medical cannabis dispensary in Maui,
medical-cannabis-card holders in Honolulu began
receiving letters from the Honolulu Police Department
demanding that they turn over their firearms for confiscation
within 30 days."
Source:
Guns Versus Weed: How Background Checks Conflict with State
Cannabis Laws," by Travis Dunn, Who.What.Why, Apr. 24,
2019.
Intense public outcry stopped Hawaii's mass confiscations for
now, but the prevalent anti-gun mentality and agenda of SEAs
was revealed. SEAs have all the prosecutorial tools in
place to harrass gun owners more selectively
—
while they wait for future opportunities to attempt mass
confiscations again.
For additional information, see the following articles:
"Will
Texans give up gun rights to get medical marijuana? Federal
government says they have to,"
by Rebekah Allen and James Barragan, Dallas Morning News, Jun.
17, 2019.
"Cannabis
and Gun Rights: a Showdown,"
by Jeremy Borden, Cannabis Wire, Jan. 8, 2019.
"Guns
Or Marijuana? This Is the Choice in 1 State,"
by Whitney Tipton, National Interest, Jul. 23, 2019.
Back to Topics
Box Elder County
Sheriff's Office. What could possibly go wrong? |
2. Only a Matter of Time before Patient/Supplier Data
are
Leaked
But the federal regime won't know who is on the cannabis
patient and supplier list, right? Willing to bet your freedom on that?
Consider the State of Utah's abysmal record of sharing private
information with the federal regime and other interested
parties. In January of this year, it was revealed that Utah driver
private information was being shared with external parties in
violation of state statute.
Source: "Utah
Driver License Division illegally shares some personal data,
audit says," by Lee Davidson, Salt Lake Tribune, Jan. 11,
2019. To read the actual audit,
click here.
Important Update:
Rather than protect Utahans' privacy from this illegal data
sharing racket, in March of this year, the statutarium (aka
"legislature") and
Gary "BB Gun Background Checks"
Herbert promptly EXPANDED the ability
for your private information to be shared with corrupt
agencies, corporations, and other third parties via enactment
of
House Bill 290.
Important Update:
To learn more about HB 290 and Utah's recent track record of
egregious privacy betrayals and inexcusable data breaches,
see, "Facial
recognition uproar leads back to legislators' and Herbert's
desks. They're shocked." by Ron Mortensen, Utah
Standard News, July 11, 2019.
In 2013, it was brought to the attention of gun owners in
consideration of
HB 317:
"Phony Protection of Your Concealed Carry Private Information" that state government bureaucrats have many escapes
from prosecution should they fail to protect private records.
And in 2012, the state failed to protect private information
and allowed the
theft of records involving nearly a million people.
At any time, Utah's laxadaisical, sneaky anti-gun
bullies can leak data and/or change statute to subject medical
cannabis permit holders to public and federal regime scrutiny
as has
happened in New York State and elsewhere.
What happens when Utah's "medical cannabis" patient and
supplier database falls into the hands of the federal bullies,
and those individuals are cross-checked with firearm
purchases?
What happens if state or federal Statue Enforcement Agents (SEAs) target you in an
investigation over any matter at all? Will they be granted
access to the medical cannabis program; thereby adding
federal firearms code violations to the mix?
Back to Topics
3. Deceptive Language Designed to Entrap Gun Owners
SB 1002 inserted
the following empty promise to gun owners:
When an employee, officer, or agent of the state or a
political subdivision makes a finding, determination, or
otherwise considers an individual's possession or use of
cannabis, a cannabis product, or a medical cannabis device,
the employee, officer, or agent may not consider the
individual's possession or use any differently than the lawful
possession or use of any prescribed controlled substance, if
the individual's possession or use complies with:
(1) this chapter;
(2) Title 4, Chapter 41a, Cannabis
Production Establishments; or
(3) Subsection
58-37-3.7(2) or (3).
Sounds great, doesn't it? Normal, non-malevolent individuals reading this language might surmise that state
agents will consider cannabis program patients no differently
than people who lawfully possess any other "legal" substance, and that gun
owners will be protected by state agents.
Wrong, and potentially dead wrong. Here's why:
1) Violating state Statute Enforcement Agents (SEAs) almost
never face substantive punishment. Notice that the
bill language
provides no criminal or other penalties for state SEAs who
violate it. Why? Because Utah's prison industrial complex
currently shields, harbors, protects, and encourages violent
thugs, including corrupt police officers, prosecuting
attorneys, and injustice court judges, to grossly violate the
natural rights of citizens.
In 2017, Utah Nurse Alex
Wubbels was
violently arrested after refusing to draw blood
from an unconscious accident victim. Her
perpetrator, then-detective Jeff Payne, was never charged with a
crime. His supervisor, James Tracy, is still
employed with the SLC Police Department. |
As Clark Aposhian of the Utah Shooting Sports Council discovered,
Utah's injustice system is entirely stacked against the innocent. So much
so, these regime criminals are protected by a comprehensive
patchwork of government immunity statutes, pseudo-governmental
unions, and often the state itself, when they abuse their
employers (i.e. you).
