Logo By Coldsun Designs/CAS


September 1st, 1999

Required Reading
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Goodbye Great Western
By 3 to 2, the Los Angeles Country Board of Supervisors voted to ban gun and ammunition sales on country property - meaning that the heavily attended Great Western Gun Show will not be able to take place at the fairgrounds in Pomona, as it has for the past 30 years.

Great Western President Karl Amelang told the supervisors before they voted that a ban would kill the show, which is reportedly the world's largest and pumps about $9 million a year into the local economy. Amelang said Great Western would take legal action against the board and accused it of aiming at the wrong target. "Instead of addressing the underlying causes for the unfortunate assaults by twisted minds on innocent victims, this motion is a thinly veiled attempt to destroy the constitutional rights of a legal entity," he said.

But County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, who sponsored the measure, said: "Gun violence has ravaged this country. Illegal automatic and semiautomatic weapons have ravaged the schools, day-care centers, day camps, and other public institutions and religious institutions all over the United States." Under the new county law, Great Western Shows, which runs the gun show four times a year at the Pomona fairgrounds, can exhibit guns there but not sell them. The supervisors who voted for the law were supported by Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca and Los Angeles City Police Chief Bernard Parks, who said residents of Southern California wanted to end gun violence in their region.

FBI & Waco
There is so much to report on this, I'll just post some highlights:

  • There have been lawsuits filed by families of those killed at Waco and by some of the survivors. The suits were transferred to Judge Smith, the same judge who sentenced some of the Davidians to long prison terms, and is generally thought of as a very pro-government, very anti-Davidian judge. The government of course moved to dismiss the cases. Judge Smith refused, leaving open such claims as the Davidians' assertion that the government shot at people leaving the burning building. This, Smith stated, had at least some evidence to support it, and if proven would "shock the conscience of the court."
  • Texas Department of Public Safety announced that the Texas Rangers (which are part of TDPS) had two large rooms full of Waco evidence that had never seen the light of day.TDPS added that it did not want to be responsible for withholding the evidence, hinted that it did not trust the federal agencies to have it, and offered to file the entire mass (estimated at twelve tons of material) in court.
  • TDPS commissioner Jim Francis said that it contained government fired projectiles, which appeared to be pyrotechnic (that is, fire producing).
  • Judge Smith issued an order accepting the Ranger's evidence. Then he issued a second order, which is utterly unprecedented. He ordered all federal agencies to turn over to the court all evidence "in any way relevant to the events at Mt. Carmel."
  • Contrary to public statements made in recent days, Attorney General Janet Reno and FBI officials planned the final deadly assault on the Branch Davidian church in Waco, Texas, with top officers of the Delta Force, according to classified documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act and Special Forces sources.
  • Photographs released clearly show an FBI agent with a .50-caliber Browning machine gun next to his leg. Such weapons are to be used only against armored equipment and weapons. Koresh didn't have any tanks, helicopters, or APCs. The Geneva Convention states that these weapons are never to be used in an anti-personnel role.
  • Attorney General Janet Reno and FBI Director Louis Freeh have jointly agreed on calling for of an "outside investigation" into their agencies' failure to disclose the use of incendiary devices during Waco, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.
  • The DALLAS MORNING NEWS is reporting in hot Wednesday editions: U.S. Justice Department lawyers on Tuesday challenged a federal judge's authority to take control over evidence in the Branch Davidian case. DALLAS MORNING NEWS reporter quotes DPS commission Chairman James Francis Jr.: "I think it's very unfortunate that the Justice Department would try to prevent the federal court in Waco from gaining access to all of the evidence in light of everything that's happened in the last week... From what I can understand of the Justice Department's motion today, they're still attempting to prevent the evidence from being judicially reviewed. And I think that is most unfortunate."
This does not look good for the FBI...

Other Newsworthy Items
Senator To Rejoin NRA
Washington State "$30 License Tab" Initiative I-695
Veto the Governor in CA
The Darwin Awards!



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