SPRING 1995 Volume 1.2
The official publication of the Vancouver Island Libertarian Association, an official riding association of the Libertarian Party of Canada, 1 St. John's Road, Suite 301, Toronto, ON, M6P 4C7.
(416) 763-3688
VILA advocates a free market, civil liberties, self-responsibility and minimum government interference in the lives of individuals. Our fundamental principles forbid the initiation of force, fraud or coercion against any individual by other individuals, including those in government.
Voting membership in the VILA or the LPC requires the signing of the Statement of Principles.
As a registered political party, contributions to the LPC or VILA qualifies for federal political party donation tax credits.
Membership in VILA is $5 for five years.
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R. Kent Cowan, PublisherArticles of interest to libertarians are welcome and encouraged.
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By Bill McElwain, VILA VP
The libertarian political society attempted to reach out and educate the "pro-gun" movement last February 4th. At 1:00pm, waiting for the anticipated crowds to gather at Sanscha Hall in Sidney, my concerns over the interference of the "pro-Reform" sector were realized.
Early on, the idea of a local rally to oppose the Liberal anti-gun legislation was received with a positive attitude by everyone I talked, with the exception of those closely affiliated with the Reform Party of Canada. One would have thought, given their attitude, that the issue regarding gun ownership in Canada was a patent, or exclusive business right of the Reform Party.
The funny thing is that up until this time there was a fair amount of uncertainty whether the Reform Party would, or would not support, the gun owners of Canada. Moreover, there remains to this day great question of that party's position regarding "anti-gun" laws already in existence.
The reaction to my rally idea was surprisingly one of rejection. How dare I interfere with the wonderful Reform party progression into the gun movement. How dare I disrupt the following herd with any new or alternative ideas to their dilemma. There soon began a competition, of sorts, which I had no idea would occur.
The proposed demonstration outside Ocean Point Resort was quickly. . .and confusingly. . . upgraded to the status of a rally. Organizers of this "rally" were aware that the Vancouver Island Libertarian Association and I were already organizing a larger rally, promoted to be south Vancouver Island's first. We were not invited to speak, promote our rally, or to participate in any way.
This ill prepared rally fell short of its mark. The crowd was small, and could have easily been huddled around a juggling act downtown. A juggling act might describe the statement of a local Reform MP who said to the chilly crowd, "My party and I support reasonable GUN CONTROL."
Kent Cowan and I managed to hand out approximately one hundred flyers advertising the February 4th rally. Shortly before our rally, a panicky Reform party quickly urged various gun group leaders to hold another rally on February 3rd 1995, at night, and up Island away from Victoria. This would prove to hamper the Libertarian rally considerably. A phone call from Gary Kangus expressing that he would not speak at our rally if there was any mention of defensive ownership of firearms. Mr. Kangus did speak up Island on the 3rd. as did Joanna Eastdown, who was also scheduled to speak at our rally on the 4th. If it were not for my chiding the secretary of the Responsible Firearms Owners Coalition of B.C for their luke-warm support, only chairman Terry Green would have been there to represent a group with over ten-thousand members.
The up side was the rally substance itself. Jim Goguen started out with his very own personal feelings regarding the proposed legislation. Mr.Goguen, a gun shop owner, remembers more "liberal" times in Canada, and spoke of the lunacy that oozes from the media's interpretation of gun owners. Mr. Green stuck pretty close to the Reform Party line.
Des Kiddie, President of the NFA for B.C. surprised all of us with his statement that he was a member of the Libertarian Party of Canada. He also urged everyone to support Libertarians on this issue, as they are indeed on the same side as those who wish to keep and use fire arms for peaceful purposes. Our guest speaker, Greater Vancouver Island Libertarian Association Secretary Paul Geddes, gave sage advise regarding the importance of the greater issue that underlies the ownership of guns, and how important that is to understand the connection of liberty and the right to defend oneself.
