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ACLU Defends Missouri Gun Rights Guy

Robert Farago - comments No comments

“On May 1, 2013, Jerry Bledsoe, a police officer, confronted [Jordan] Klaffer while responding to a noise complaint,” thefreethoughtproject.com reports. “Klaffer videotaped the interaction, where Bledsoe issued an ultimatum to Klaffer to surrender his guns or be arrested. Klaffer refused to give up his guns and was arrested for disturbing the peace.” That was just the beginning . . .

To express his opinion that Officer Bledsoe was using his position to harass him for exercising his Second Amendment rights, Klaffer posted recordings of the May 1 encounter on YouTube and Facebook. And, on Instagram, he posted a picture of Bledsoe alongside a photo of Saddam Hussein, with the caption “Striking Resemblance.”

Officer Bledsoe retaliated by obtaining a court order that prevented Mr. Klaffer from posting videos, pictures, and text data criticizing Officer Bledsoe on the Internet. “A government order prohibiting criticism of government is the worst kind of censorship,” explains Tony Rothert, legal director of the ACLU [American Civil Liberties Union] of Missouri. Click here to read the ACLU’s complaint.

So, while the ACLU may still skip the number two when counting to ten, at least they’re standing guard over a gun guy’s First Amendment protection against government infringement on the right to free speech. Oh, and since when do cops get to play let’s make a deal with the citizenry? Turn over your guns or I’ll arrest you for disturbing the peace? Geddowdaheah.

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Robert Farago

Robert Farago is the former publisher of The Truth About Guns (TTAG). He started the site to explore the ethics, morality, business, politics, culture, technology, practice, strategy, dangers and fun of guns.

0 thoughts on “ACLU Defends Missouri Gun Rights Guy”

  1. Wow. CA got slapped by federal court as did ILL. Now the ACLU is actually going to bat for a gun owner.

    Think I’m going to start building an ark now.

    Reply
    • National ACLU doesn’t seem to do much and state ACLU’s pick and choose, supposedly. I’ve heard the rationalization being there are other organizations better suited to handle 2A issues so the various ACLU’s punt to them. Dunno how true it is, but sounds feasible to me.

      Reply
  2. “he posted a picture of Bledsoe alongside a photo of Saddam Hussein, with the caption “Striking Resemblance.”
    It’s good to know what it really takes to get the ACLU on your side.

    Reply
  3. “A government order prohibiting criticism of government is the worst kind of censorship,…”

    (Takes deep breath) aaaand, a government order to surrender ones arms to avoid harassment is the worst kind of INFRINGEMENT. They would be so close to seeing it our way if not for their blind hatred.

    Reply
  4. Your tax dollars, so very hard at work, all because yet another law enforcement organization has an affirmative action policy to hire the mentally infirm.

    Unless this is slapped down at the Circuit Court or lower, this is the type of case the SCOTUS likes to take and it would go up the ladder to the top. It’ll be costing us taxpayers millions of dollars to debate and re-re-re-debate this cop’s (and his buddy-buddy judge’s) stupidity.

    There should be a penalty for being this stupid in government employment. I think the penalty should be directly and personally painful, and result in this level of stupidity not being heritable.

    Reply
  5. 1. M1911
    2. Glock 22
    3. Colt SAA
    4. M4/AR15
    5.12Ga Pump Shotgun
    6. Browning M2 .50
    7. Any centerfire bolt action rifle
    8. Ruger GP100
    9. M249 SAW
    10. North American Derringer in .44Mag ( If you have the guts )

    Reply
  6. How about the ten guns I myself want to shoot, haha:

    – flintlock rifle
    – cap and ball revolver
    – Mp5 full auto suppressed
    – full size gi style 1911
    – Barrett .50 cal
    – a good ar
    – a good ak
    – breechloader a la martini henry
    – garand
    – gatling replica or anything similar

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  7. Being a card-carrying member of both the ACLU and the NRA, I am very glad to see some overlap of interest concerning this case. Hopefully we’ll see more of it in the future.

