All of the serious charges against Gregory Girard have been dropped, yet he remains behind bars and denied bail until the people responsible for putting him there can devise a suitable “crime” to justify his imprisonment.

This task shouldn’t tax the malicious creativity of the Salem County Prosecutor, given that Girard, a resident of Manchester-by-the-sea, Massachusetts, is a middle-aged male gun owner and unreconstructed “right-wing extremist.”

As Josef Stalin’s secret police chief Lavrenti Beria put it: Find me the man, and I’ll find the crime.

In early February, police learned of Girard’s unremarkable gun collection — invariably described as an “arsenal” or “cache” by the statist stenographers who call themselves local journalists — when his wife, a psychiatrist, told them that she was afraid to return to their home following an argument.

Among the specific concerns related to the police by Girard’s wife was his supposedly alarming view that martial law is imminent.

Since it is unacceptable for people to believe that government agents will carry out paramilitary raids to confiscate firearms, a paramilitary force was sent to Girard’s home to confiscate his firearms.

Stormtroopers from CART, the ATF, and the state police surrounded the condo, evacuated two units, and then called Girard to invite him outside. Seeing his home surrounded by a ring of heavily armed, black-clad bucketheads clearly possessing malign intent, Girard understandably declined the invitation. After the police barged into his home, Girard put up no resistance, beyond insisting that his “hand grenades” were innocuous and perfectly legal smoke grenades.

The first media accounts of the incident were a bulimic recital of pre-chewed soundbites fed to the press by the police.

Girard’s collection of "approximately twenty" firearms — in fact, he owned 11 rifles and two handguns, all legally purchased and duly registered — suddenly became an "an alarming, nearly military-grade stockpile."

The Best of William Norman Grigg