In my speech, I gave warning of the pit falls associated with compromise, using examples of the past to warn of clouds in the future. The president of VILA, Mark Chase, gave a very well delivered speech that showed the connection of all prohibitions of government and how they adversely effect society. Mr. Chase was cheerfully received by the audience for his pro-gun rights speech, and even for references to other libertarian issues.. Ken Wiebe, our chairman for the rally, gave a clear reading of Libertarian Party Leader Hill Cox's letter of support, giving gun owners his party's guarantee of a no-compromise support for the right to bear arms, now and always.
All-in-all, I would say that the rally did succeed. Just under three hundred people were exposed (finally) to the real defenders of freedom and "gun rights." There was new approach to gun owners and others that are concerned about freedom, and although there was not the typical rallying of the troops there were fresh words of knowledge.
Let it be known that the first political party in Canada to organize and deliver supportive pro-gun rallies in Canada is the doing of libertarians, and the Libertarian Party of Canada can not be surpassed in its supportive position to all the victims of prohibition.
By Ken Wiebe, VILA Director
Patriotism . . . what a concept! Libertarians may be wondering how they can express their patriotism without advocating all the usual coercive nonsense like anti-immigration, tariff barriers, the draft, etc. My response is to say with pride: The Maple Leaf forever.
A Maple Leaf is a gold coin produced by the Canadian Mint and is currently available in coin shops across this great land, and abroad. The Maple Leaf comes in several denominations, in various weights and is of extremely high purity gold. It is one of the most beautiful coins produced anywhere in the world, and quite sought after. Astonishingly, a 1/10 ounce maple leaf has a legal tender value of only five dollars. I know it should be worth far more, and so does the local coin shop dealer who sells them for around seventy dollars. An odd transaction when you think about it, since sixty-five dollars just sort of disappears into limbo.
Consider the true value of any coin or note. . A Loony is worth exactly the one dollar that the Government of Canada stamps on it. This is as true for a loony as it is for a Maple Leaf. Even a five dollar bill is nothing more than some fancy paper and ink, and probably not really worth five dollars in and of itself. Sure . . . Canadian notes are colourful and lovely, but their value as art is severely limited due to the quantity produced. It is generally safe to assume that no coin or note has an intrinsic value equal to its legal tender value. Moreover, Canadian dollars constantly fluctuate in value, reported on the evening news as the exchange rate. Therefore, any Canadian coin's legal tender value should not be expected to be equal to its intrinsic value. This raises some intriguing possibilities.
Suppose you'd like to buy a package of cigarettes . . . about five dollars. You can pay the merchant with a five dollar bill, or five loonies, or a handful of change, or your empty pop bottles . . . or a one-tenth ounce gold Maple Leaf with a legal tender value of five dollars. Besides all the well-known hazards of smoking, it would be rather foolish to buy a package of cigarettes with a gold Maple Leaf, but it would be a legitimate transaction. The merchant must accept your five dollar coin as legal tender, that's the law.
Obviously, nobody would want to purchase a five dollar package of cigarettes with a Maple Leaf, but what about a purchase of some item with a sticker price of one hundred dollars? Let's say, for example, you want to buy a tape deck. If you drive a hard bargain and purchase a one-hundred dollar tape deck for five dollars, that would simply be a sign of excellent dickering skills and perhaps a desperate stereo salesman. Nobody could object to such a transaction, and you would be profiting handsomely from the purchase. The stereo salesman would have gotten the worst of the bargain, but he might console himself by reflecting on the reduced provincial and federal sales taxes, not to mention his book loss for corporate income tax purposes. This is exactly what many businesses do with loss-leaders and promotional sales, and losses caused by poor salesmen. If a one hundred dollar piece of gear cost him fifty dollars, he just took a loss of forty-five dollars. C'est la vie. Now, suppose you paid him with a five dollar Maple Leaf. No difference . . . right?