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  8. Hmm, okay, things I have fired already that everyone should experience once…

    1) M16 (or AR variant) on full auto
    2) Ma-Deuce on auto
    3) Lever action “cowboy rifle”, in my case, a Marlin 336 in 30-30
    4) M1911
    5) Mosin Nagant (or Kar98K)
    6) Semi-auto .22 rifle (in my case, Nylon 66 and Ruger 10/22)

    Things on my list still to fire
    7) M1 Garand
    8) AK (preferably full auto)
    9) heavy caliber revolver (.357 Magnum and up)
    10) black powder weapon (anything really, for me will probably be cap & ball revolver)

    Bonus items (pure fantasy for me, most likely will not get a chance to do these any time soon)
    – any electric-powered mini gun
    – Thompson SMG in full auto
    – suppressed SMG in full auto (MP5 or Sten?)
    – full auto shotgun (Saiga, CAWS, etc)

    Reply
  9. In no real order:

    Smith Model 29
    M2 HB
    M16
    AK-74
    M1911
    Colt SAA
    M1 Garand
    Steyr AUG
    Remington 870
    Walther PPK

    I believe in Glock, don’t get me wrong. Probably one of, or if not the best, combat handgun out there but there is nothing particularly distinctive about a Glock.

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  10. For the record, the ACLU chapters in Arizona, Nevada and South Carolina are in revolt against the national org and have learned to count to 10 without skipping 2. Those three specifically hold the 2A as a personal civil right in line with Heller and McDonald, by official policy of the state orgs.

    I was a member of the board of the Southern Arizona sub-chapter until early 2013 when I moved to AL to get married to a great gal. (My last name is now Simpson.)

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  11. Isn’t “People” that brightly colored fluff stuck in the center of the Sunday paper
    that I toss out with all the rest of the junk ads and such?

    I think my Grandma used to read that. And Readers Digest.

    Reply
  12. Inn no particular order:

    Mosin Nagant
    Colt 1911
    Automag 308
    Thompson Sub Machine Gun
    M1 Garand
    S&W 44 Magnum Revolver
    Steyr AUG
    Colt Peacemaker
    Remingtonn 870
    Barret 50 Cal

    Reply
  13. This history prompted erstwhile civil rights icon Ann Coulter to opine that all blacks should be supporters of the NRA; Coulter also recounted the story of Martin Luther King, Jr being denied a concealed weapons permit. Coulter instructed us that, as with slavery, it was the Republican Party and the NRA that were on the side of black people, not the libs and Dems.
    The National Rifle Association was first chartered in the state of New York on November 17, 1871 by Army and Navy Journal editor William Conant Church and General George Wood Wingate. Its first president was Civil War General Ambrose Burnside (UNION OFFICER) , who had worked as a Rhode Island gunsmith, and Wingate was the original secretary of the organization. Church succeeded Burnside as president in the following year. (Hmm, Correct me if I’m wrong BUT the Union soldiers were from the North not the south)
    The original targets of the Ku Klux Klan were Republicans, both black and white, according to a new television program and book, which describe how the Democrats started the KKK and for decades harassed the GOP with lynchings and threats.
    An estimated 3,446 blacks and 1,297 whites died at the end of KKK ropes from 1882 to 1964.
    Further, the first grand wizard of the KKK was honored at the 1868 Democratic National Convention, no Democrats voted for the 14th Amendment to grant citizenship to former slaves and, to this day, the party website ignores those decades of racism, he said.
    “Of all forms of violent intimidation, lynchings were by far the most effective,” Barton said in his book. “Republicans often led the efforts to pass federal anti-lynching laws and their platforms consistently called for a ban on lynching. Democrats successfully blocked those bills and their platforms never did condemn lynchings.”
    “Although it is relatively unreported today, historical documents are unequivocal that the Klan was established by Democrats and that the Klan played a prominent role in the Democratic Party,” Barton writes in his book. “In fact, a 13-volume set of congressional investigations from 1872 conclusively and irrefutably documents that fact.
    Further, three years later, Eisenhower signed the GOP’s 1960 Civil Rights Act after it survived a five-day, five-hour filibuster by 18 Senate Democrats, and in 1964, Democrat President Lyndon Johnson signed the 1964 Civil Rights Act after former Klansman Robert Byrd’s 14-hour filibuster, and the votes of 22 other Senate Democrats, including Tennessee’s Al Gore Sr., failed to scuttle the plan.
    Even then, the opposition to rights for blacks was far from over. As recently as 1960, Mississippi Democratic Gov. Hugh White had requested Christian evangelist Billy Graham segregate his crusades, something Graham refused to do.
    Former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice has said: “The first Republican I knew was my father, and he is still the Republican I most admire. He joined our party because the Democrats in Jim Crow Alabama of 1952 would not register him to vote. The Republicans did. My father has never forgotten that day, and neither have I.”
    as for that BS that the Old Southern Democrats were “Conservative” Abraham Lincoln answered that nonsense by stating:
    ‘But you say you are conservative – eminently conservative – while we are revolutionary, destructive, or something of the sort. What is conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried? We stick to, contend for, the identical old policy on the point in controversy which was adopted by “our fathers who framed the Government under which we live;” while you with one accord reject, and scout, and spit upon that old policy, and insist upon substituting something new. True, you disagree among yourselves as to what that substitute shall be. You are divided on new propositions and plans, but you are unanimous in rejecting and denouncing the old policy of the fathers. Some of you are for reviving the foreign slave trade; some for a Congressional Slave-Code for the Territories; some for Congress forbidding the Territories to prohibit Slavery within their limits; some for maintaining Slavery in the Territories through the judiciary…’
    I posted a link to the entire speech by Lincoln below.
    The Democrat Party is the Party of Liars! The way they KEEP trying to pathetically and Farcically Rewrite their history. And WORSE! The number of idiots who are actually STUPID enough to believe their feeble lies. RME

