Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

March 18, 2009

Several years ago, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that FBI sniper Lon Horiuchi, who shot and killed Vicky Weaver during the 1992 standoff at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, could not be prosecuted for homicide.

The court?s majority insisted that something called a ?discretionary function exemption? sometimes protects law enforcement officers from prosecution when they commit what would otherwise be plainly criminal acts.

In a dissenting opinion, Judge Alex Kozinski wrote that the ruling created what he called a ?007 Standard? ? a license to kill.

This notion pops up in some unlikely places. A recent essay in a police publication declared: "It can be very intimidating for the person who is dating a female cop who carries a gun and has a constitutional authority to take a life."

To assert that police enjoy some special authority beyond the same right to armed self-defense all citizens possess is to engage in lethal sophistry.

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.