As far as the government is concerned, there is no difference. The government has deemed that coin to be worth five dollars, and that is that. In essence, you bought a one hundred dollar stereo for five dollars, paid taxes on five, and the stereo merchant has a legitimate loss on his books. So long as he does not sell his Maple Leaf coin for more paper currency than the face value of the coin, there are not even any capital gains to worry about. Perhaps he might find something to buy with the five dollar coin, using the previous example as a guide. In this manner gold coin should enter the economy as a common medium of exchange, which will go a long way towards stabilizing the Canadian economy, ending government-induced inflation, and reducing everyone's taxes. It's a win-win for everyone and quite legitimate. Of course the tax man won't like it very much, but there really isn't much that he can do about it. Everyone in Canada has the right to organize his financial affairs in such a manner as to minimize his taxes, or at least that's what it says on my tax guide.
Be a patriot and use Canadian Maple Leaf gold coins for as many transactions as you possibly can. If you hire a plumber, offer him five dollars for the work. The Maple Leaf comes in several denominations of various weights and values. Any owner-operated business would be a good candidate to approach with such an offer. I would also recommend that VILA start using Maple Leaf coins whenever and wherever possible, for everything from paying bills to hiring office workers. Beware of pitfalls like minimum wage laws and the like, but for many things it should be acceptable.
If you own a business and would like to accept Maple Leaf coins, please let the membership know. Perhaps you would like to take out an advertisement in the newsletter, I understand such ads are going cheap these days. The treasurer is desperate and might be convinced to accept five Maple Leaf dollars for a whole year's worth of advertising. Such a deal!
(All the usual disclaimers. I am not a lawyer or an accountant, readers should check with a competent professional in the field).
The following interview between IL Publisher Kent Cowan and Prof. David Friedman, was conducted through the internet over a two month period. Dr. Friedman is a professor of economics at the University of Chicago. He is best known to libertarians as the foremost theorist on anarcho-capitalism.
In your book The Machinery of Freedom you present a persuasive case in favour of the "anarchist- libertarian" position. Do you, yourself, support such a position? How would you describe your own political beliefs?
I support an anarcho-capitalist position in the same sense now as when I wrote the book. I believe that anarcho- capitalist institutions would be stable in some, but not all, possible political environments. In environments where they would be stable, I think it likely that they would produce a more attractive outcome than any other stable political institutions I can think of.
I am somewhat more optimistic now than I was then about the stability of such institutions in the current environment, mainly because national defense is no longer a serious problem, at least for the immediate future. Also, I think developments in cryptography and computer networks may be leading us in the direction of de facto anarcho-capitalism with regard to substantial parts of our lives-a world of strong privacy where the ability of governments to control people is much less than it has been in the past.
Why would one environment be any more hospitable to anarcho-capitalism than any other? Couldn't it be achieved anywhere by eliminating taxation and having the state charge directly for the services it offers?
There are at least two problems with maintaining an anarcho-capitalist society. The first is that national defense, defense against nations, is a public good. Most kinds of defense must be provided, if at all, to everyone in a substantial area. We cannot, for example, have an anti-missile system that protects me but not my neighbor.
For reasons that I discussed in The Machinery of Freedom, and that are familiar in the economics literature, markets tend to underproduce public goods--meaning that a public good may fail to be produced even though its value to consumers is greater than its cost of production. The failure to produce an adequate level of this particular public good results in the destruction of the anarcho-capitalist society.
The second problem is internal stability. If the society has a single government, even one that is not currently violating individual rights, that government is likely to have a lot more physical force available to it than any citizen or organized group of citizens. In that situation, the government might well go back to acting in the way governments act now. Even if we have several competing protection agencies providing protection for their customers and arranging arbitration of disputes, there is a risk that they might decide theft is more profitable than selling protection, get together, and reimpose government. So for a stable anarcho-capitalist society, you probably need a substantial number of protection agencies. How many you get depends on economies of scale--whether protection agencies with a hundred million customers can do a better or worse job than ones with ten million or one million customers.
