Jacob Turk announced that he is running for Congress against the incumbent Emanuel Cleaver for Missouri’s fifth district. Turk, a former U.S. Marine, engineer, and small business owner, has spent the past few election cycles getting to know the critical needs and strengths of the fifth district of Missouri while transition from the private sector into the political arena.

Turk is focusing his campaign on issues of on fiscal responsibility and congressional integrity. He is a staunch supporter of Second Amendment rights, he opposes regulation of business and healthcare, and he has stated that he supports an audit of the Fed.

The political establishment in Missouri are sufficiently afraid of Jacob Turk that, after he came very close to defeating Cleaver in 2010, the State redistricting was designed so that Turk’s personal residence was specifically placed out of 5th district… the newly drawn district line sits just a few blocks from Turk’s home.

Japan has the most strict form of gun control that exists in the “democratic” portion of the world. This is an example of how the law-abiding populace is not effectively protected by gun control, because criminals will find alternative routes to reaching their chosen goal.

Meanwhile, yes, gun crime is low in Japan. This is what is sacrificed (quotes from Dave Kopel’s article in the Asia-Pacific Law Review, 1993):

In practice, the special law for weapons searches is not necessary, since the police routinely search at will. They ask suspicious characters to show them what is in their purse or sack.[34] In the rare cases where a policeman’s search (for a gun or any other contraband) is ruled illegal, it hardly matters; the Japanese courts permit the use of illegally seized evidence.[35]

[...]

‘Home visit is one of the most important duties of officers assigned to police…’ explains the Japanese National Police Agency. In twice-a-year visit, officers fill out Residence Information Cards about who lives where and which family member to contact in case of emergency, what relation people in the house have to each other, what kind of work they do, if they work late, and what kind of cars they own.[37] The police also check on all gun licensees, to make sure that no gun has been stolen or misused, that the gun is securely stored, and that the licensees are emotionally stable.[38]

[...]

After the arrest, a suspect may be detained without bail for up to 28 days before the prosecutor brings the suspect before a judge.[42] Even after the 28 day period is completed, detention in a Japanese police station may continue on a variety of pretexts, such as preventing the defendant from destroying evidence. Rearrest on another charge, bekken taihö, is a common police tactic for starting the suspect on another 28 day interrogation process. ‘Rearrest’ may (p.30)occur while the suspect is still being held at the police station on the first charge. Some defendants may be held for several months without ever being brought before a judge.[43] Courts approve 99.5 per cent of prosecutors’ requests for detentions.[44]

Criminal defense lawyers are the only people allowed to visit a suspect in custody, and those meetings are strictly limited.Even that access will be denied if it hampers the police investigation. While under detention, suspects can be interrogated 12 hours a day, allowed to bathe only every fifth day, and may be prohibited from standing up, lying down, or leaning against the wall of their jail cells.[45][46] Amnesty International calls the Japanese police custody system a ‘flagrant violation of United Nations human rights principles’. In the months while a suspect is held prisoner, the defense counsel may see his or her client for one to five meetings lasting about 15 minutes each.

The confession rate is 95 per cent.[47] As a Tokyo police sergeant observes, ‘It is no use to protest against power’.[48]The Tokyo Bar Association states that the police routinely ‘engage in torture or illegal treatment’. The Tokyo Bar is particularly critical of the judiciary for its near-total disinterest in coercion during the confession process. ‘Even in cases where suspects claimed to have been tortured and their bodies bore physical traces to back their claims, courts have still accepted their confessions’.[49] Suspects are not allowed to read confessions before they sign them, and suspects commonly complain that their confession was altered after signature. The police use confession as their main investigative technique, and when that fails, they can become frustrated and angry.

In Japan, the legal system is, in effect, an omnipotent and unitary state authority. All law enforcement administrators in Japan are appointed by the National Police Agency and receive their funding from the NPA. Hence, the police are insulated from complaints from politicians or other citizens.[50] There is hardly any check on the power of the state, save its own conscience.

In 1981, the D.C. Appellate Court ruled in Warren v. District of Columbia, 444 A.2d, that “a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any particular individual citizen.” The story is as follows: in 1975 two men broke into a house shared by three female roommates and a child. Two of the women hid on the roof and called the police. The police arrived and knocked on the front door, but when no one answered they left. The women called the police again and were told that help was on the way. The women on the roof were caught when they shouted to who they thought were the returned police – but the slip of paper on which the women’s request was made was lost in the shuffle, and the police did not arrive. The women were raped and beaten for fourteen hours.

In Warren, the women contacted the police for help. Help was not provided. The Court ruled then, as it had ruled before, that police cannot be held accountable to individuals. The practical scope of such a responsibility is impossible. Further, if such a responsibility were to be acknowledged, a later step would be to sue individual police officers for crimes that criminals commit against victims. That situation would be ridiculous and impossible to manage. The Court was right. We cannot demand such coverage from government and government-provided security forces.

