Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 26, 1995 TAG: 9502270015
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JAN VERTEFEUILLE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Paperback, pocket-size copy in hand, Stump folds back the page and points to the articles that he says show why it is illegal to try him in federal court.
And why, when he and acquaintances in Pulaski took to4 the woods to target practice with unregistered firearms, they were upholding the constitutional requirement to form a militia, not breaking the law.
The federal trials of Blue Ridge Hunt Club members are "a hoax" because the Constitution does not allow U.S. courts to operate in the states, Stump asserts.
Stump, a 35-year-old unemployed machinist who's working full time on his case, will be tried separately from his co-defendants because he plans to represent himself. Lawyers, he says, are part of the system and therefore "the enemy."
Instead of challenging the charges against him - which include possession of unregistered silencers and conspiracy to violate firearms laws - Stump will argue at his April trial that the whole federal legal system is a sham and thus, he cannot be charged.
He says he passed on a plea bargain that would have meant no jail time because he wants a hearing on the larger issue. If he goes to prison, he will leave behind a family that includes 4- and 6-year-old sons and a baby boy his wife is expecting in mid-March.
"When we win," he says, "all U.S. courts will have to go out of the states, all Federal Bureau of Investigation agents will have to go out of the states, all Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents will have to go out of the states."
Even if convicted, Stump said, the fight will go on. "The only thing they can do to stop me is send someone into prison to kill me."
The ATF sent a convicted felon to Pulaski to illegally buy a gun from one of the defendants in order to entrap them, Stump says, so it's plausible the government could try to kill him.
His political beliefs, including a literal and strict interpretation of the Constitution, were shaped seven or eight years ago when he was in the Marine Corps and started reading Guns & Ammo magazine. He noticed all the political articles about gun control that referred to the beginnings of the nation.
Stump says he went on to read The Federalist Papers, de Tocqueville and the anti-Federalists. He's written everyone from state Sen. Malfourd "Bo" Trumbo, R-Fincastle, to President Clinton asking them to justify the federal government's having courts in the states.
Even though he believes the federal court system, the ATF, the FBI and others are all illegal entities intent on keeping their power, he believes he can win his case.
"There's one chink in the tyrant's armor - that's the jury."
He's not interested in what the jury at his April trial - "Congress's jury" - has to say, but wants to get a state grand jury to hear him. That won't happen unless Stump is charged with breaking a state law.
Lewis LaRue, a Washington and Lee University law professor who specializes in constitutional law, said there is an "initial plausibility" to Stump's arguments. In the 18th century, when a situation got to be too much for the sheriff, a militia was needed because there was no police force.
But, he said, "We have never interpreted the Constitution in a way to say you can't adapt to changed conditions."
Courts have consistently held that police forces are legal and necessary to help uphold the nation's laws. And there have always been restrictions on owning weapons, LaRue said, despite what Second Amendment advocates say.
Even when the Second Amendment was passed, with its acknowledgment of the "right to keep and bear arms," citizens were not allowed to own cannons, LaRue said.
Stump said people grew up being taught that federal courts are legal in "government schools," but he is raising his kids differently.
Six-year-old Pete is learning to read from the Constitution. Stump wants to pull him out of public school kindergarten and teach him at home, but his wife doesn't like that idea.
His sons also "can shoot real well," he says, with a pellet gun he modified for their small arms. He sees his sons as protection against a government that could swoop down on him at any time.
In training them early to handle a gun, he says, "I guess I was looking ahead to the time they come to take me away."
The government is trying to "take all our freedom away" and people are beginning to realize it, Stump says.
"What they did in 1776, it was the first time in thousands of years people were free. So I'm supposed to be strange because I'm afraid we could lose it?"
by CNB