Mayor Sam Jones of Mobile, Alabama returned home from a grocery run last Tuesday and noticed that things weren’t quite right. His lighted nativity scene had been turned on after he had turned it off. His truck had been tampered with and his garage door was open. That’s when he discovered James Harvey Wilkerson in his garage, who told him that “the Lord had sent him.” Jones then held Wilkerson at gunpoint until police arrived.

Now, entering your home (or garage) after you notice a variety of flaming red-flag signs that something is amiss is borderline reckless. And I’m not sure how wise it is to draw a firearm on an unarmed intruder, though I would like to hear from anyone out there who has a legal opinion on this. In Missouri, we have a castle doctrine law that essentially holds a homeowner harmless for the injuries or death of individuals invading their home.

So other than the Mayor needlessly putting himself at risk, drawing a gun on a home invader would be justified, right? There’s only one problem. Mayor Jones is a member of Mike Bloomberg’s “Mayors Against Illegal Guns” a group that would just as soon no one – other than the police – own a firearm, let alone have the right to carry one. Jones also has a bodyguard, though his city-paid protector was not on duty that evening.

The account of how Jones came upon the intruder doesn’t include anything about Jones going into his home to retrieve the .38 he used to hold the invader, so it’s logical to assume that hizzoner was packing when he came home from the Piggly Wiggly. News inquiries into whether Mayor Jones had the required permit went unanswered. And neither the mayor nor the local PD are talking about the particulars of the incident.

Meanwhile the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms took the mayor to task for this apparent hypocrisy. The press release practically wrote itself.  An excerpt:

Here is a municipal mayor who has a bodyguard, and believes it is okay for him to carry a gun, but he belongs to an organization that consistently works to keep everyone else from carrying,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “If the mayor is legally licensed, why does he belong to a group that has fought to prevent law-abiding citizens from exercising their self-defense right?

If Mayor Jones doesn’t have a permit,” he continued, “then he is a poster child for the double standards that elites like Mayor Michael Bloomberg believe separates them from the citizens they serve. Either way, Mayor Jones owes it to his constituents to show them his carry permit, and to oppose any further attempts by Mayors Against Illegal Guns to prevent private citizens from exercising their constitutionally-protected right to keep and bear arms.

I’ll never quite understand why a public official who has a bodyguard and who personally packs heat would work to deny his constituents the same right to self defense he takes advantage of. OK, wait, I do understand. But what I don’t understand is why we put up with it.

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34 COMMENTS

  1. Can’t wait to see what Bloomberg does. Has anyone in the media reached out to the midget to see if he is gonna put Mayor Jones on Super Secret Double Probation, make him sit in the balcony at the next MAIG shindig or if he will actually throw him out??

  2. I’m sorry but if they do not trust me with a firearm I do not trust them with the power of their office.

  3. How do you know an intruder is unarmed until you have him at gunpoint and controlling his actions? As long as someone has hands and arms they are a threat, unless your name is Chuck Norris or Jean Claude Van Damm.

    • I think this is a fair point, and I imagine I would probably draw on someone in my home. I just don’t know how much trouble I would be in.

      My training, in essence says that the weapon does not clear your holster unless your life is threatened – and if your life is threatened there is no reason to not shoot. If I came upon someone with their back to me I don’t think I would just shoot them, but I do not know what the law allows as to ordering someone to comply with my instructions at gunpoint.

      I would do it anyway, rather than shoot someone in the back who was not otherwise threatening me or my family and hope my umbrella insurance policy covers the lawsuit.

      • I would have the 9 in hand when I told them to turn around. A knife in their waste band could be withdrawn and plunged into your chest rather easily. Or even the screwdriver used to jimmy open the front door.
        Anytime you have an uninvited guest in your residence your life is threatened. In Ca the three strikes law means life in jail for a simple burglary, so it’s entirely possible that a 2 time loser will kill you rather than be arrested.

  4. Maybe Jones, Bloomberg, and the whole MAIG crowd can get the same Inspector General who’s working on the Fast and Furious case (now in record-breaking territory) to investigate this incident.

    I’m sure the OIG has lots of time on their hands and hey, what’s the rush?

  5. You guys have been telling each other lies about Bloomberg, the Bradys and anybody else who disagrees with you for so long that you’re beginninig to believe your own nonsense.

    “Mayor Jones is a member of Mike Bloomberg’s “Mayors Against Illegal Guns” a group that would just as soon no one – other than the police – own a firearm, let alone have the right to carry one. “

    Is that a feeling you have, that they’d “just as soon no one own a firearm?”

