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Born again Cynic! Cops Grumpy's hall of Shame

“Civil Asset Forfeiture”,

 

By Paul Ciotti
© 2000 WorldNetDaily.com

Recent revelations about rampant police perjury have made Los Angeles juries so mistrustful of law enforcement that attorneys for Los Angeles County are in some cases offering plaintiffs multi-million dollar settlements, rather than risking the possibility of far larger damage awards should the cases ever go to trial.

In one of the more infamous instances of alleged law enforcement misconduct — the killing of the reclusive Malibu millionaire and rugged anti-government individualist Donald Scott in his ranch house by Los Angeles sheriff’s deputies in 1992 — county and federal government officials tentatively agreed last week to pay Scott’s heirs and estate a total of $5 million in return for their dropping a wrongful death lawsuit.

Furthermore, they made the settlement despite the deep conviction, says deputy Los Angeles County Counsel Dennis Gonzales, that the deputy who shot Scott was fully justified and — even though the sheriff was never able to prove it — that the heavy-drinking Scott was growing thousands of marijuana plants on his remote $2.5 million Malibu ranch.

Early on the morning of Oct. 2, 1992, 31 officers from the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, Drug Enforcement Administration, Border Patrol, National Guard and Park Service came roaring down the narrow dirt road to Scott’s rustic 200-acre ranch. They planned to arrest Scott, the wealthy, eccentric, hard-drinking heir to a Europe-based chemicals fortune, for allegedly running a 4,000-plant marijuana plantation. When deputies broke down the door to Scott’s house, Scott’s wife would later tell reporters, she screamed, “Don’t shoot me. Don’t kill me.” That brought Scott staggering out of the bedroom, hung-over and bleary-eyed — he’d just had a cataract operation — holding a .38 caliber Colt snub-nosed revolver over his head. When he pointed it in the direction of the deputies, they killed him.

Later, the lead agent in the case, sheriff’s deputy Gary Spencer and his partner John Cater posed for photographs arm-in-am outside Scott’s cabin, smiling and triumphant, says Larry Longo, a former Los Angeles deputy district attorney who now represents Scott’s daughter, Susan.

“It was as if they were white hunters who had just shot the buffalo,” he said.

Despite a subsequent search of Scott’s ranch using helicopters, dogs, searchers on foot, and a high-tech Jet Propulsion Laboratory device for detecting trace amounts of sinsemilla, no marijuana –or any other illegal drug — was ever found.

Scott’s widow, the former Frances Plante, along with four of Scott’s children from prior marriages, subsequently filed a $100 million wrongful death suit against the county and federal government. For eight years the case dragged on, requiring the services of 15 attorneys and some 30 volume binders to hold all the court documents. Last week, attorneys for Los Angeles County and the federal government agreed to settle with Scott’s heirs and estate, even though the sheriff’s department still maintained its deputies had done nothing wrong.

“I do not believe it was an illegal raid in any way, shape or form,” Captain Larry Waldie, head of the Sheriff’s Department’s narcotics bureau, told the Los Angeles Times after the shooting. When Scott came out of the bedroom, the deputies identified themselves and shouted at him to put the gun down. As Scott began to lower his arm, one deputy later said, he “kinda” pointed his gun — which he initially was holding by the cylinder, not the handle grip — at deputy Spencer who, in fear for his life, killed him.

Although attorneys for Los Angeles County believed Scott’s shooting was fully justified, they weren’t eager to see the case go to trial. Recent widespread revelations of illegal shootings, planted evidence and perjured testimony at the Los Angeles Police Department’s Rampart Division were making the public mistrust the police.

“I’ve tried four cases (since the Rampart revelations),” said Dennis Gonzales, a deputy Los Angeles County counsel. And in each case, he said, jurors have told him that the possibility that police officers were lying was a factor in their vote.

“You have to be realistic as to public perceptions,” he said.

Nick Gutsue, Scott’s former attorney and currently special administrator for his estate, put it more bluntly: “(Gonzales) saw he had a loser and he took the easy way out.”

