Welcome to the club!
Posted on 02/24/2024 5:19:09 AM PST by CFW
From Judge Roger Benitez's decision in Fouts v. Bonta(S.D. Cal.):
This case is about a California law that makes it a crime to simply possess or carry a billy. This case is not about whether California can prohibit or restrict the use or possession of a billy for unlawful purposes…. Historically, the short wooden stick that police officers once carried on their beat was known as a billy or billy club. The term remains vague today and may encompass a metal baton, a little league bat, a wooden table leg, or a broken golf club shaft, all of which are weapons that could be used for self-defense but are less lethal than a firearm….
The court struck down the law on Second Amendment grounds (citing, among other cases, Caetano v. Massachusetts (2016), which suggested that stun guns were constitutionally protected arms). The historical analysis is long and detailed (read it here), but here's the conclusion:
(Excerpt) Read more at reason.com ...
Welcome to the club!
Classic Billy
Judicious application of the Billy about the head and shoulders discourages resistance to arrest and protects the cop from injury. Resistance to arrest is not a right
From my cold dead hands...
How bout the hillbilly yacht club?
Until the mid to late 1960s cops had to be big men with height requirements, and they would fight and use their Billy Club rather than just shoot you from 20 feet away.
“big men “
Yes .. everyone was safer then.
Little ladies with no options scare the bjeebies out of me.
I wish we would bring back the “oak shampoo” .... a little bonk goes along way in changing a bad attitude.
The modern taser fills that gap ... sort of .. but there is nothing like the classics.
As for ...
“less lethal than a firearm”
it all depends on the application...
lethal ...is lethal ....... I think
You are right, I remember walking with my Father in downtown Hartford Ct back in the 60’s and seeing cops walking a beat all of them were huge comparing them to my dad who was a big guy himself. They were pretty good swinging those billys around. No more beat cops today , it’s all out of shape females driving around with the windows rolled up.
I “secretly” made one of these in 8th grade shop class. The shop teacher, still remember his name, Dallas Mackey, a Marine from the Korean War, had to have known. I used it for years after as a tire thumper. Lathe turned Hickory.
My grand father was a bondsman who from time to time as a reserve Deputy Sheriff had to collect bond jumpers. His legacy to me includes three of them.
“”””I remember walking with my Father in downtown Hartford Ct back in the 60’s and seeing cops walking a beat all of them were huge comparing them to my dad who was a big guy himself. They were pretty good swinging those billys around. No more beat cops today””””
There is a lot of order emitting from a powerful man who isn’t challenging anyone else’s place yet is obviously the toughest guy present and who is walking around in the role of watchdog and enforcer.
The community authority of a large friendly uniformed beat cop with a gun and a club that he handles like another appendage is a subject that students of human behavior, especially of the more impulsive, emotional classes can have a large discussion on.
Beat cops could be father figures in those areas and even more than a father figure, those warrior-type men could introduce the concept of the ‘sheepdog’ to some of those young men before their testosterone-driven impulses go automatically in the wolf direction, but I guess modern laws would prevent what we are thinking about.
A leather slap-jack with a side of lead sewn in was a sure deterrent to bad behavior!
I still have my grandfather’s billy club. He was the Sheriff of Woodruff Place in Indianapolis. My Dad used to use it to dispatch fish on our boat.
You were lucky. My shop teacher wouldn’t let us turn them out on the lathe.
Back in the day when cops were peace officers. Now they’re “law enforcement”. That change has not been for the better.
L
That seems more like a “surprise @$$hole” sort of thing to me.
That old hickey stick could work it's magic from a distance with just a little bit of swing in the palm.
I can just imagine the law suits ....
some people don't want an orderly society ...
Our founders knew we would only last as long as the people were good folks.
It looks like all that is going down the tubes now.
It's a shame ....
The original Hickory Shampoo.
I can remember when some cops carried a “sap” & maybe they still do.
I can remember when some cops carried a “sap” & maybe they still do. It looked good for “close-in work”.
Proper. Asp Batons are near useless.
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