Do the Right Thing - Part 2

Well, it's been five days since the Judge issued an arrest warrant for Dale Shantz President and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Michigan Coalition for Responsible Gun Owners.

He has neither acknowledged the warrant, nor, as far as anyone knows, responded to it. He continues to ignore the Court's orders and has certainly not turned himself in, as any responsible, upright and law-abiding citizen would. Perhaps he is being told not to worry, that the warrant is no big deal, that Mr. Perricone will "take care of it" as he was told so often over the last three years.

Let's review that last three years. No, Mr. Shantz was not the organization's Chairman for all of that time, but he certainly sat on the Board of Directors and he has certainly defended the actions of an overpaid former Speaker of the House (please don't ever forget Mr. Perricone once briefly held office - he'd be quite upset if you did) and others who have blatantly violated the law and the Bylaws.

The organization went from over 12,000 members to its current 5,900. That is the number being given, but a recent discussion with a PAC member revealed it was more like 4,000. Either way, it is more than a fifty percent loss in three years. How long before it ends up just the hundred or so Life Members are left at this rate of attrition?

The organization has spent almost two years in Court fighting doing what is both legal and right. The cost has been tremendous. Their behavior cost them thousands of members and supporters and the cost of dragging this through the Courts in terms of dollars has been incredible. Certainly, the Cost to MCRGO members must now be approaching $100,000, especially because the Board continues to be in contempt and the fines and costs continue to mount. There is the contempt fine of $100 per day for every day they ignore the orders, and there is also the costs of any attorney fees, not only on their side, but to our attorney as he continues to try to get them to comply.

We will be back in Court today with yet another Show Cause motion, sadly enough.

When will this end? When the Board fully complies and the second Slander/Defamation suit is settled. That could also be years from now, but is not a case where the individual members of the Board will be able to hide behind MCRGO's corporate veil.

I don't know about you, but I think it's time Dale Shantz resigned. From the Chairmanship and from the Board. If he is not willing to set aside personal animosity and do the right thing for the organization, then he needs to relinquish the reins.

Before he does any further damage.

Anonymous Asked...

How is it that you are unarmed now? What have you done to lose your license? Details, need details.
--
Posted by Anonymous to Neva at 10/30/2005 12:24:12 PM

My answer:

Nothing - absolutely nothing. Read the rest of the blog, especially this post. I was notified that I had to appear in front of the Gun Board and that my license was immediately suspended. No details, no charges, no reasoning given.

I have done nothing other than continue to fight this case in Court. I have not been arrested or charged, and I have taken no action that would warrant such an egregious violation of my rights. When I know more, everyone will know more. I have never hidden anything and I will continue to bring all of this into the light.

"Sunlight is the best disinfectant." I love that quote - Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis was right on target, I believe.

Read - you'll see. Look at the public documents available here. In fact, check back on Monday and look at the latest transcripts. You'll read of the MCRGO's attorney's objections to public documents being posted. They want to avoid the members being informed of the realities of what has happened.

I believe the membership has the right to know. I believe that Michigan State law must be complied with. I believe that the Bylaws, flawed as some of them are, must also be complied with. I believe in ethics and putting aside personal feelings to make sure that our organization is following the right and legal path.

That's what this two year long fight has been about and that is what this fight will continue to be about.

The fight will end when the Michigan Coalition for Responsible Gun Owners Board of Directors makes the decisions, and follows through on them, to correct its violations and get back to the business of the fight for firearms rights.

Some Thoughts...

I wonder if the attorney for MCRGO, who should be reporting to the Board and explaining their legal rights and responsibilities to them, is doing so.

I wonder if he is doing what he is supposed to be doing for the organization or just reporting to, listening to, and taking orders from Mr. Perricone.

I wonder if he's told Dale Shantz, "Don't worry about the warrant; Chuck and I are taking care of it."

I wonder if some of the members of the Board of Directors might be considering getting their own attorneys since this has now gotten to the point where individuals are going to jail.

I wonder how soon we will see Dale Shantz resign as Chairman, President and Director on the Board.

I wonder if it's already happened.

I wonder if the rest of the Board is now ready to see Mr. Kliemann step up to the plate as Acting Chair.

I wonder when the Board will start complying with the Law, the Bylaws and the Court's orders.

But Why Would They Defy the Law?

