The Liberal Gun Club Forum

Allegedly federales were involved, but I'm not exactly sure whether they, the state, county, or Seattle authorities initiated the order.
Police seize guns from man thought to be leader of neo-Nazi chapter in Washington state

The officials did not charge Cole with any crimes that day, or in the months to come, despite information that he was a leader of the Atomwaffen Division, one of the most violent extremist groups in the country. But last month, according to records provided by a prosecutor’s office Thursday, the authorities in Seattle moved to seize a cache of weapons from Cole, using a state law intended to prevent gun violence.

“This was an individual who had access to firearms and was preparing for a race war,” Kimberly Wyatt, a prosecutor in King County, Washington, said Thursday.

The move was part of a larger effort by investigators around the country, including the FBI, to crack down on members of Atomwaffen, as officials seek to counter the rising threat from hate groups. The Atomwaffen Division has been linked to a series of killings.

Not a retired school crossing guard, I assume? No charges?

K9s wrote: Fri Oct 18, 2019 10:02 am Not a retired school crossing guard, I assume? No charges?

They're looking for a way to charge him.

Wyatt said law enforcement officials have continued discussing what criminal laws might apply to Cole’s case. She said criminal statutes focus on threats made to an intended victim.

“What do you do when there’s a general threat versus one specific individual?” Wyatt said. She said officials were discussing their options under state law.

I'm sure that will prevent him from getting anything from his "friends" when they decide to go for it. If there's enough for an ERPO, there is enough for charges. If there's not enough for charges, there's enough to put him under surveillance until you get enough for charges. This guys going to do everything he can to disappear from the grid until he does something drastic.

shinzen wrote: Fri Oct 18, 2019 10:07 am I'm sure that will prevent him from getting anything from his "friends" when they decide to go for it.

An upstanding citizen like him?

These ERPOs sound like an excuse to conduct lazy police work. If there's no downside for authorities to blindly take someone's property under the guise of safety, then it's going to be abused. See asset forfeiture.

If this guy is really a piece of shit extremist with a plan, then charge him. Don't take some guns away and let him go. Which could make matters worse.

DMac wrote: Fri Oct 18, 2019 11:56 am These ERPOs sound like an excuse to conduct lazy police work. If there's no downside for authorities to blindly take someone's property under the guise of safety, then it's going to be abused. See asset forfeiture.

If this guy is really a piece of shit extremist with a plan, then charge him. Don't take some guns away and let him go. Which could make matters worse.

I was thinking the same thing. Brown people "could" be illegal aliens. Liberals "could" be pro-Antifa.

Trump says, "take away the guns, then give due process" right? Just not a good idea.

The feds requested the ERPO against the guy. There is no federal path to do the same thing so they had to ask the state to do it. I am actually glad this time. The AWD are no horseshit nasty. They believe in violence first, put up flyers lined with razor blades and are one of the reasons I bought weapons specifically for self defense and started to get training. It might affect me the way it does primarily because these guys are local and very active.

I'm having a very hard time being concerned with the 2A rights of a member of Atomwaffen.

Klown has the right of it in my mind.

This specific guy? Yeah, fuck him. However, the precedent that it sets is deeply disturbing, as is the overall issue with these to begin with. Next time, at the direction of the Trump justice department, it's someone with Antifa ties. Or someone from the John Brown Gun Club. Or someone who's a member of ours. As K9 said, the Trump mindset of "take the guns first and fuck due process" is goddamned terrifying to me.

The other fear I outlined above. What now? Oh look, we took his guns so he's obviously no longer a threat! No need to worry about doing the rest of the job which we should have done to actually put this guy away.

shinzen wrote:This specific guy? Yeah, fuck him. However, the precedent that it sets is deeply disturbing, as is the overall issue with these to begin with. Next time, at the direction of the Trump justice department, it's someone with Antifa ties. Or someone from the John Brown Gun Club. Or someone who's a member of ours. As K9 said, the Trump mindset of "take the guns first and fuck due process" is goddamned terrifying to me.

The other fear I outlined above. What now? Oh look, we took his guns so he's obviously no longer a threat! No need to worry about doing the rest of the job which we should have done to actually put this guy away.

That's the issue I have with it. What's to stop them from labeling your social club a terrorist group? Everyone is fine because it's a neo-Nazis, but the same precedence can be used for any group.

Which brings me to my question. What is the due diligence for classifying a terrorist/hate group? Can the government just arbitrarily declare LGC a problem organization? Is there a documented investigation?

I'm genuinely curious.

shinzen wrote: Fri Oct 18, 2019 3:41 pm This specific guy? Yeah, fuck him. However, the precedent that it sets is deeply disturbing, as is the overall issue with these to begin with. Next time, at the direction of the Trump justice department, it's someone with Antifa ties. Or someone from the John Brown Gun Club. Or someone who's a member of ours. As K9 said, the Trump mindset of "take the guns first and fuck due process" is goddamned terrifying to me.

The other fear I outlined above. What now? Oh look, we took his guns so he's obviously no longer a threat! No need to worry about doing the rest of the job which we should have done to actually put this guy away.

Of course he's still a threat. But he now has a few hoops to jump though to start his holy war (at least with guns). His delusional playbook is all about murdering people and he probably jerks off nonstop when he talks about it on the phone to other Atomwaffen members about how great it will be when they start killing untermench. If that's not a red flag for having guns taken away then I don't know what is.

The point is that anyone can be a potential threat if he regularly spews fear and hatred. Any gun also can potentially be used for violence. At what point does the police gain the power to nullify the 2A rights of an individual extrajudicially just because someone is exercising his 1A rights foolishly.