Learn more about the history of Utah's
perverse government agent immunity statutes by studying
SB 176 S2 enacted in 2015,
SB 55 S1 enacted in 2004, and
SB 225 S1 enacted in 2003.
2) "Multi-jurisdictional" injustices will continue unabated.
Utah almost universally fails to prohibit state officers from
participation in federally-led "multi-jurisdictional task forces". Under these task
forces, state officers may call in federal agents to do their
dirty work; to include performing unjust arrests and
seizures.
Utah's many gun control bullies consistently
encourage state SEAs to cooperate fully with federal SEAs in
prosecuting citizens under unjust federal codes. In 2013,
for example, Utah's statutarium (aka "legislature") even went out of their way to
re-enact and modify state statute to more completely mirror federal gun
control code. They have little interest in looking out for
Utah citizens.
3) Utah fails to protect innocent citizens prosecuted by federal
SEAs for violating unjust federal gun control code. How
many times have you heard of Utah funding the costs and/or
providing defense assistance for individuals arrested and
prosecuted by federal thugs?
4) Utah continues to accept perverse federal incentives tied
to gun control-related abuses. Utah's
long, despicable history of
property confiscation without
meaningful due process (i.e. "asset
forfeiture") statutes provides a testament as to how eager
Utah politicians are to subvert rights in exchange for
dirty money.
5) Utah takes almost no action to arrest, remove, or
otherwise stop federal agents who defy state statute. If
federal agents can roam around molesting gun owners and
violating state statute, what good are those state statutes?
6) It will be nearly impossible to prove 100% compliance with
this program's insane requirements. Go ahead.
Attempt to read
SB 1002 all the way through (it's only 140 pages long). The mountain of regulation is
absurd.
If you choose to participate, you'd better take good notes. Because you may have to
prove to any investigating state SEA's satisfaction that you are in 100%
compliance with every jot and tittle of these onerous
regulations.
This potentially includes proving that the
source(s) you obtained cannabis from is/are also in 100% compliance
with the program. The bill language is that vague and nebulous.
Back to Topics
Revolutionary army
soldier and practiced philosopher Thomas Paine. |
4. Your Rights Pre-Exist the Formation of Any Government
The right to defend one's self upon private or shared (i.e.
public) property, either by possessing a weapon openly or in a
concealed fashion, pre-exists government. In other words, it
existed naturally and was freely exercised before such
enslavement statutes, codes, and "permits" were imposed.
As
American revolutionary Thomas Paine expressed it,
"Man did not enter into society to become worse than he was
before, nor to have less rights than he had before, but to
have those rights better secured. His natural rights are the
foundation of all his civil rights."
Source:
Rights of Man, by Thomas Paine, 1791.
Possessing and carrying your firearm
— concealed or openly
—
is your
right, NOT a
government-sanctioned privilege.
Restrictions upon natural rights, such as the right to
protect one's self, must be predicated by more than the fear
that an adult MIGHT abuse them in the future, or whether a
person possesses, eats, smokes, vapes, or snorts a plant that
grows naturally in the earth.
It is particularly disgusting and disgraceful that the human
beings targeted for abuse by SB 1002 are often severely or
terminally ill, pain-ridden, and destitute. Heaping such
deceitful and dangerous regulations upon them demonstrates
just how disdainful Utah politicians and Statute Enforcement
Agents (SEAs) are of the
people they profess to serve.
Back to Topics
How long will you
sit quietly in the back of the political bus? |
5. Appropriate Action
1. Consider that it is up to YOU to stop these hostile,
anti-gun bullies. They will continue to abuse you, and those
you care about, until you stand up to them and tell them you
have had enough.
2. Invite
Gary "BB Gun Background Checks"
Herbert to cease and desist in attacking your rights. He
should veto SB 1002, call another special session, and
pressure statutators (aka "legislators") to actually safeguard gun owners
rather than lure them into danger.
UT Gun Rights asserts
that a real bill would accomplish the following:
* Provide clear criminal and other penalties for state Statute
Enforcement Agents (SEAs) who violate the rights of gun
owners, either directly, or indirectly via collusion with
federal
multi-jurisdictional task forces and/or perverse federal
grants.
* Direct and require the Utah attorney general, in this case
Sean "Rambo"
Reyes, to actually do his job and start using his office's
many resources to protect Utahans bullied by unjust federal code.
* Decriminalize cannabis at the state level to immediately
alleviate the sufferings of ill Utahans, disempower the
federal regime's militaristic "drug war" that has ruined the lives
of thousands of innocent gun owners, and reinforce the humane policy that citizens have a natural right to access natural
plants as they see fit.
3. Consider warning your friends of the risks and dangers of
participating in Utah's cannabis program, as either a patient or as any
part of its vulnerable supply chain. If, out of
desperation, an individual chooses
to participate, at least she will have some idea of what she
is getting involved in.
4. For more ideas on actions you can take,
see UT Gun Rights' article, "What You Can Do."
Back to Topics