I am somewhat more optimistic now than I was then about the stability of such institutions in the current environment, mainly because national defense is no longer a serious problem, at least for the immediate future. Also, I think developments in cryptography and computer networks may be leading us in the direction of de facto anarcho-capitalism with regard to substantial parts of our lives--a world of strong privacy where the ability of governments to control people is much less than it has been in the past.
Would it not be much more difficult for an anarchist society to be taken over by force than one with a central government? I'm just wondering if an anarchist society would necessarily require the type of military structure that a federalist-statist one would?
I don't know; we haven't done the experiment. One would like to believe that, but I don't see any strong reason to do so. I don't assume that the inhabitants of an anarchist society would all be committed anarchists, willing to die in defense of anarchy; in most societies most people don't have that sort of commitment to the institutions they take for granted.
Do you believe there are public goods that would be necessary for the survival of an anarchist society, goods that would not likely be produced by a private market?
You are confusing two different issues: whether there are necessary public goods, and whether those goods would not be produced by a private market. Private markets produce lots of public goods--radio broadcasts, new words. Economic theory suggests that markets underproduce public goods, which means they produce at less than the optimal quantity and/or quality, but that is not the same thing as not producing them at all.
I think there is at least one public good, defense against states, which most anarchist societies under present circumstances would require; whether it would be produced adequately by a private market is, as I said earlier, one of the things determining whether an anarchist society can survive. There are other public goods, such as scientific knowledge, which I would expect to be underproduced, but not necessarily worse produced than at present. There is no good reason to expect governments to produce the optimal quantity and quality of public goods, after all.
Do you believe to get from where we are now, to an anarcho-capitalist society, would require a significant change in the belief system of a large majority of individuals?
No.
Would we not we, having reached this point, fight against any
attempt to impose a central power that would violate our life,
liberty and property?
Would there likely be a core principle, or moral code, which
would limit the creation and enforcement of laws?
In Machinery of Freedom, you seem to be saying that there can be more than one set of laws, and we can subscribe to whatever set we most like. I can't quite wrap my head around he idea...what if I want to take drugs, but my neighbor wants all drug users in jail. Can he have me arrested by his security forces? Would there be a constitution or a common law?
No. There would be a network of agreements among protection agencies specifying arbitrators for disputes between their customers; each arbitration agency would operate under its own set of rules. If enough people wanted all drug users in jail so that many protection agencies found it was more profitable to agree to arbitration agreements under which drugs were illegal, then many people (the customers of those arbitration agencies) would, in effect, be under legal systems that made drugs illegal.
Each customer is expressing his preference for the laws he wishes to live under by the way that the amount he is willing to pay a protection agency varies with the legal rules it offers. The result, just as on an ordinary market, tends to be the outcome that maximizes economic efficiency. In other words, if the value to all the anti-drug people of having anti-drug laws is greater than the cost to all the pro-drug people, you end up with anti-drug laws. This is a bit of an oversimplification, since it leaves out the fact that in a non-uniform legal system the anti-drug people might end up "buying" anti-drug laws only in some parts of the country or between some pairs of protection agencies.
As I explained in The Machinery of Freedom, anarcho-capitalism is not the same thing as libertarianism. Anarcho-capitalism describes a set of institutions. One of the things I like about it is that I believe those institutions would tend to generate libertarian law, because liberty is usually efficient, but that is a theorem, not a definition.
So far as the evolution of my views since then is concerned, the main change has been an increasing dissatisfaction with the natural rights approach to libertarianism, based largely on the realization that categories such as "property" and "trespass" are much more complicated ideas than they at first seem, and our moral intuitions are thus less adequate than they at first appear to resolving real world questions about who is entitled to do what. Some of that dissatisfaction appears in the first chapter of section IV of the new edition of The Machinery of Freedom.