    Reply
  14. In no particular order:

    MP5SD
    Full Auto Thompson Sub-Machine Gun
    Sig MPX
    HK UMP
    HK G36C
    Browning 1919 A4
    Any AR variant
    Any AK variant
    AA12 Full-Auto Shotgun
    Any .50 cal BMG rifle
    Desert Eagle .50 cal

    Reply
  15. look, I have tested my Crossman 357 CO2 pellet gun, listed about 425 fps, in ballistics gel for $hi!s and giggles, and it penetrates 5 inches. It won’t even kill a raccoon, let alone a human, even if I put it right up between the 3rd and 4th intracostal space between the ribs and pulled the trigger. If someone does not believe this, save yourself a ton of money and aggravation, buy a pellet gun, and test it yourself. On an actual raccoon or groundhog, with the proper permits of course. Good luck with that.

    Reply
  16. I’m still trying to figure out how he could have possibly shot 19 people with a 10-round magazine. He obviously didn’t reload because nobody tackled him during the reloading process and took the gun away from him… which of course the justification for mag limits right?

    Reply
  17. 1. M61 Vulcan
    2. MG 42
    3. M2 Browning
    4. M242 Bushmaster
    5. DShK 1938 12.7mm
    6. Thompson 1928
    7. HK Mp5K
    8. PKM
    9. Accuracy International Ax 50
    10. ZSU-23-2

    Reply
  18. 1. An original 1911
    2. 1873 peacemaker
    3. Dardick
    4. AA12 or Benelli M4
    5. Kentucky long rifle
    6. S&W 500
    7. M1 Garand
    8. M1928 Thompson
    9. M1903
    10. My personal favorite, while not technically a “gun” the M777A2 howitzer.

    Reply
  19. 1. FN49
    2. Henry Golden Boy,.45 LE
    3. FN Five Seven
    4. Hi-Point carbine, any caliber. (I can say nothing about their pistols, but I LOVE my .40 carbine)
    5. AR-15
    6. Mini 14
    7. A Glock
    8. 1911
    9. Mosin-Nagant 91-30
    10. Shoot ALL the guns!

    I could go on and on here. Shoot whatever you think is gonna be fun, more than likely it will be.

    Shoot straight, shoot safe.

    Reply
  20. Sorry if I offend El Mac, but I suggest people try the L85/ SA80.
    Check out our conversation on the article regarding the Soldier outside Buck house.

