Paramilitary Thugs Steal Private Arms Collection

Will Grigg
LRC Blog -

“We feel our community is safer having this kind of weaponry off the street,” intoned a spokesman for the Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts police department.

Granted, the invocation of that cliche is part of the familiar gun-grabber liturgy, but it doesn’t apply here, since the “weaponry” referred to was never on the “street” to begin with. It consisted of several firearms legally purchased by 45-year-old Gregory D. Girard, a computer consultant whose wife — was her maiden name Morozov, perchance? — told the authorities about her husband’s supposedly alarming view that martial law is imminent.

Since it is unacceptable for people to believe that government agents will carry out paramilitary raids to confiscate firearms, a paramilitary force was sent to Girard’s home to confiscate his firearms.

Those weapons are now “safely” in the hands of the most dangerous criminal element in any society — the people who pull triggers and commit other acts of violence on behalf of the political class.

The statist stenographers in the local press breathlessly describe Girard’s collection of “approximately twenty” firearms — all legally purchased and duly registered — as “an alarming, nearly military-grade stockpile.” In addition to the firearms, Girard’s supposedly menacing arms cache included “several tear gas grenades and explosive pepper ball projectiles” as well as “four police batons” he had “illegally” acquired.

That’s right: Civilian disarmament is not limited to “gun control,” but includes “club control,” as well.

In the hands of the armed servants of the tax-feeding class, tear gas, pepper spray, and batons are considered “less-than-lethal” weaponry. But Girard, as a mere Mundane, isn’t permitted to own tear gas grenades and pepper ball rounds; accordingly, he was charged with four counts of possessing “an infernal device” and four counts of possessing a “dangerous weapon.”

Girard also reportedly converted his third story into an “illegal indoor firing range,” complete with what was described as an “illegal ballistic plate” (apparently possession of metal plates of a certain thickness is now impermissible without explicit government permission).

Abetted by the self-serving comments of the police who stole Girard’s property and the prosecutors who collaborated in that crime, media accounts are slathered with slimy insinuations that Girard is mentally unbalanced. (His wife, with whom he apparently has a troubled relationship, is a psychiatrist.)

Whatever we learn about Girard’s personal issues, this episode involves a dramatic and terrifying exercise of pre-emptive civilian disarmament.

More than a decade ago, the state government of nearby Connecticut enacted a “law” permitting state agents to confiscate firearms from people suspected of “dangerous” tendencies — a variation on the Soviet idea of pre-emptive punishment of “socially dangerous persons.” Whatever happens to Gregory Girard, we’re likely to see much more of this kind of thing as the Homeland Security State expands and fortifies itself.