We already have systems set up to limit the rights of individuals through the courts. We shouldn’t circumvent them willy-nilly and give such decisions powers to cops.

I agree with others who say ERPO appears to be laziness with serious social consequences.

In petitioning to seize Cole’s weapons, law enforcement officials said Cole was believed to be the cell leader of Atomwaffen’s chapter in Washington state. They wrote that Cole had participated in firearms training and recruiting at “hate camps,” where members performed military-style exercises and wore skull masks over their faces. In a video, they chanted anti-Semitic slurs and “race war now.”

Officials seized the firearms using a so-called red-flag law, which in a number of states including Washington allows law enforcement or civilians to get a court order to confiscate weapons when there is evidence that people are at high risk of harming themselves or others. Wyatt said the law provided a temporary intervention, allowing the seizure of the guns for up to a year.

Federal investigators have also faced this issue as they struggle to balance First Amendment protections that allow hate speech and actions that could be an indicator of future violence. In some cases, the FBI has turned to local prosecutors to handle the cases.

I expect Cole will fight this in federal court, hate speech is 1A protected unless there is a threat of violence or violent acts. The right wing that fought against ERPO laws will say that this just shows you can lose your guns when prosecutors disagree with your beliefs.

Fuck this murderous asshole Cole. Atomwaffen IS a terrorist group, actively espousing terrorism and murder, which is NOT protected 1A speech, but felony incitement.
Cole's a really bad test case for ERPO...unless you want to ERPO to be upheld by the courts.

Nazis don't need guns to kill people.

The Trumpians and Fox want BLM to be labeled a terrorist group along with Antifa. They don't care about "Trump's fine people" neo-Nazis with guns. In a second Trump term, I don't want them claiming that "disloyal" Americans should be disarmed.

If this guy is a threat, OK. They have taken guns from octogenarians for much less reason (school crossing guard). However, I see this easily moving in the direction of disarming brown people, non-Christians, and gay/trans/other in the future. What was unthinkable in the past is not so unimaginable these days.

The ACLU has a brief write up of how the Patriot Act broadened the definition of what domestic terrorism is. It isn't all that difficult to be designated as such.
https://www.aclu.org/other/how-usa-patr ... -terrorism

+1 on K9’s post.

Civil Liberties cover both the just and the unjust. They can and should be revoked for those who break the law. But until that is proven to happen, the inconvenience of living with some “potential” danger is what you choose when you demand all your own rights.

I’m genuinely surprised that some members of the LGC have an issue with this even when we are talking about a despicable person given that guns (and gun owners) are often painted with the same brush of intolerance by so many liberals.

I say use existing laws to prosecute the mofo, not let the police have these Red Flag powers that increasingly erode our collective rights as citizens in the name of “safety” or public order.

Bisbee said:

I say use existing laws to prosecute the mofo ...

First, I do not believe we need to protect the rights of hate groups. But, as a society, we still live with a prohibition against prior constraint.

IMO, we need to lower the bar for what constitutes illegal hate speech. I have found a few neo-nazi sites accidentally when searching for something else. Wow - it looked to me that they were already way over the line. But these sites and groups of people exist mostly in the open without any restraint.

The same thing is true of the imprisoned Coast Guard Lt. with an "arms cache" - they basically forced him to cop a plea for frankly minor weapons charges. The majority of what he had been doing was 100% legal. The only real laws he broke were hoarding Tramadol, owning a silencer and using a Government computer to research hate groups. IMO, they made a mistake in bringing civilian charges; he violated the UCMJ and he should be in military prison right now. But in a civilian context, he was not really across the line (yet.)

Bisbee wrote: Fri Oct 18, 2019 6:41 pm I’m genuinely surprised that some members of the LGC have an issue with this even when we are talking about a despicable person given that guns (and gun owners) are often painted with the same brush of intolerance by so many liberals.

I don't think anyone has an issue with this particular person and in this particular case. The issue is, once president is set, it tends to be spread around and used on other "undesirable" groups. Those in power get to determine what "undesirable" means. Without due process, we are very much back to witch trials and McCarthyism--not a place any of us should wish to go.

featureless wrote: Fri Oct 18, 2019 6:59 pm

Bisbee wrote: Fri Oct 18, 2019 6:41 pm I’m genuinely surprised that some members of the LGC have an issue with this even when we are talking about a despicable person given that guns (and gun owners) are often painted with the same brush of intolerance by so many liberals.

I don't think anyone has an issue with this particular person and in this particular case. The issue is, once president is set, it tends to be spread around and used on other "undesirable" groups. Those in power get to determine what "undesirable" means. Without due process, we are very much back to witch trials and McCarthyism--not a place any of us should wish to go.

Exactly, as Shinzen stated so well.

This specific guy? Yeah, fuck him. However, the precedent that it sets is deeply disturbing, as is the overall issue with these to begin with. Next time, at the direction of the Trump justice department, it's someone with Antifa ties. Or someone from the John Brown Gun Club. Or someone who's a member of ours. As K9 said, the Trump mindset of "take the guns first and fuck due process" is goddamned terrifying to me.

I've always thought that the Patriot Act was sketchy legally, we need more cases to test it in federal courts. ERPO laws are still new and they're not all the same, they too need to be tested.

It was recently reported that Cole has been denied entry into Canada. All of the AWD kids are batcrap crazy.

I certainly don't want that poison here, and I don't want them armed. However, I have seen too many seemingly well-intentioned laws used as a weapon against the poor and POC here. When they start off using red flag laws against racist LEO and the wealthy, then they might have more integrity and trust.

A very high percentage of cops abuse their spouses. Until we see an erpo against a cop, it’s only a tool to bypass due process.