Ironically enough, the county might have had a better chance of winning a court battle if it had allowed the case to go to trial when Scott’s widow and four children first filed their lawsuit back in 1993. The county blew it, says Gutsue. It adopted a “divide and conquer strategy.” It prolonged the lawsuit’s resolution with a successful motion to throw legendarily aggressive anti-police attorney Stephen Yagman off the case. Then it filed a time-consuming motion to dismiss the estate from the lawsuit.

In the process, says Gutsue, new revelations of police misconduct began appearing so frequently that the public’s attitude toward law enforcement began to change. “It was one scandal after another,” says Gutsue. “(County attorneys) stalled so long that the (Rampart scandal) came along and their stalling tactics backfired.”

Although county officials still maintain that Scott was a major marijuana grower who was just clever enough not to get caught, his friends and widow maintain that his drug of choice was alcohol, not marijuana. As a young man, Scott lived a privileged life, growing up in Switzerland and attending prep schools in New York. Later he lived the life of a dashing international jet setter who was married three times, once to a French movie star, and who had gone through two bitter and messy divorces by the time he moved to his Malibu ranch, called Trail’s End, in 1966.

Although well-liked and generous to friends, Scott drank heavily, could be cantankerous and deeply mistrusted the government, which he suspected of having designs on this ranch, a remote and nearly inaccessible parcel with high rocky bluffs on three sides and a 75-foot spring-fed waterfall out back.

“You know what he used to say,” his third wife, Frances Plante, told writer Michael Fessier Jr. in a 1993 article for the Los Angeles Times magazine, “He’d say, ‘Frances, every day they pass a new law and the day after that they pass 40 more.'”

To Los Angeles County officials, the fact that Don Scott got killed in his own house during a futile raid to seize a non-existent 4,000-plant marijuana farm is just one of the unfortunate facts of life in the narcotics enforcement business. It doesn’t mean that sheriff’s deputies did anything wrong.

“Sometimes people get warned and we don’t find anything,” Gary Spencer, the lead deputy on the raid and the one who shot Scott, told an L.A. Times reporter in 1997, “so I don’t consider it botched. I wouldn’t call it botched because that would say that it was a mistake to have gone there in the first place, and I don’t believe that.”

Someone who did believe that was Ventura County District Attorney Michael Bradbury. Although Scott’s ranch was in Ventura County, none of the 31 people participating in the massive early morning raid, which included officers from the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, the DEA, the National Park Service, the California National Guard and the Border Patrol bothered to invite any Ventura County officers to come along. Furthermore, once Scott was shot, Los Angeles County tried to claim jurisdiction over the investigation of Scott’s death, even though the shooting occured in Ventura County.

To Bradbury, it was easy to see why. L.A. County wanted jurisdiction. In a 64-page report issued by Bradbury’s office in March of 1993, Bradbury concluded that the search warrant contained numerous misstatements, evasions and omissions. The purpose of the raid, he wrote, was never to find some evanescent marijuana plantation. It was to seize Scott’s ranch under asset forfeiture laws and then divide the proceeds with participating agencies, such as the National Park Service, which had put Scott’s ranch on a list of property it would one day like to acquire, and the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, which heavily relied on assets seized in drug raids to supplement its otherwise inadequate budget.

For something written by a government agency, the Bradbury report was surprisingly blunt. It dismissed Spencer’s supposed reasons for believing that the Scott ranch was a marijuana plantation and accused Spencer of having lost his “moral compass” in his eagerness to seize Scott’s multi-million dollar ranch. As proof of its assertions, the report pointed to a parcel map in possession of the raiding party that contained the handwritten notation that an adjacent 80-acre property had recently sold for $800,000. In addition, the day of the raid, participants were told during the briefing that Scott’s ranch could be seized if as few as 14 plants were found.

In order to verify that the marijuana really existed, at first Spencer simply hiked to a site overlooking Scott’s ranch. Discovering nothing, he subsequently sent an Air National Guard jet over the area to take photographs of the ranch. When this also failed to reveal anything, he dispatched a Drug Enforcement Administration agent in a light plane to make a low level flight.