Wouldn't order pretty much establish itself if the state were to abandon its powers of taxation and monopoly of services? I'm think in particular of Hayek's spontaneous order theory. If the government step out of the way, new processes would develop. All the same, would a general understanding of basic principles be helpful in setting limits on our actions regarding others (such as the non-aggression axiom)?
A general understanding of what your and my rights are would be very helpful to me in deciding what I was entitled to do to you--for example whether, if you trespassed on my property, I was entitled to use force to remove you. That is true now as well as under anarcho-capitalist institutions. Your question seems to be mixing two quite different questions--the economic question of what will happen and the ethical question of how one ought to act.
How did you come to your political/economic views? How did the influence of your parents [Milton and Rose Friedman] effect those views?
Much of that question I cannot answer, since I do not remember enough about my thoughts in my early teens. I am sure my parents, and in particular my father, had a large influence on my views, but I cannot offer any detailed analysis.
There are at least two important steps in the development of my views that I do remember. One of them involved the question of whether one is morally obliged to obey laws. For a period of several years, I believed that a stable society required that people feel obliged to obey laws, but could find no satisfactory moral argument for why one ought to obey a law merely because it was a law. I therefore decided that I ought to myself obey laws until I could resolve that problem, since it might well turn out that I was obliged to do so. The result was that I was more law abiding than most of my contemporaries. To take one dimly remembered example, when I reached legal drinking age (18) I believe I was unwilling to offer a glass of wine to friends under the legal age.
I eventually resolved that problem by noticing that I seemed to be the only person I knew who acted as if he felt morally obliged to obey laws--and the society was not visibly collapsing. I concluded that the combined effect of obedience to those laws one considered morally justified plus obedience to those laws one expected to be punished for breaking was apparently sufficient to maintain a stable society, and altered my behavior accordingly.
The second step was from limited government to anarchy. My position for some time was that I could see no moral justification for any government coercion, including taxes to pay for courts or national defense, but could also see no practical way of doing without it. I accepted the limited government libertarian position that the market would provide goods and services within a general legal framework established by the state, but could not itself provide that framework.
What changed that position was reading _The Moon is a Harsh Mistress_, by Robert Heinlein. He presented a convincing and apparently internally consistent portrait of a society with a working legal framework but without a state. A single counterexample is sufficient to disprove a general theorem; I found his counterexample believable, and so concluded that it could not be in general impossible to provide a legal framework without a state. I therefore tried to think through what the equivalent of Heinlein's society would be like in modern-day America-how, in our world, one could have law and order produced entirely privately. The result was part III of The Machinery of Freedom.
So far as the evolution of my views since then is concerned, the main change has been an increasing dissatisfaction with the natural rights approach to libertarianism, based largely on the realization that categories such as "property" and "trespass" are much more complicated ideas than they at first seem, and our moral intuitions are thus less adequate than they at first appear to resolving real world questions about who is entitled to do what. Some of that dissatisfaction appears in the first chapter of section IV of the new edition of The Machinery of Freedom.
The books below are available for loan to our members from the VILA Libertarian Library. If you have books of interest, we would like have your old books in exchange for Liberbux. Contact Kent Cowan for details.