People have asked me what Mr. Perricone and the Board of Directors are hiding that they would go to the lengths they have to avoid compliance with the law and Court orders. Some ask if it's financial wrong dealings, some ask me if it's something to do with Campaign Finance, one even asked, "Could there be something he is hiding that if found out could get him killed by one of his mob buddies?" I don't know what kind of "buddies" Mr. Perricone has, if any, but I do know he is expending a huge amount of energy to stomp on one lone schoolteacher from SE Michigan.

Sometimes I think that it's nothing major, just Mr. Perricone's escalating reaction to being thwarted at something he wanted.

He wanted the Board hand-picked so they would rubber stamp everything he wanted to do. He got that, except for Barbara Stockford (now President of SAFR), Rich Dillard, Gary Bengtson, and Ian Kinder. From Day One, he treated Barb and Ian totally without respect. If they wanted anything, he set out to block it. His emails to both of them were disrespectful and clearly, he wanted them gone. Dillard was more tolerable to him because he thought that Rich had political aspirations and that he could manipulate him through that. Bengtson he thought he could work because "any attorney will go for the money."

As time went by, he harassed Ian, even using both me and Carol Bamberry to push, threaten, etc. until finally, Ian saw his whole livelihood threatened and he resigned from the Board.

Then Dillard resigned, citing personal reasons.

Then we got emails from Bengtson complaining that the other members of the Board - Kliemann specifically - but others as well, were calling and trying to force him to resign, but he wasn't going to do it.

Then the next day, after who knows what happened during the night, he resigned.

Then Barb went, but that wasn't good enough - they advised the Board to have her removed as a member.

Then there was me. I'd watched him, looked at things, found evidence of tampering with the election, with him using our organization for both political and financial gain, not for our organzation, which was his job, but for himself and for this other organization, the Michigan Regional Carpenters Council, long associated with such activities as illegal Union issues, multi-million dollars "loans" to casino people (later barred for organized crime connections) and headed by a man Mr. Perricone openly admitted he wanted on our Board of Directors - a man barred by the Federal Government from having anything to do with his own Union's pension fund due to illegal loans. This same client supposedly endorsed a pro-gun candiate for Governor, MCRGO's choice for governor, but through my explorations (and with the help of some others) I found that they had given a vast amount of money to anti-gun candidates and an extremely small amount to our choice for Governor. The implications of this are obvious.

The more I looked, the more I found. The more I asked questions, the more my efforts to serve on the Board were blocked. From the moment that I challenged the idea of Mr. Perricone's refusal to assist Barbara, while she was still on the Board, to get the records and answers she was looking for, he never had another civil word to say to me and I became "The Enemy," despite my only trying to do what any reasonable individual would - my fiduciary duty as a Board member.

Follow the law, follow the Bylaws and do the ethical thing in representing our members, which is where my loyalty lies. To the membership, not to Mr. Perricone, not to the Board. The people of this organization, the ones that current practices have driven away and the members removed (often for no other reason than opposing the way the organization was/is being run) are the ones to whom I owe my loyalty and my efforts to bring this organization back to what it once was.

Mr. Perricone, and the Board, seem to be doing several things:

1. They'll do anything to try to make the membership believe that they are right and I am wrong, despite the Court's decisions and the obvious facts. This has been an ongoing smear campaign that has resulted in a second lawsuit, against the Board members personally, that will go on and will result in a jury trial with me as Plaintiff and all of them as Defendants, along with the organization itself.

2. They take one step further, and further and further to try to force me to give up on the suit. They have tried to force my attorney to quit, denying me representation just because we have positively affirmed every point in Court. They have enlisted TNUSA, and even slandered Sam Washington and MUCC (and I am not a member of MUCC and have never met Sam Washington). They have gone so far as to enlist legislators and the Speaker of the House (Mrs. Perricone's employer) to call MUCC in an effort to pressure our attorney to quit this case.

3. Simply not recognizing that the Court has the right, and the responsibility, to make the decisions that have been made in accordance with the law and in the best interests of the membership. Sunlight is the best disinfectant,” a quote from U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, refers to the benefits of openness and transparency. As Judge Giddings told the MCRGO attorney the other day, "We don't do things in the dark around here."