The DEA agent, whose name was Charles Stowell, said he saw flashes of green hidden in trees which he believed were 50 marijuana plants. At the same time, Stowell was uncertain enough about his observations — which he had made with the naked eye from an altitude of 1,000 feet — to warn Spencer not to use them as the basis for a search warrant without further corroboration.

In an effort to confirm the marijuana sighting — Spencer by this time had decided that Scott was growing marijuana in pots suspended under the trees — Spencer asked members of the Border Patrol’s “C-Rat” team to make a night-time foray into the ranch. Despite two separate incursions, they failed to find anything except barking dogs. The following day a Fish and Game warden and Coastal Commission worker went to the ranch to investigate alleged stream pollution and do a “trout survey” on the dry stream bed. They too failed to see any marijuana. Two days after that, a sheriff’s deputy and National Park ranger visited the ranch again, this time ostensibly to buy a rottweiler puppy from Scott. The Scotts were friendly and gave them a tour of the ranch. Once again no one saw any marijuana.

This lack of confirmation notwithstanding, four days later Spencer filed an affidavit for a search warrant saying that DEA Special Agent Charles Stowell, “while conducting cannabis eradication and suppression reconnaissance … over the Santa Monica Mountains in a single engine fixed wing aircraft … noticed that marijuana was being cultivated at the Trails End Ranch 35247 Mulholland Highway in Malibu. Specifically Agent Stowell saw approximately 50 plants that he recognized to be marijuana plants growing around some large trees that were in a grove near a house on the property.”

To attorneys with a lot of experience with warrants, Spencer’s affidavit didn’t look like much. “On a scale of one to ten,” says former district attorney Longo, “I would give it a one.”

Despite the affidavit’s deficiencies — among other things, Spencer didn’t mention that none of the people participating in any of the previous week’s incursions had reported any marijuana — Ventura Municipal Court Judge Herbert Curtis III issued a search warrant which, in the words of the Bradbury report, became Scott’s “death warrant.” After Scott’s death, a helicopter hovered over the area in which the marijuana plants were believed to have been growing. There were no pots, no water supply, no marijuana. There was only ivy and even that wasn’t in the location where the marijuana was supposed to be.

Larry Longo, a friend of Scott whose children used to play with Scott’s children, says it’s absurd to think that Scott had marijuana plants hanging from the trees.

“I went up there right after the shooting. The trees were 200- or 300-year-old oak trees. The leaves under them hadn’t been raked in a hundred years.” If Scott had been growing marijuana under the trees, the leaves would have been disturbed and the tree bark broken. “There wasn’t a single mark on the trees. There was no water supply.”

Besides, says Longo, “Donald might have been a lot of things, but he would never be so dumb as to cultivate marijuana on his property.” If for no other reason, he didn’t need the money. Any time he needed cash, all he had to do was call New York and they’d withdraw whatever was necessary out of his trust fund. At the time of Scott’s death, there was $1.6 million in his primary trust account.

The Bradbury report caused a huge ruckus in Los Angeles County. Sherman Block, the sheriff at the time, denounced it and issued a report of his own which completely cleared everyone, and California Attorney General Dan Lungren criticized Bradbury for “inappropriate and gratuitous comments.”

Cheered by his apparent exoneration by Sheriff Block and Attorney General Lungren, sheriff’s deputy Spencer subsequently sued Bradbury for libel, slander and defamation. After a long and bitter fight, including allegations that Bradbury suppressed an earlier report which concluded that Spencer was innocent after all, a state appeals court declared that Bradbury was within his 1st Amendment rights of free speech when he criticized Spencer. The court also ordered Spencer to pay Bradbury’s $50,000 legal fees, a development that caused Spencer to declare bankruptcy. According to press reports, the stress from all this caused Spencer to develop a “twitch.”

Spencer wasn’t the only one affected by Scott’s killing. Scott’s wife, Frances, was so strapped for cash, she subsequently told a judge, she considering eating a dead coyote she found on the side of the road. According to her attorney, Johnnie Cochran, as quoted in the Los Angeles Times, she is currently living on the property while she holds off government claims to seize it for unpaid taxes. In 1996, the massive Malibu firestorm destroyed Scott’s ranch house and the outlying buildings. As a result, Frances Scott currently lives in a teepee erected over the badminton court, albeit a teepee with expensive rugs and a color TV.