    Reply
  21. nice to know clamp on brakes exist are are good quality! I’ve been looking for one of these for my PTR-91, was afraid I was gona have to just sell her and buy a threaded barrel version but I won’t have to any more!

    Reply
  22. I live in St. Louis, and the people in his district have not had serious, effective, honest representation EVER in the city’s history. The entire area will have to be bulldozed, rebuilt, and re-populated before it does.

    This man’s constituency consists of thousands of gangbangers and other miscreants, and a handful of elderly church-goers, who vote. The proposed bill was written to please the latter, with no real expectation of passing.

    Racial politics in St. Louis are such a touchy area that local media would never think of investigating or reporting something like this in depth. It would be impossible to do without offending SOMEONE.

    Reply
  23. And this is why the media needs to stop glorifying these aholes. Reposting a quote of a quote from CNN is just as bad. Quit giving bad people somebody to emmulate.

    Reply
  24. Tim

    You are correct. A few years ago, a Democrat Senator received “death threats” (someone placed orange target stickers on her office door). She not only went to the media and complained, but she also referred it to the Capitol Police for investigation. So Josh, I cry BS. Oh, wait, did you withdraw your bill only to introduce a new one?

    Bill re Gun Trafficking: http://house.mo.gov/billtracking/bills141/biltxt/intro/HB2221I.htm

    How much do you want to bet this thing gets loaded up with negative admendments such that F2F transactions are banned without a NICS check?? Are we really to believe Josh that this bill will stay “clean”? No – you got caught with a dumb bill and I was proud to mention it to Dan Zimmerman. Now this crap. Nice try, but no cigar Kid.

    Reply
  25. +10000000 nurse Deborah! I can’t say enough good about her. Defying a MOB of young black thugs. Where the h#!l is the media coverage? From an evil old white man married to a beautiful black woman.

    Reply
  26. Good for you for finding what works for you. I certainly can’t fault you for preferring Glocks, after having personally tried all of the major competitors (including the higher-end alternatives). The only Glock fanboys I have difficulty trying to stomach are the ones who’ve never shot anything else, but still blindly declare that Glocks are the greatest autopistol ever devised.

    When we all know that distinction belongs to HKs.

    Reply
  27. 1.) M2 Browning, “Ma Deuce”.

    2.) M60/Mk.43, “The Pig”.

    3.) M203 40MM

    4.) M249

    5.) Mk. 19

    6.) Dillon M134D

    7.) Lahti L39

    8.) M1927A1, “Thompson”

    9.) MG-42, “Hitler’s Zipper”

    10.) PTRS-41

    Reply
  28. Point of order.

    WTF was this guy doing driving around Detroit without packing heat?

    Good on her for doing the right thing, carrying and caring about what happens to other people.

    Reply
  29. As someone else posted, most noise ordinances specify a time or a time is implied.
    Lawnmowers, leaf blowers, loud cars, trucks, and all manner of noise was present when I worked nights and slept days.
    The video is daylight. Probably another anti gun liberal and another ignorant cop.
    The cop had no authority to sieze anything. If he wanted to issue a citation…fine.

    Sounds to me he just wanted to take this citizens guns.

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  30. GRAAAARGH! Is no one fed up with this $#!7?! Using our tax dollars to chip away at the Bill of Rights and marginalize gun owners? There is no justification for this — our own government is trying to wipe us from existence, plain and simple. The contempt is intolerable. Now excuse me before I write something that’ll get me droned.

    Reply
  31. I bought one of these revolvers last week. Took it to the range twice. In this sample of one, the point of impact at 50 yards is 9″ high with the rear sight bottomed out. I will be calling S&W tomorrow and telling them what I think of their “two piece barrel” (actually its a one piece barrel with a shroud somehow attached to it, from what I can tell glued on). Brand new gun going back for a new “two-piece barrel”.

    Reply
  32. DO IT FOR THE CHILDREN!!!!

    the cry of liberals and conservatives alike. just cause you or your SO shit out a kid and you cant take responsibility for them, doesnt mean my rights get curtailed.

    Reply
  33. Or do not grant permission to search automoble on a traffic stop. Keep your Mary Janes & weapon out of view, not on the floorboard. Nothing good comes from being a doofus.

    Reply

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