Macomb County Attorney Jim Simmons has volunteered to appear in front of the Gun Board with me and that will ease some of the burden on Mr. Winters, which I greatly appreciate. Jim knows gun boards, knows the issues and has been in front of the Oakland County Board before. I am sure that with the incredible amount of proof we have to offer on Mr. Perricone's motives for this "one step further" in his pattern of slander and defamation, we will have my CPL restored, but this is completely undeserved and as previously stated, will have the opposite effect from what he hoped for.

I will not give up this fight. It would be wrong and I am not going to do anything less - I owe that to the membership and I pay my debts.

I appreciate the support I am getting from so many people, and from our attorney, who is not only an excellent attorney but extremely supportive - he'd make a great cheerleader, God love him - he called me this AM with nothing more than a "How are you holding up?"

And in the end, I'm going to hold up just fine.

Underhanded Dealings Don't Always Work...

Sometimes they do for a little while, though.

I've been stripped of my concealed pistols license temporarily. Of course, I will challenge it. There's absolutely nothing to support this action and it is, without a doubt, at the instigation of Mr. Charles R. Perricone - the man who purports to support concealed carry for all law abiding citizens.

Today, the attorney for MCRGO went to the Judge ex parte and tried to have the warrant for Mr. Shantz' arrest vacated. He claimed that we had everything and we were ok with it and that there were no remaining issues.

Except.

We had the hearing Wednesday and the warrant for Dale Shantz arrest was issued. Since that time we have received no further information nor was a corrected copy of the database was sent or delivered to us, but still Mr. Robert G. Fleming (P44610) went to the Judge and claimed that we had everything. Mr. Fleming, if we didn't have it two days ago and you haven't give us anything since then, sir, it appears to me that you just told a great big whopper.

The Judge immediately called our attorney via speaker phone (not Former Speaker of the House phone but still...) and went through the issues fairly quickly and then explained to the attorney for MCRGO the facts of life on things such as this. One of his main objections, it seems, is that I am posting public records documents on the internet, which the Judge promptly informed him was my Constitutional right.

Michigan Coalition for Responsible Gun Owners, eh? And their idea of Pro-Gun is to go after my concealed pistols license and work to abrogate my Second Amendment rights as well as my rights under the Michigan Constitution.

Nice work, boys. Truly the honorable thing to do. Lose in Court - make sure a woman is unable to protect herself.

That'll teach me, won't it?

Legal Paper Links as Promised.

These orders and the bench warrant, etc. are the result of yesterday's Court Hearing. I referenced them earlier and promised to share them as soon as I received them.

Like any Court Document in this issue, I am making no attempt to hide or conceal them and as they become available I will continue to share them. Watch this spot - there is definitely more to come.

http://www.cpltrainer.com/mcrgo/order-bench-warrant-shantz-10-26.pdf
http://www.cpltrainer.com/mcrgo/contempt-order-10-26.pdf
http://www.cpltrainer.com/mcrgo/bench-warrant-order-shantz.pdf
http://www.cpltrainer.com/mcrgo/memo-bench-warrant-shantz.pdf

Now Mr. Shantz Needs to Do The Right Thing...

A warrant for the arrest of Dale Shantz, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Michigan Coalition for Responsible Gun Owners (MCRGO), was issued today. He is subject to arrest by any law enforcement officer in the State of Michigan.

Do the right thing, Mr. Shantz, and turn yourself in. It may save you being arrested in an embarrassing situation - in front of your wife, friends, co-workers.

Remember, you have until Friday to get the Board of Directors to develop, vote on and pass a resolution that outlines how you will get the remaining materials to us.

And before you try again to claim that I am "crowing," what you need to admit, to the membership and to yourself perhaps, is that you know I never wanted this. I begged you to follow the law and our Bylaws, but you were the one who felt that our organization didn't need to do so. You and your fellow members of the Board of Directors were the ones who attacked me for wanting to do my job, then blocked me from doing my job, then decided to ignore a Court order and contravene the law.

What are you, the Board and the Executive Director working so hard to hide? Please don't claim that it's the database because anyone can read the inventory offered as evidence by MCRGO that says quite clearly in several areas that the organization intends to ignore the Court's order and not provide required information.

The motion for a Summary Disposition that was requested by the attorney for MCRGO in the slander/defamation and Civil Rights violation lawsuit was denied as well. Next step, sworn depositions from Mr. Perricone and the other members of the Board, including the State Senator who recently attacked me via email to more than 10,000 people. He lied to them; I wonder if he will lie under oath as well.

