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Title: Bremertons man's principles means that he's risking 10 years in prison
Source:
http://www.kitsapsun.com
URL Source: http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2009/ ... cks-to-his-principles-despite/
Published: Jan 29, 2010
Author: Josh Farley
Post Date: 2010-01-29 19:42:11 by freepatriot32
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Keywords: gun rights, 2cd amendment, prison, libertarians
Views: 208
Comments: 12
BREMERTON — By pleading guilty and signing on the county prosecutor’s dotted line, 37-year-old Luke Travis Groves could walk free. He could say that on one day in 2008, he illegally possessed a firearm. He’d be on the hook for some court fines but he’d be able to go home to his wife, Rebecca, and their 4-year-old daughter, Sophia. But he won’t plead. He believes doing so would be a lie. And so Groves will fight his charge and go to trial, likely this week. The stakes are high — if he’s convicted by a jury, he’ll likely be sentenced to between five and 10 years behind bars. He spent last week working on a living will, so that if he goes to prison and something happens to his wife, his daughter will go to family. As to his criminal charges, Groves and his wife won’t budge. The prison time doesn’t matter. Pleading guilty means lying. “At least I’ll be able to sleep at night knowing I upheld my beliefs,” Groves said. Groves’ current legal problems began when he came back to Bremerton after a Thanksgiving trek to see his family in Shelton on Nov. 28, 2008. When he approached his Hewitt Avenue home around 4 p.m., he noticed a window broken on his front door. He called the cops, who came and searched the residence. No one was found inside; nothing was found to be taken. That included a Remington .22-caliber long rifle and an Accu-Tek .380 handgun, firearms that Groves’ wife, Rebecca, had owned before the couple met. The officers ran Groves’ name through a criminal database and found him to be a felon. He was arrested. He recalls thinking, “Someone broke into my house, and I’m the one going to jail for my wife’s guns.” Groves is indeed a felon. He pleaded guilty in 1990, when he was 18, to breaking into a Shelton-area school. He served nine days in jail, did several hundred hours of community service, and was on probation for two years, his wife Rebecca said. But nothing in his paperwork from Mason County Superior Court warns him he was not to possess firearms, he claims. Groves did receive a letter from the Department of Corrections that said he could not own guns, but he believed the so-called “firearms notice” covered only the time he was on probation for the burglaries. Compounding his confusion, Groves said, was one of his careers. He worked as a seasonal firefighter for the federal Bureau of Land Management in the mid and late ’90s, each time disclosing to his employer his felony conviction. There were no hang ups with the federal government, he said, noting he often worked with potent chemicals to conduct controlled burns. He met his wife, Rebecca, in 2003. The guns came with her, and there wasn’t much discussion about them, he said. They know now that a hearing before a judge would’ve avoided their current mess by getting his gun rights reinstated. “If I’d known better, he’d have his gun rights back,” Rebecca said. “If he’d known better he’d have his gun rights back.” But under the law, Groves did not have the right to own firearms, according to Kitsap County Prosecutor Russ Hauge. “It’s a weapons crime, and the law is very clear,” he said. He sees the case has many “mitigating factors” and said his office has reflected those in attempting to resolve the case. But if his office “looked the other way” on the case, it would be violating its obligation to prosecute law breakers, Hauge said. Groves won’t concede, even with an offer of zero jail time on the table, he admits. He’s adamant he did not know he couldn’t be around guns past his probation for burglary, and the government bolstered his belief by letting him handle volatile chemicals as a firefighter despite his disclosure of being a felon. Groves now works for a company sealing and waterproofing crawl spaces and basements. “This man can keep us debt-free on $10 an hour,” Rebecca said. “And they’re going to put him in prison.” He’ll choose prison if, in his mind, it means his dignity remains intact. “He doesn’t lie. He doesn’t lie. He did a stupid thing and he paid for it,” Rebecca said of the 1990 burglary. “He wouldn’t be able to look himself in the mirror knowing he lied.”
Luke and Rebecca Groves and their daughter, 4-year-old Sophie, at their home in Bremerton on Friday. Luke will be on trial this week on charges of being a felon in possession of a firearm. He says nothing in the paperwork from his nearly 20-year-old burglary conviction makes clear that he can’t own a gun. (MEEGAN M. REID | KITSAP SUN)
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#6. To: freepatriot32 (#0)
Luke T. Groves, 37, who could have avoided jail by pleading guilty to unlawful possession of a firearm, was sentenced by Kitsap County Superior Court Judge Sally F. Olsen. Groves was convicted of breaking into a Shelton school in 1990 when he was 18. His wife, Rebecca, who he married in 2003, had two guns in their Hewitt Avenue home when Groves called police to report a burglary at his house in November 2008. Officers found evidence of the burglary, but also found Groves to be a felon, and arrested him. Check back to kitsapsun.com later this afternoon for a more complete story. http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2010/jan/29/bremerton-man-convicted-firearms-case-be-sentenced/ Looks like it's over.
“I can’t have him and guns at the same time,” she said. So here we have a wife and a small child that have no right to self-defense with the weapons most appropriate for that purpose. They are,in effect,being punished and put at risk because a out of control government chooses to ignore the US Constitution by barring the possession and use of firearms by someone convicted of a crime that has served his time. Somebody show me where the "except for former criminals" clause is in the 2nd Amendment. You can't because it doesn't exist,and prior to the passage of the un-Constitutional Gun Control Act of 1968 there were no such laws on the books. This was no problem for 200+ years,but the government decided to extend their reach and power in 1968 by tacking it onto the GCA-68 law.
Exactly, but the Weasel could care less. He's a statist obama stooge and gun hating wacko.
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Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/LatestPORT ORCHARD — A Bremerton man convicted earlier this month of illegally having a firearm was sentenced this afternoon in Kitsap County Superior Court to the time he has served. He's set to be released today.
#9. To: Ferret Mike (#6)
Authorities have been holding Besherse’s guns — a Remington .22-caliber rifle and an Accu-Tek .380 handgun — as evidence. She said she’ll get them back and sell them.
#11. To: sneakypete, Ferret Mike the Weasel (#9)
it doesn't exist,and prior to the passage of the un-Constitutional Gun Control Act of 1968 there were no such laws on the books. This was no problem for 200+ years,but the government decided to extend their reach and power in 1968 by tacking it onto the GCA-68 law.
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