TITLE AUTHOR PUBLISHER Nation, State & Economy Ludwig von Mises New York University Press Liberalism Ludwig von Mises Sheed Andrews & McMeel Omnipotent Government Ludwig von Mises Arlington House Human Action Ludwig von Mises Contemporary Books Socialism Ludwig von Mises Liberty Classics Free to Choose Milton Friedman Harcourt, Brace, Jovan Capitalism & Freedom Milton Friedman University of Chicago Wealth of Nations, Vol 1 & 2 Adam Smith Liberty Classics Parliament of Whores P.J. O'Rourke Vintage All The Trouble in the World P.J. O'Rourke Random House Canada Give War a Chance P.J. O'Rourke Atlantic Monthly Press The Constitution of Liberty F. A. Hayek Phoenix Book The Counter-Revolution of Science F. A. Hayek Liberty Press The Machinery of Freedom David Friedman Open Court Equality, Third World & Economics P.T. Bauer Harvard University Press Marihuana Reconsidered Lester Grinspoon Harvard Paperback Licit & Illicit Drugs Consumers Union Little, Brown & Comp. The Ominous Parallels Leonard Peikoff Stein & Day Introduction of Ojectivist Epis Ayn Rand Mentor Books For the New Intellectual Ayn Rand Signet Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal Ayn Rand Signet The Fountainhead Ayn Rand Signet Atlas Shrugged Ayn Rand Signet Private Parts Howard Stern Simon & Schuster
by Lazarus Long
Warning! This contains methods of economic planning that are frowned upon by the state, so treat it as an exercise in economic planning (for your personal entertainment).
The tax system in this country is geared towards stifling economic activity and permitting the "redistribution of wealth." Let's start by calling "redistribution of wealth" by it's proper name, theft. Through the theft of your income, the state gathers in money and distributes it to others, for political reasons and political reasons dressed in a false cloak called the "social safety net." The amount of theft depends on how successful you are, the more successful the greater the plunder of the state. Depending on your income, you may be forced to surrender anywhere from 35% to 65% of your earnings.
There is a way of avoiding this plunder, however it does take careful planning, because the state is very adamant about getting its cut of your pie.
There exists, due to economic necessity, an underground economy wherever the state plunders the citizen. Without this underground economy, the economic machinery that allows a country to feed, clothe and entertain itself, would collapse. In a free market economy that does not permit theft by state, there is no need of a so-called "black market."
How does one enter into the realm of the underground economy? If you are like most Canadians, you probably participate in that realm already. Every time you pay cash for services or items without receiving a receipt, you can be sure that the vendor is not reporting the transaction to the state.
The trick to surviving in the underground economy, without being caught by the state, is to remain partly in the "market economy." By continuing to pay into the system the minimum you can, by "magic bookkeeping," keep a greater share of the wealth you create for yourself.
The need for a method for anyone who wishes to keep his income safe from the grasping clutch of the state is self-evident. The method need not be complex but rather should be as simple as possible. The less involved the better as it will be easier to make a part of your bookkeeping, as well, it avoids the natural human trait of avoiding doing something that is complex.
Let us take as an example the free market mechanic. He performs his work either by working from his home (if zoning laws and neighbors wouldn't interfere) or from a rental garage (paid for in cash) or by travelling in his own vehicle to the customer's residence. He may do this as a secondary job while keeping his "day job" that the state recognizes or he may make this his full time career.
Working from home presents difficulties for the mechanic. The number of vehicles scattered around his property becomes noticeable and may offend a neighbor, who may call the local bylaw enforcement people. Working from his vehicle is relatively safe from a bylaw enforcement point of view but is awkward for the mechanic. He can only carry a limited number of tools and parts and some equipment will be too cumbersome to haul around. The safest bet is to rent, with cash, a small garage and to work quietly using word of mouth advertising.
All transactions must be in cash and if possible the suppliers should not be the wholesalers in themselves but rather the salesmen from those businesses. Salesmen in that field usually have ample opportunity to purchase at cost material for their own use. They usually can be persuaded to add your order to their purchases. This helps conceal the origin and breaks the paper trail.
How to conceal this income is the tricky part. If this is the only job that the free market mechanic holds, he will have a hard time showing the government how he can afford his house and other possessions. He is better off taking a part-time position that will earn him enough to cover his housing cost and using that income to help conceal his true income. It is best that he presents to the outside world an image of just scraping by. A simple house without a lot of visible enhancements is best. This way both his neighbors and the state will see him as just another wage slave on the treadmill.
The bookkeeping for this sort of operation is fairly simple and consists of faithfully filing a tax return for the "above ground" job. Be careful to not make any mistakes that would draw scrutiny from the Revenue people. Keep the free market income separate and out of banks. Once the money enters the banking system, you start a paper trail that becomes difficult to conceal.
