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Let’s just stick to the facts here, as reported by the Yakima Herald. (1) On September 13, 2015, Wentachee, Washington resident Martin Eugene Hoyer had just spent the past two days smoking $100 worth of methamphetamines when he realized that “a bunch of Mexicans and white guys” were teaming up with his neighbor to steal his truck and all of his money. (2) Hoyer retrieved his revolver, went outside, pointed the revolver at his neighbor through the window and threatened to shoot her if she carried out her alleged robbery scheme. He then went back inside . . .

(2)(a) Since he has four (4) prior felony convictions, Hoyer is actually prohibited by gun control laws from owning a firearm.

(3) Next, Hoyer reported seeing “Mexicans in the trees” outside his apartment building, “getting ready to jump out and attack him.” Two additional “Mexicans” went to another neighbor’s apartment, “urging her to open Hoyer’s door so that they could rob him.”

(3)(a) Hoyer didn’t allege the appearance of any “white guys” at point (3), just “Mexicans”. It is unclear what happened to the “white guys”.

(4) Hoyer proceeded to this second neighbor’s apartment, with the intent of rescuing her from the “Mexicans”.

(5) Hoyer’s rescue plan involved kicking the neighbor’s door. (Whether this was to kick down the door, or simply to kick at the door to announce his presence is unclear.) Hoyer had his revolved carried (“Mexican”-style) in the waistband of his pants.

(5)(a) It’s probably worth mentioning again that Hoyer was prohibited from owning firearms under 18 U.S.C. sec. 922, due to his four (4) prior felony convictions.
(5)(b) Unless he was pardoned for those felonies. Which doesn’t seem likely.

(6) When Hoyer “raised his leg” to kick the door, the gun “went off”.

(7) The second neighbor reported that she heard “banging on the door.” She opened the door, saw Hoyer “fall to the ground” at which point he said, “Ow.”

(8) Police subsequently arrived, and observed Hoyer “walking from his apartment to his truck, with a gunshot wound in his left hip.”

(9) Hoyer was then conveyed to Central Washington Hospital, where he remained “conscious and communicative” throughout his treatment.

(10) “Medical imaging showed the intact bullet had skipped off the ball of his hip joint and plunged directly downward into his scrotal region, where it lodged. He suffered no apparent organ damage.”

(11) “It was one of two projectiles found in Hoyer’s body — the other bullet, he told police, was from from a previous gunshot wound.”

(12) Police later searched Hoyer’s home, finding two (2) .45-caliber revolvers, a rifle and ammunition, plus small amounts of methamphetamine.
(12)(a) Again, he’s not supposed to have a gun per the nation’s gun control laws. Doesn’t anyone actually follow gun control laws?
(12)(b) I’m pretty sure that it’s also illegal to possess meth.

(13) Hoyer needs $50,000 to make bail.
(13)(a) Yeah, good luck with that.

(14) There don’t appear to have been any actual “Mexicans” lying in wait to attack Hoyer. Or “white guys”, for that matter.
(14)(a) Not this time, anyway.

 

DISCLAIMER: The above is an opinion humor piece; it is not legal advice, nor does it create an attorney-client relationship in any sense. If you need legal advice in any matter, you are strongly urged to hire and consult your own counsel. This post is entirely my own, and does not represent the positions, opinions, or strategies of my firm or clients.

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58 COMMENTS

    • I guess it means that I am a gun nerd, but when I read two .45 revolvers, the first thing that pops into my head was: .45 Colt or .45 ACP?

      • I just looked at the Yakima Herald article and read that it was a Taurus revolver, which probably means some sort of Judge in .45 Colt/410 shot shell. Here I was thinking that this meth-head had some classy Smith or Colt .45 revolvers. Silly me

    • And the guy would NOT have in wrong in thinking that Wentachee is host to more than a few Mexicans. In fact, behind every tree would be a pretty accurate estimation.

  1. As someone who’s normally pretty libertarian, I’m supposed to toe the TTAG “War on drugs is bad” meme. And it usually is. However, I really despise methamphetamine. PCP, too. This isn’t the only meth-induced paranoid delusion a$$holery out on the streets. Not by a long shot.

    • Meth is in a somewhat different category in a sense that it’s impossible to use just recreationally – it’s a guaranteed addiction, and it will turn a man into a ruin physically. Effectively, it’s poison that has no other uses. I don’t think that possession of it should be criminal even so, much less use, but selling (or otherwise transferring) it to someone, that I wouldn’t mind being a crime in and of itself.

      • Pretty much any hard drug can get you addicted quickly. I don’t know anyone using recreational heroin or crack. As someone who does believe in Legalization, I am not sure what we would do with methamphetamine. Opiate addicts commit property crime to get drugs. They aren’t really violent, nor are people on any downer. Methamphetamine is tricky because it can create paranoid induced violence. What I do know, any sort of controlled legalization is a lot better than the current strengthening of cartels, wasting tax dollars, and creating more addicts.

    • Methamphetamine is a drug that is approved for and administered to children as well as adults for a few conditions like ADHD and narcolepsy. Use does not always result in a bad outcome.

        • To be perfectly fair, as a ADD representative, I have been prescribed Ritalin and Adderall, both amphetamine based treatments. Never did i get the “fear” or have any adverse side affects, course, i followed the instructions on the bottle too. I was sharper mentally, more energetic, able to focus on tasks and not drowsy.