Nonetheless, we Americans are told two conflicting policies: we really shouldn’t try to protect ourselves, but the police aren’t really responsible for our safety. Society and government cannot have it both ways!

Therefore, individuals must be allowed to protect themselves. The alternative is to sacrifice nearly all other due process rights, as is done in Japan. Even when such sacrifices of human rights are made, however, the murder of Mayor Ito of Nagasaki proves that the system is insufficient to protect the most basic right: that of the pursuit of life.

President Nietzel,

I respond to your official statement on the subject of our beloved University’s safety procedures.

I am disappointed by the reiteration of Missouri State’s foolish and detrimental policy which prohibits legally carried firearms on our campus. We have seen in Virginia the danger of such discrimination.

As a student of Missouri State University, I have at all times abided by the stated policy in that I have not carried a firearm onto campus. I have followed this policy at risk to my own safety. Despite having been trained in the use of firearms and other tools of defense, I did not carry a firearm while in class. I did not carry a firearm while leaving the library after studying beyond midnight hours. I did not carry a firearm when walking or bicycling between the several blocks from my class halls to my once place of student employment. I did not carry a firearm when bicycle and bus commuting from my home to school, despite the subsequent exposure to drunkards, drug abusers, and attempted sexual abusers when traveling alone downtown in day and in night. I did not carry a firearm when an armed criminal had challenged and threatened multiple students on our campus parking lots.

I have survived physically unscathed. I have no evidence, however, that my survival is due to the security measures of Missouri State University. The security and police forces which I witnessed on campus were all, save a single exception, patrolling parking lots in order to assign tickets for parking violations. In my years at Missouri State, I encountered but one policeman in the campus proper; just one officer on the third floor of Strong Hall, far from the dangers a young woman faces when walking alone, unarmed, in the evening air.

I value my years at Missouri State. They have served as an excellent preparation for my future studies as I pursue academia. I strive to continue the gift of teaching that my professors have displayed. I can but hope and advocate that when I am entrusted with the minds and careers of a future generation of students, that I will not be so dreadfully limited in the protection of their physical safety as Dr. Liviu Librescu was limited in his classroom on Monday. The heroic Dr. Librescu’s only tool for the defense of his students was his seventy-seven year old body, which he used to blockade the door from the gunman while his students escaped through windows. I feel the loss of his life keenly, for I know that many of my mentors at Missouri State would have given their bodies as Dr. Librescu gave his. I mourn and I protest that Missouri State persists in the denial of our esteemed faculty access to their Constitutionally protected tools of defense.

As a student of history and political science, a significant percentage of my classmates are members of the Armed Forces. Many of those students have served overseas. All have had extensive training in the very tools which the Missouri State policy on firearms prohibits. I would be proud to have each of these soldier students sit next to me in a classroom, as equally armed and prepared as I and my fellow civilian students would be were we in an environment which truly valued liberty and protection. For we are the students – the military and the civilian, the honors and the average, the wealthy and the poor – who each day respect the policies of Missouri State as staunchly as we respect the rights of man. Only the very few, those who hold no such respect for society and for human rights, dare to trespass as the weak murderer so trespassed in Virginia Tech. The criminal which threatened our own campus in 2006 blatantly ignored the policy in question when he pursued his ill ends. When the community stands strongly and fervently, each individual acknowledging the other’s right to the pursuit of life and the defense thereof, such weaklings rarely attempt their crimes and ever more rarely succeed.

Therefore, President Nietzel, I respectfully oppose the current policy which restricts the legal carry of firearms and other tools of defense on the campus of Missouri State University.

Lorien D. Johnson
History and Political Science, Senior.

—

My letter was sent in response to the following emails from the Missouri State University administration.

From: Office of the President
Sent: Tue 4/17/2007 12:19 PM
Subject: University Safety Procedures

Finally, matters of safety and security are everyone’s responsibility at some level – obeying the University’s restriction on having weapons on campus, being vigilant for breaches of security, locking doors to buildings and offices when we leave them for the day, encouraging individuals who may be undergoing stressful periods or experiencing obvious signs of emotional disturbance to seek professional intervention – are just some of the practices that each of us can render in the interests of all us. Please let me know of additional suggestion you might have to improve our capacity for responding to emergency situations on campus as we strive to make our campus as safe and secure as possible.

Michael T. Nietzel

President

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As a follow-up to his earlier message, President Nietzel asked me to emphasize the campus policy regarding the presence of firearms and other weapons. Missouri State University strictly prohibits any firearms, whether concealed or in plain view, from campus, unless specifically approved by the Director of Safety and Transportation. Included in this prohibition is ammunition, as well as weapons of any kind, including explosive weapons. This policy applies to all areas of campus, including parking lots and vehicles.

Thank you for your assistance in abiding by this policy. Should you have any questions or concerns, please contact my office or the Director of Safety and Transportation, Gary Snavely.

Ken McClure

Associate Vice President for Administrative and Information Services