West Virginia Sheriff Who Fought Drug Trade Shot By Courthouse

A recently elected West Virginia sheriff was shot in the head while eating his lunch outside a county courthouse Wednesday, the Charleston Gazette reports.

Police arrested Tennis Melvin Maynard, 37, in connection with the shooting of Mingo County, W.Va. Sheriff Eugene Crum, who was reportedly dedicated to fighting the drug trade.

"Apparently somebody just drove up and shot him. That's what they told me. Shot him dead," county commissioner Harry Keith White told the Charleston Daily Mail. "That's from our county commissioner in the courthouse, who was crying when he called me."

Crum had previously been a magistrate — an elected position that is basically a state judge with limited powers. In that role, Crum set up a drug task force and did a "terrific job cleaning up drugs in the county," White told the Charleston Gazette.

He gave up his magistrate position to become sheriff in January.

"He wanted to clean up Mingo County," another magistrate, Kim Aaron, told the Gazette. "I respected that guy immensely."  

After Crum was shot Wednesday, the suspect was also shot and then taken into police custody, according to wsaz.com. The Mingo County Courthouse was locked down after the shooting — which comes after the brazen assassinations of two prosecutors in Texas.

Newsbreaker posted a tweet with Crum's picture:

BREAKING: WYMT TV: Mingo Co. Sheriff Eugene Crum shot outside county courthouse in W. Virginiabit.ly/16obFcb twitter.com/NewsBreaker/st…

— NewsBreaker (@NewsBreaker) April 3, 2013

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Chicago Makes It a Little Harder for You to Own a Gun--Unless You are a Cop

One more part of the general trend in attempts to make gun
ownership or purchasing just a little bit more expensive or
annoying on the margin, since, darn it, they can't seem to ban them
entirely, this time out of Chicago, as
reported by CBS Chicago:

a new $25-per-gun tax in Cook County went into effect on
Monday.

WBBM Newsradio’s Nancy Harty reports the new gun tax is
estimated to generate $600,000 a year for Cook County. The gun tax
ordinance includes an exemption for law enforcement officers who
purchase guns in the county.....

Another bureaucratic measure making gun ownership a potentially
huge legal burden for the innocent:

The county also has targeted straw purchasers – people who buy
guns legally, then sell them to others who can’t – by imposing
fines of up to $2,000 for failing to report the transfer, loss, or
theft of a gun.

Unsuccessful lawsuits tried to block the tax, which proponents
admitted was partially aimed at limiting the number of guns in
circulation, admitting a Second Amendment-violating goal, not just
a revenue one.

I wrote for Reason back in 2010 the detailed
history of the Supreme Court case McDonald
v. Chicago, in which it was established that indeed they
could not ban them entirely.

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Mike McLelland, Kaufman County District Attorney, Found Dead With Wife In Texas Home

KAUFMAN, Texas -- A sheriff's deputy says authorities are investigating the deaths of a North Texas county district attorney and his wife who were found dead in a home.

Kaufman County Sheriff's Office spokesman Lt. Justin Lewis said Saturday that the county District Attorney, Mike McLelland, and his wife, Cynthia, were found dead in a home in an unincorporated part of the county. Authorities have blocked off the street where the couple's last known address is located.

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