Wayne’s justice
Posted on Thursday, January 4, 2007
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/Editorial/177768/
Hundreds of “Free Wayne” yard
signs and bumper stickers are
appearing across Northwest Arkansas, provided by a group that believes 60-year-old Hollis Wayne Fincher was unjustly arrested and jailed Nov. 8 on charges of possessing an unregistered machine gun and a sawed-off shotgun. There are more than a few who believe that Fincher has the unqualified right under the Arkansas and U. S. Constitutions to bear arms in defense of his property and that the U. S. Constitution overrides any state or federal laws that would undermine or dilute that right. Some contend that Fincher, a militia leader from Fayetteville, was targeted largely because of his history of outspoken anti-governmental bluster. Yet I always understood that our opinions are protected under the First Amendment.
Frankly, this whole legal firearm thing confuses me. Authorities say a rifle that requires a trigger pull for every bullet it discharges is legal but that a weapon of the same caliber that fires continually with one pull must be registered with the government ? And how is it that the same legal shotgun must be registered when enough inches are trimmed from its barrel ?
Such governmental requirements do appear almost contradictory to the intent and wording of the Second Amendment. And government is plainly admonished not to even infringe on the right of citizens to bear arms, much less restrict or prohibit that right altogether.
There’s also a solid argument that the Second Amendment was intended to ensure the right of individual citizens above any protections for a government that exists only to serve citizens.
While I’ve never belonged to a militia or hung around the weapons lovers who do, I believe these groups serve a historically legitimate role in society. They are comprised largely of deeply patriotic Americans who embrace the guiding document forged by our Founding Fathers. It’s a mistake to dismiss their members as gun nuts because they believe in defending themselves—and the hallowed Constitution—against oppression and tyranny. Militias are fully legitimized by name within our Constitution.
Fincher, an outspoken lieutenant commander of the Militia of Washington County, is confined under federal custody in the Sebastian County jail. He declined a whopping $ 250, 000 bail, which was to be imposed only if he agreed to collateralize his bond money with the deed to his 120-acre homestead along Black Oak Road in Fayetteville. He said he wasn’t about to trust that offer and risk the Fincher family farm, which has endured across four generations.
Actually, Fincher’s case should prompt us all to examine how much our nation has deviated from its founding principles. Whether you and I agree that he should be able to legally alter his own rifle to make it fully automatic or shorten his shotgun barrel without becoming a prison-worthy criminal, we likely can concur on the crystal-clear language of the U. S. and Arkansas Constitutions. There is no description in either document that distinguishes legitimate “arms” from illegitimate ones or qualifies how far a citizen or militia can go in arming for self-protection. The Framers worded the Second Amendment specifically to ensure that the individual could defend himself against any hostile force that might threaten life, liberty or pursuit of happiness. That even includes government itself.
Yet the U. S. attorney, a. k. a. the government, has asked the court to disallow Fincher from even using his Second Amendment rights in his own defense. This explosive case has fueled one more thought in my tiny brain. None of us wants those who would harm us armed with any weapon, whether it be a fully automatic one or a single-shot. But neither can our government begin to protect us from such people. With enough cash, they can acquire all the unregistered weaponry they desire. Such a situation, combined with a reality in which the same government is warning of the certainty of another attack somewhere on our soil by a fanatical enemy we cannot even identify, gives all bad actors a huge advantage. Come next Monday, U. S. District Judge Jimm Hendren, a jurist I’ve long considered honorable, is scheduled to charge 12 good men and women to determine whether Fayetteville’s Wayne Fincher is a smarmy criminal deserving of prison time for having unregistered weapons, about which records show Fincher notified state and federal officials in a 2002 letter, or an American citizen with no criminal past who believes he’s simply been openly exercising his constitutional rights. Let’s stay tuned.
—–––––•–––––—Staff columnist Mike Masterson is the former editor of three Arkansas daily newspapers.