Scott’s old friend and attorney Nick Gutsue recently said he had mixed feelings about the settlement. While he was glad that Scott’s widow and children didn’t have to go through the horror of reliving Scott’s death in a jury trial, at the same time was disappointed that he never got a chance to clear Scott’s name.

“I asked for an apology and exoneration of Scott,” said Gutsue. “I never got one. I was told it was against their policy.” That’s one reason, said Gutsue, he always wanted a jury trial. In a settlement, no one has to admit any guilt.

 

“Of course,” said Gutsue, “$5 million is a pretty good sized admission.”

 

 

 

 

 

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All About Guns Grumpy's hall of Shame Some Sick Puppies!

Andy Ngo on the latest School Shooting & Hell just got another sick puppy

 

@MrAndyNgo
BREAKING: Audrey E. Hale, the 28-year-old woman who identifies as he/him and uses the name “Aiden,” is identified as the now-deceased suspect who shot up a Christian school in Tennessee, killing 6, including 3 children. The killings follow the state banning the medical transitioning of minors & adult cabaret (drag) performances in front of children. #trans

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Nossi College of Art & Design, formerly attended by the #trans mass shooter of a Christian school in Nashville, has locked down its Twitter account.

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@MrAndyNgo
Audrey “Aiden” Hale, the #trans mass shooter in #Nashville who killed children & staff at a Christian school, waited to ambush responding police from inside the church & fired upon the cops in their vehicle.

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As officers responded to the Covenant campus, Hale fired on arriving police vehicles from a 2nd story window.
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Breaking:

has released church/school surveillance footage of #trans mass shooter Audrey “Aiden” Hale (he/him). The female-to-male identifying militant shot his way into the school & roamed around looking for victims. Hale murdered 3 young children & 3 staff.… Show more

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Ammo Grumpy's hall of Shame You have to be kidding, right!?!

Using somebodies handloads can be so much fun!

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Grumpy's hall of Shame

Dear National Rifle Association, You Are So Dumb! ~ Signed Montana by Gary Marbut

Opinion

Small Brain Tiny Stupid Dumb Ignorant
Montana – The NRA just sent out a political alert that contained this line about Montana: “Montana House to Vote on Concealed Carry Permit Reciprocity.”

News Flash. The Montana Shooting Sports Association successfully pushed a bill in 1993 that I wrote to give Montana permit reciprocity. That Montana law was improved in 1995 with another bill I wrote. Because of that success, Montana recognizes all other state permits, and Montana permits are honored by 34 other states. Plus, Montana is now permitless for both open and concealed carry, so we even let people from New York and California carry here.

Thirty years later, the NRA comes along with its own bill claiming to create reciprocity for Montana. What’s up with that?

The NRA solicited introduction of HB 674, a bill intended to create an “enhanced concealed weapon permit” here. This bill is alleged to gain recognition of the new “enhanced” Montana permits by five more states. If the NRA had bothered to ask us about this D.C.-centric idea, we’d have told them it is not suitable for Montana and that the bill, as drafted, was seriously flawed, but they didn’t bother to ask. For lack of local knowledge, the bill the NRA introduced had to have a dozen amendments applied to it to fix the drafting errors and make it more compliant with existing Montana law.

But, that heavy fix didn’t complete the repair of the bill.

The five states with which the NRA bill would allegedly get Montana reciprocity all currently disallow Montana permits because they don’t recognize permits of states that issue to persons under 21 years old. Current permits in Montana are issued to qualified applicants who are 18. The touted NRA bill would limit the new “enhanced” permit, after jumping through many more qualifying hoops than existing Montana permits, only to people 21 years and older. That’s a fatal and unrepaired flaw in the NRA bill. Why?

Because the Montana Constitution declares that persons 18 years old are adults and must be allowed all privileges of adulthood.

That section of the Montana Constitution had to be amended to allow the Legislature to restrict possession of alcohol to persons 21 years and older, and again to allow the Legislature to restrict marijuana to persons 21 and older. Without another constitutional change, the NRA bill allowing their “enhanced” permits only for people 21 and older will simply not pass constitutional muster in Montana. In that case, even if the bill passes with a constitutionally-correct age of 18, it will not allow Montanans to use these new “enhanced” permits in the five states alleged to be the reason for the bill.