How best to conceal the wealth that you garner from your free market job is a matter of some thought.
Switzerland and other tax-havens are not practical for the small income person. So how do you protect your money and put it to work earning income, income that you normally would make by having it earning interest in a financial institution? One method is to use it to extend capital to other free marketeers. This means using a lot of judgment as the usual debtor's system is not available to you.
The other is to (through the use of your free market contacts) obtain a second or third identity. Choose an identity that would allow you to filter your money slowly into the legitimate banking system.. As the new you, you would still have to pay tax on any income generated. However, by use of the states own tax rules, you should be able to reduce that amount by a considerable amount. This is even more true if you are able to make that filtered income look like a small pension payment.
If the amount of money that you are earning becomes too large to filter into a bank in this way, you can obtain another identity and filter the excess into the money market. This has many advantages over the banking system as it is easy to move money into overseas accounts if so desired. You do have to be careful that you keep you identities separate and avoid face to face contact with the banking authorities as far as possible.. This is where e-file tax returns become useful as well as automatic tellers in the bank. Bills however should be paid in cash as far as possible.. anything that helps break up the paper trail is useful.
(L.L. is a "rational anarchist" from St. Catherines Ontario).
The following article first appeared in _The Gun Owner_, Volume 13, Number 6, December 1994 and is reproduced here with the kind permission of the publisher: Gun Owners of America. Permission is granted to reproduce this article by any means, in any media, at any time or place so long as it remains complete and unedited and all attributions are intact. Reprint permission has also been granted by Gun Owners of America and the Lamplughs on these same terms.
THE LIVES OF Harry and Theresa Lamplugh were turned upside down on the morning of May 25, 1994. Early that day, 15 to 20 armed men and women burst into their rural Pennsylvania home. Under the threat of violence, the Lamplughs cooperated completely with the intruders as they opened safes, locks and cabinets. In spite of their compliance, however, Harry and Theresa were treated with contempt. Throughout the ordeal, a fully automatic machine gun was intermittently thrust in both their faces.
The Lamplughs watched in horror as the thugs literally trashed their home. Furniture was overturned or smashed and papers were scattered everywhere. Three pet cats were ruthlessly killed-one literally stomped to death. The gang ransacked their home for more than six hours. When they finally left, Harry and Theresa stood confused and angry in the midst of their demolished home.
The brutal and inhumane events that you have just read about are not fiction. They were taken from the testimony of Harry and Theresa Lamplugh. Only the intruders were not some violent street gang members or foreign terrorists; they were agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
Why would two federal agencies send a small battalion of agents to terrorize this couple in the supposed safety of their home? What terrible crime did Harry and Theresa Lamplugh commit that prompted this brutal six-and- a half hour ordeal? Shockingly, there are no good answers to these questions.
Harry Lamplugh, however, is in the politically incorrect business of promoting gun shows. His organization, Borderline Gun Collectors Association, happens to be the largest gun show promoter in the Northeast. As anyone who has ever attended a gun show knows, there are more than firearms and accessories on display. A gun show is also a place where people of common interests meet to express their political views and share opinions. Not surprisingly, criticism of the BATF runs deep at such a forum. And it is no secret that the BATF spends considerable time and effort infiltrating these shows.
Since gun show infiltration is a massive undertaking that yields relatively small returns, the BATF has now honed in on a primary source, Harry Lamplugh. On May 23, 1994, the agencies obtained a search warrant authorizing both the BATF and the IRS to "search" the Lamplugh home. Included in the list of items to be seized were any firearms, ammunition, holsters, cleaning kits, gun cases and firearms accessories. The Lamplughs' attorney points out that the warrant failed to name even one specific item. "Such warrants are vague, overbroad and therefore unconstitutional," he said.