          Course, I preferred stratera, a non-amphetamine drug that you only noticed working after the first 5 days or so, and I liked it better. And no more triplicate prescriptions, those are a hassle.

          All the bad parts of amphetamines come from abuse, not use.

    • Meth, crack and PCP are the drugs that make me waiver on my “legalize it all” stance. Whereas dopers smoking weed just get stupid and hungry, and people chasing the dragon just become somnolent do-nothings, people who do meth start to get worms in their ears – and when the voices come calling, they start doing really unpredictable, outlandish and often dangerous things.

      I used to work with a guy who would goof off for three weeks at a clip, going to strip clubs and cruising around The Mission for trouble. Then he’d realize that he had a deadline coming up, he’d score some meth and stay up for five days without sleep, coding his fingers off. Oddly enough, his code was quite coherent – but he would be a complete mess. After about two years of this, I had to tell him to get serious help, when we’d be in engineering meetings and he would start making complete non sequitur accusations of people doing things to his desk or his pencils. (!)

      That was my up close and personal intro to meth. Since then, I’ve seen nothing good come of it, ever, in anyone.

    • I don’t think it’s the meth, but rather being up for two days straight. Then again, I’ve never done meth. However, you’d have to get pretty bat shit crazy due to sleep deprivation.

      • I’ve been without sleep for two days often, and a bit over three days once. All this in the course of finishing “crunch” projects.

        It makes you start losing your short term->long term memory, but it doesn’t make you psychotic or deranged. For me, after about hour 40 without sleep, it just becomes a low-wattage plod forward. You know you’re not at your best, so you don’t take on “challenging” tasks, but you can slog through a lot of mundane horsecrap without sleep.

  2. Project approved! Get working on a script for the movie. I predict a sequel, and eventually a TV series spinoff! The working title will be “A NASA Scientist out of Work!”

  3. I just ran his court record. It looks to me that all his felonies were state felonies and not federal felonies.
    As long as they weren’t class A felonies, he could have petitioned the court to get his gun possession rights restored which would restore them federally. A state possession disability is restored federally when the state restores possession rights. A person doesn’t have to get a pardon unless they are class A state felonies (Washington State) or a federal felony which is damn tough to get your gun rights back on.

    In Washington State, you can get your gun rights back and still be convicted. But if you can get them restored, a person might as well get the charges vacated, but they still need their rights restored on EACH disabling conviction.

      • Looks like it, yeah.
        Case Number: 02-1-01663-9
        06-26-2003 NOTICE INELIGIBLE POSSESS FIREARM Notice Ineligible Possess Firearm

        Case Number: 05-1-05604-1 VUCSA (violation of controlled substance act)
        Case Number: 01-1-09019-1 VUCSA
        Case Number: 02-1-01663-9 06-26-2003 NOTICE INELIGIBLE POSSESS FIREARM
        Case Number: 81-1-02783-7 UNK
        Case Number: 89-1-04848-1 10-04-1989 WARRANT OF COMMITMENT

      • Enjoyed reading it. Actually, decades ago I knew someone who was smoking crack. Lots of it. He told me one night he thought DEA agents were hanging from trees with ropes in sleeping bags watching him all night.
        I asked him why the DEA would hang in a tree in a sleeping bag while he smoked crack all night. Does that really make sense I asked him? It was that paranoia thing.

  4. Even felons, abusers, creeps and wife-beaters are “people” under the Constitution, and their RTKABA should not be infringed !!

    The 10 enumerated rights in the Constitution are absolute, as they are the natural and God-given rights not subject to political convenience.

    • When the POS rams his rights into mine (or whomever his neighbor is) then he is going to loose. Including if he chooses to run wild around the neighborhood in a science experiment caused stupor.

      • Not claiming that one should not assert rights when another person’s rights directly impinge. Just saying the RTKABA is absolute (like all the other 9), or they are not rights. If not absolute, “rights” are subject to the whims of politics. Once we start slicing this little piece and that little piece, there is no objective/absolute way to rule any change “out of bounds”. Even the famous/infamous “Falsely shouting ‘fire’ in a crowded theater.” is an egregious, but generally acceptable restriction on a “right” that was declared beyond the ability of the government to restrict. Bad guys need to defend their lives from attack by other bad guys. Restricting the right of bad guys to armed self-defense puts them at “outlaw”, where a person was stripped of all human rights and private citizens could kill them without fear of being arrested and tried. “Outlaw” might be a useful concept is some really heinous circumstances, but how would we keep the brand from becoming an abuse of power?

        Just saying the fact that a convicted bad guy had a gun should not be a crime of itself. Using that gun in committing a crime would be the offense, not possession.

  5. You know, sometimes I think, “Damn JDub, you need to make more money. Kids’ tuition has gone up, you need to put more money away for retirement because you know healthcare is going to be expensive. You’ve got to work out harder, do more for Veteran Outdoors and the Team-5 Medical Foundation. You really have to start that book, and sleep more. And hell man, the reloading bench misses you, and all those guns aren’t going to buy themselves…Jon Wayne you have got to get your sh!t together.”
    Then, then I see people like this guy, and I think to myself, “naw, go get some ice cream and take a nap brother, you’re doing just fine. Just fine.”

  6. Why is the constabulary wasting time on this poor injured felon – er, I mean fellow. Look how many OFWGs are out there transferring firearms without a UBC!

  7. Reportedly no Mexicans were found but he specifically said the Mexicans were in the trees. DID THEY CHECK THE TREES?

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