What a mess! And this mess is because the NRA is so desperate for relevance that it chose to wing this effort without talking to knowledgeable people in Montana about the idea and effort.

Meanwhile, the NRA refuses to acknowledge or support the pro-gun bills MSSA has working through the Legislature. This includes a bill to remove an 1884 Jim Crow provision in our RKBA that says the RKBA doesn’t apply to concealed weapons. This includes our bill to pay court costs for a defender who is prosecuted, pleads self-defense, and is acquitted. It includes our bill to prohibit discrimination because of firearms. It includes our bill to pay court costs and attorney fees if a person wins a suit against a government entity to secure the person’s RKBA.

The NRA is withholding support for all of these good MSSA bills while pushing its seriously flawed “enhanced” permit bill that won’t accomplish its alleged objective because it is constitutionally impermissible in Montana.

Since the 1980s, Montana Shooting Sports Association has gotten 70 pro-gun bills through the Montana Legislature and enacted them into law. None of these were initiated or written by the NRA, although the NRA did support a few of them. Maybe the NRA, in its quest for contemporary relevance, is jealous of MSSA’s record of success and seeks to show what a gorilla it is. If so, it misses its target by a wide margin with its ill-conceived HB 674 in Montana.


Gary Marbut is president of the Montana Shooting Sports Association, the primary political advocate for Montana gun owners. Marbut has served on the Board of Directors of Gun Owners of America and has twice been the recipient of the Second Amendment Foundation’s Grass Roots Activist of the Year award.

Gary Marbut
Gary Marbut
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Darwin would of approved of this! Grumpy's hall of Shame Paint me surprised by this Some Sick Puppies! You have to be kidding, right!?!

Officials: Man tried to board plane in New Jersey with guns, ammunition, fake marshal ID in baggage by Jessica Goodman, Cox Media Group National Content Desk

NEWARK, N.J. — A man in New Jersey tried to board a plane with guns, multiple rounds of ammunition, and a fake United States Marshals identification card in his baggage, officials say.

In a news release, the United States Attorney’s Office, District of New Jersey, said that Seretse Clouden, 42, has been charged with unlawful possession of firearms and ammunition by a convicted felon and fraudulent possession of an identification document and authentication features of the United States.

According to court documents, on Dec. 30, 2022, Clouden went to Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey for a flight to Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

During the screening process, Transportation Security Administration agents found ammunition along with a ballistic vest with “Deputy Marshal” in one of the bags, according to court documents obtained by The Associated Press.

After agents retrieved more of Clouden’s luggage, they found an AR-15 rifle, another rifle, a handgun, a taser, a knife, a baton, a “United States Marshal” badge, and U.S. Marshal credentials with his name and his photo on it, FBI agent Christopher Granato said, according to the AP.

Granato also told the AP that Clouden was convicted in 2016 of unlawful possession of a weapon in New Jersey.

One of the rifles that were found “meets the definition of a machine gun,” according to officials.

The U.S. Marshals Service confirmed that Clouden is not and was never employed with them, according to authorities.

If convicted, Clouden could face up to 15 years in prison for unlawful possession of firearms and ammunition by a convicted felon. Fraudulent possession of an identification document and authentication features of the United States has a maximum of five years in prison along with a $250,000 fine, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of New Jersey.

———————————————————————————- Here is what Einstein looks like according to Google. GrumpyBergen Ex-Con Tried Boarding Newark Flight With AR-15, Taser, Fake US  Marshal Creds, More: Feds | Lyndhurst Daily Voice

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All About Guns Cops Grumpy's hall of Shame

Bodycam Footage Shows Takedown of Florida Gunman Who Killed 9-Year-Old Girl by KIMBER PEARCE

A 9-year-old girl was killed last week when a young man went on a shooting spree that ultimately killed three and injured two more.

Keith Moses, the 19-year-old suspected gunman, is being held without bond at the Orange County jail for his involvement in the string of shootings in Pine Hills, Florida.