The agents also seized complete financial and business records of the Borderline Gun Collectors Association from 1988 to the present. This included all computer records and any other documents related to the sale and purchase of firearms. Obviously, the BATF was on some sort of "fishing expedition." But the most amazing aspect of the warrant is what was NOT on it. There was no reference to any crime by any person. The BATF appears to hold not only the Second Amendment in disdain, but the Fourth as well.
On Wednesday, May 25, 1994, the search warrant was executed. At about eight in the morning, Harry answered a knock on the front door and was instantly surrounded by agents. His wife was in the bathroom at the time. He had been sitting at the kitchen table in a pair of pajama bottoms, having his morning coffee. "Unto this day I don't know exactly how many there were, but they had my house secured in seconds," Harry said.
According to Lamplugh, there were a total of six cars full of agents. They were not dressed in any uniform, and only two had the identifying ATF vests on. All firearms were drawn. An M-P5 machine gun was stuck in Harry's face. They did not announce who they were or why they were there, and no search warrants were displayed. "When I asked if they had a search warrant, their first reply was 'shut the f___ up mother f___er; do you want more trouble than you already have?', with the machine gun stuck in my face." Harry said. "They then proceeded to tear my house apart."
The Lamplughs were not permitted to dress all day. "We couldn't even go to the bathroom without an armed guard, as if we were prisoners in our own home," says Mrs. Lamplugh. Then, like a slap in the face, the agents stopped everything to eat lunch. "They gave no thought to what we were going through. Some agents went out for pizza, and they had a little party. It was like a room full of kindergartners with no chaperone. They threw half-emptied soda cans, pizza and pizza boxes everywhere. To some people, maybe it sounds like we're complaining about a small thing, but this is our home and they trashed it."
The agents' reckless conduct at the "pizza party" characterized their behavior throughout the raid. "Because I have cancer, I usually have about 20 bottles of prescription drugs on top of my bureau. For some unknown reason, they thought it necessary to open the bottles and scatter the contents all over the floor. Consequently, two of our cats got into the medication and died horrible deaths."
The agents continued their aimless search. "Where's the machine gun" one of the agents asked. Finally, an indication they were looking for something in particular. "At first I didn't know what he meant," Harry said. "Then I recalled that I once owned a Vietnam commemorative Thompson, inlaid in 22 karat gold, but that was a semi-automatic. One of the agents then responded, 'That must be what they're talking about.'" The agents were apparently looking for something that wasn't even there, or illegal to possess."
However, they were very thorough in sifting through what was there. But for what reason did the agents take marriage and birth certificates, school records, insurance information, vehicle registrations and titles? Harry points out that "they were so thorough that for about two weeks we would have had a hard time proving who we were. They took all of our contacts with newspapers (Over 600), all friends and family phone numbers, and even my medical records." There were 61 firearms and assorted ammo seized in the raid, valued at over $15,000. The agents took about 70,000 names and addresses of exhibitors and also gun show contracts through the year 2000. A stack of mail was opened, read and also confiscated.
Finally, at about three o'clock, the wrecking crew finished their destruction. In one final unconscionable act, female agent Donna Slusser deliberately stomped to death a cherished Manx kitten, and kicked it under a tree.
The affidavit in support of the warrant was made by BATF special agent Scott Endy. For reasons unknown to the Lamplughs, the affidavits were sealed by a local federal judge. An Assistant United States Attorney was asked by the Lamplughs' attorney to unseal the document, but he has steadfastly refused to do so.
The persecution Harry and Theresa have endured has been extremely harsh. At no time was this peaceful couple informed of any violation of the law, and to this day no charges have been brought against the Lamplughs. Yet, the BATF has refused to return any property, even medical records and other personal documents and possessions.
The actions of the men and women who entered the Lamplughs' home must not be ignored or forgotten. The Lamplughs are victims, not suspects, in this matter, and this is but one of the many examples of the BATF's abuse of its power through the years. This government brutality must be stopped.
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