    • Just as much a “feeling” as the multiple times you’ve contradicted yourself, showing your true colors about how no one should own guns. Despicable, lying scumbags like you and Bloomberg were made for each other, and neither of you belong in a free society. The only difference is Bloomberg has the power to be a threat, whereas you’re a small, pathetic internet nut.

      • you’re a small, pathetic internet nut.

        Shame on you, Silver. Mikey is not small. But the rest you got right.

      • Silver, I’m afraid besides going on “feelings” your very much affected by paranoia. My “true colors about how no one should own guns” is a figment of your imagination.

    • We only feel that way from their proposals. If they were more concerned with removing criminals from our midst and not parole for the dregs we would have different feelings. They are systematically focused on the hardware and their actions hurt the ability of law abiding people to defend themselves, while they walk around with armed guards.

      Feelings are what anti gun people run on, the rest of us prefer facts.

      • Wrong GS. My proposals are about ensuring that gun owners are fit and qualified. I never said we should ONLY worry about that and not deal with the criminals.

    • Mike – if you presented Mayor Bloomberg with a magic button that removed firearms from all citizens who were not cops or military, do you really think he would not push it?

      You anti-gunners bring our presuppositions of ill will upon yourselves. Your arguments are incoherent and your team is unwilling to engage facts that countervail your position.

      When someone acts nutty like that it is perfectly logical to presume the worst.

    • Oh, I am sure they would love to ban private ownership of guns. They have quite a lust for total power. Why do you think George Washington made some of the comments he did about limited government and guns being a good thing for a republic.

      • They have quite a lust for total power.

        Andrew Weiner and Elliot Spitzer would disagree about that lust thing.

  7. In Utah, Hizzoner would actually have violated the terms of the Castle doctrine, if I understand it correctly. According to my CHL instructor, if he was in the home when it was broken into, he can use deadly force. If he comes upon someone breaking into an unoccupied building/car/outhouse, as long as no one is inside it’s considered a ‘defense of property’ situation, which does not constitute a threat to personal safety. Not that I wouldn’t have done the same thing. Not shooting the guy was probably a good idea.

    • Here is how you get around that. You entered your home without noticing it was broken into. Up pops the joker who entered your home and fear was turned on. What you say to the police in the five minutes they arrive determines how it is handled. IE, say as little as possible and answer questions in your best interest only.

    • TR, it’s not that cut-and-dried. Hizzoner had a perfect right to enter his own home with his own (licensed) pistol. Once he did so, it was no longer an unoccupied dwelling.

      That doesn’t mean he would be off the hook, because that depends totally on how the Castle Doctrine law is applied in his state, assuming there is such a law there, or in Utah as you mentioned.

      You’d be surpirised to know that Massachusetts has a Castle Law, but it’s weak. It provides that you don’t have to retreat in your own home; that was to satisfy the Boston namby-pambys that they wouldn’t have to jump out a thirty storey window to get away. But they would still have to objectively and reasonably fear for their lives and could not rely on the fact that a large, angry stranger was in their living room.

  8. Within one’s home concealed carry is not a requirement in any state that I know of, the District excluded. You may peaceably and with no unlawful purpose walk about your house with a pistol in hand regardless of a burglar’s presence or absence. You may always order a non-resident and uninvited person to leave your home, whether they threaten you or not. Pointing the gun in your hand directly at the person may constitute aggravated assault, however, if you do not have justification. If you want insurance for gun-related actions, the NRA offers a policy. Politicians are power and control freaks as often as not. They think that if anyone has a gun, then they themselves need one…but not the other way around. Senator Feinstein started packing heat due, she claimed, to a bomb threat. That must be a helluva pistol!

    • IANAL, but definitions of where one may carry on his property vary by state. In California (as I understand it), a homeowner may carry in the areas of his property that are not public, i.e., basically only inside the house. Not in the yard, garage, shed, etc. In Florida, as I recall, a homeowner may carry anywhere on his property, and the state’s castle doctrine covers the USE of the firearm in any building, including a garage or shed. This does not constitute legal advice; YMMV; the white zone is for loading and unloading only; just add water–makes its own sauce.

  9. “The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.”
    “My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.”

    — Thomas Jefferson as quoted on the Angry Harry site.

  10. Mayor Jones is a very important man who needs to defend himself from criminals! Now us regular folk need to wait for the police to come and investigate our beating or murder, because we don’t need a gun to defend ourselves.

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