Young Marine Reservist Does the Right Thing...

I have to admit I got a kick out of this story.

The realization that he might have had to shoot Hall was unnerving, he said. Having been to Iraq, Thailand, Korea, and Okinawa, Doncaster has faced some hairy situations, but coming face to face with an armed civilian still rattled the Marine - after the fact.

But even being hit with capsaicin (pepper) spray didn't stop him from persuing and detaining Steven Mark Hall, and armed attacker who had, moments before, attempted to abduct a grandmother and the two year old child with her. He was carrying three pairs of handcuffs, a collapsible baton, a knife, a Taser, brass knuckles and pepper spray, which he used on several customers and employees of the Wal-Mart where the incident occurred - including the Marine who refused to give in and allow this animal to go his way.

Corporal Kevin Doncaster is licensed to carry a concealed weapon and was that day - a Glock .357 SIG. He doesn't like to leave it in the car where it might get stolen and he is armed and ready to defend himself and others. He did a fine job and he is a credit to his nation, to his family, to his community and to himself.

I'm not surprised, though, because our men and women in the Armed Forces keep us safe on so many fronts and we owe them everything for doing so.

For those who would have us go about as sheep, unarmed and unable to protect ourselves, shame on you. I am reminded of a definition for gun control: The theory that a woman found dead in an alley, raped and strangled with her pantyhose, is somehow morally superior to a woman explaining to police how her attacker got that fatal bullet wound.

Great job, Corporal - and thank you for helping the women who might have been his future victims.

Kathleen Parker, et al.

Kathleen Parker, a columnist at townhall.com makes a valid point today in discussing the wonderful news from Iraq.

Ms. Parker tells us:

Here are the headlines you may have missed: "Iraqi democracy takes bow to standing ovation, global applause" Or "Iraqi voter turnout another blow to al-Qaida."

Where are those headlines? Ten million Iraqis, voting in favor of their new
Constitution, changing the face of their Country and the future of their
children, with our help. Where are the proud, supportive, cheering headlines?

They are far too rare.

Ms. Parker further shares with us:

The Port Huron (Mich.) Times Herald, for instance, greeted readers with: "Iraq takes first step into future," while the Bucks County Courier Times in Levittown, Pa., led with: "Iraq's new era." I'll have what they're having.

You know what is one of the oddest ideas for me? Their voter turnout was roughly the same as ours in our last Presidential election.

Not one of us faces death for going to the polls, or even possible dismemberment, but do we get out and take care of business on the same level and with the same commitment?

No, we do not. Generations of men and women have fought for our freedoms and brought freedom around the globe to so many and yet when it comes to recognizing that or even doing our part to ensure that those freedoms never disappear....

It makes me sigh.

Veteran's Day is coming up as are Thanksgiving and Christmas. Take a moment to praise a vet, to offer thanks for what they have done and for what our Armed Forces are doing today. Remember those who gave you your freedom and celebrate the freedom that we, as a Country, have helped bring to so many.

MCRGO refuses to follow Court Orders

Given my encounters with the Court System lately, my respect for the foundations upon which this Country was built has only been strengthened.

Without the law we are nothing. It is unfortunate, of course, that we have so many laws that have no meaning, are redundant, or simply non-functional and/or unenforceable, but we have this wonderful foundation and if only we could get back to some very basic principles, so many other problems would be non-issues.

"We may be tossed upon an ocean where we can see no land---nor,perhaps, the sun or stars. But there is a chart and a compassfor us to study, to consult, and to obey. That chart is the Constitution." - Daniel Webster

http://www.cpltrainer.com/mcrgo/Order-of-Contempt-10-18-05.pdf

The first document is the order of contempt that may send the Chairman of the Board of MCRGO to jail. He has made some spectacularly bad choices and the Board, as a whole, has allowed a rogue employee to endanger the very existence of the organization.

http://www.cpltrainer.com/mcrgo/Fleming-Letter-10-18-05.pdf http://www.cpltrainer.com/mcrgo/Fleming-Letter-10-18-05-2.pdf

The two documents above are letters sent the day following our Court appearance. Sadly, the choice was made to send out an email via MCRGO that added further to the slander and also violated Judge Giddings' very specific instructions.

There will no doubt be further developments today. Poor choices have been, and continue to be, made.