NM gun case shows government treats citizens differently from its own (cont'd.)

Gun Rights Examiner ^ | 28 February, 2012 | David Codrea

[marktwain]

Part Two: The family speaks

The Department of Justice is prosecuting members of the Reese family, proprietors of a New Mexico gun store accused of knowingly selling guns to cartel buyers, and has held the family members without bail for over six months. Family assets which they could use to provide a legal defense have been tied up in forfeiture proceedings, and the judge presiding over the case has denied the family’s request to be represented by one attorney.

As noted in the first installment of this report, Terri Reese, the wife of defendant Rick Reese and mother of defendant’s Ryin and Remington Reese, has evidently made a bail deal, although the terms of her release are reportedly so expensive that the family cannot secure the resources to provide bail for other members.

Going strictly by government documents linked to in Part One, the case against the Reese family looks daunting. “Authorized Journalist” media accounts doing more than parroting press statements and examining the government’s conduct are nonexistent. The notable exception to the mainstream dereliction are detailed and insightful reports filed by Jeff Knox of The Firearms Coalition.

To help ensure the whole story gets out so that the family can receive a fair and scrutinized airing for their assertions of innocence, Gun Rights Examiner has been in contact with a family spokesperson, who initially contacted this reporter at the urging of a mutual friend associated with the firearms industry. While the identity of my correspondent is known to me, there are good reasons why I will not name this person nor define their exact relationship to the defendants.

What follows are questions and answers over several days of correspondence. “FS” designates the family spokesperson and “DC” is me:

[marktwain]

The way in which this prosecution is proceeding is disgraceful. It is hard for me to believe that it is constitutional, yet the government has been using similar proceedures in the war on drugs for years.

[yldstrk]

Where is the New Mexico bar association?

[gaijin]

When a country fights long, low-intensity wars, soldiers are forced to act like cops, and then cops yearn to act like soldiers.

And here, they are. But the really outrageous crime is the complete abdication of the mass media from their role as watchdogs —it’s apparanetly cooler to think of themselves as extensions of the government, The Fifth Estate.

If two gun magazine gun writers hadn’t written about this, then NONE of this would be coming out.

Every time a paper shutters or a network lays someone off an angel gets his wings.

[gaijin]

So....for no reason the gov’t is bankrupting by forcing them ALL to hire their OWN expensive lawyers, and for no reason denying this married couple bail, preventing them from seeing each other.

And they’ve been in jail for nothing for 6 months.

And 60% of their customers at their gun store were cops, and they leased their range to the cops. And he was going to run for Sherriff of that county.

And now the fed cops are punishing them for government crimes.

Right?

[paul51]

once the gov’t sets their sights on you, no one or nothing will save you. the gov’t needs to make examples of some to keep the rest in line. if anyone thinks law, justice or the constitution means anything, they are sadly naive

[marktwain]

if anyone thinks law, justice or the constitution means anything, they are sadly naive

They only mean something if we *make* them mean something.