Among those killed were a 9-year-old girl and a Spectrum News 13 reporter.

The incident happened on Wednesday afternoon when Moses allegedly shot four people within 15 minutes, per NBC News.

The arrest report shows that he left the scene where the first victim, Nathacha Augustin, was killed earlier that morning and went to 9-year-old T’Yonna Major’s backyard, where he allegedly shot her and her mother.

When interviewed, T’Yonna’s mother said she had been napping when her daughter ran into her bedroom, shouting, “He shot me!” After suffering a bullet wound to the arm, the mother took her daughter and they hid in the bathroom.

According to reports, the shooter entered her house through a sliding door, which was normally locked.

Less than five minutes later, news reporter Dylan Lyons and his photographer Jesse Walden arrived to cover the initial homicide investigation, and Moses is accused of shooting them as well.

Lyons died within the hour, and T’Yonna died in the hospital two hours later.

In the past few days, video has also been released with footage from police body cameras during the arrest of Moses.

The victims’ families are seeking justice, and deputies are still investigating the motive. They claim there is no connection between the victims of this tragedy.

This was a series of incredibly unfortunate and heartbreaking events. It is also a reminder to us that we should always be prepared, for we never know when a disaster could happen, affecting us or our family.

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All About Guns Ammo Darwin would of approved of this! Grumpy's hall of Shame You have to be kidding, right!?!

TSA stops passenger with assault rifle, ammunition at New Orleans airport By Chris Williams

A Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officer at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport (MSY) this week stopped a passenger with an assault rifle and 163 rounds of ammunition from being carried onto a plane headed to Houston. (Cr

An officer with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) stopped a passenger last week with an assault rifle and 163 rounds of ammunition, the agency said.

Officials said the 52-year-old passenger would’ve carried the items onboard a plane at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport (MSY) heading to Houston.

A deputy with  Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office arrived and confiscated the Palmetto PA-15 Multi AR firearm loaded with 30 rounds of .300 caliber ammunition. Five additional magazines were also found loaded.

tsa3.jpg

(Credit: TSA)

The passenger now faces a civil penalty from the TSA that could be fined nearly $15,000.

RELATED: TSA finds 84 mm caliber weapon in checked luggage at Texas airport

“Threat detection is our mission and our dedicated workforce is protecting the traveling public every day,” TSA Federal Security Director Arden Hudson said in a news release. “Passengers need to focus on what is inside their carry-ons before entering our checkpoint. The introduction of a loaded weapon poses an unnecessary risk to both the traveling public and our employees.”

The incident was the second intercepted firearm on Valentine’s Day at MSY. The day before, a Glock was also confiscated.

The Transportation Security Administration is raising the fine for people caught with a gun in their carry-on bag after intercepting a record number of firearms at security checkpoints in 2022.

The TSA said Friday it’s raising the maximum fine to $14,950. Previously it was $13,910.

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(Credit: TSA)

TSA officers found 6,301 firearms in carry-on bags in 2022, surpassing the previous record of 5,972 detected in 2021. The numbers have been increasing steadily over the last decade; in 2012, 1,549 firearms were detected at security checkpoints.

Firearm possession laws vary by location, but guns are never allowed in carry-on bags at any airport security checkpoint, even if a passenger has a concealed-weapon permit. Passengers transporting firearms must do so in a locked case in checked baggage. They also must declare them to the airline, the TSA said.

In addition to the fine, an amount determined by the TSA based on the circumstances of each case, the TSA will revoke PreCheck eligibility for at least five years for anyone caught with a gun at a security checkpoint. Passengers may also be arrested for a firearms violation depending on the state or local laws in the airport’s location.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. This story was reported from Los Angeles. 

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All About Guns Grumpy's hall of Shame

Sorry to who ever made this. But Lord, this looks like a CIA experiment gone horribly wrong to me!

No photo description available.

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All About Guns Grumpy's hall of Shame

SMITH & WESSON 586 L-Comp .357 Mag

Or how to talk a classic design and make it look like it has a factory mistake on its front sight. Grumpy

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All About Guns Grumpy's hall of Shame

Pimp my Winchester! (UGH, vomiting sounds)