What Would The Lone Ranger Do?

The Walt Disney Company’s remake of the original movie, The Lone Ranger, hits theaters worldwide this summer. The franchise, which debuted in the 1930′s on radio before matriculating to television in 1949, starred the Lone Ranger, a masked ex Texas Ranger played for all two hundred and twenty one episodes by Clayton Moore, and his indian companion, Tonto, played by Jay Silverheels. After successful runs in both radio and television, the Lone Ranger franchise moved to the silver screen for a series of movies. The Lone Ranger and Tonto were vigilantes, who fought against injustice in the Old American West, a place where corruption and lawlessness ran rampent through cowboy towns across Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and a slew of other western states. Getting the bad guys who escaped the law, a general theme that has resonated with audiences for centuries, is the trademark of the famous duo who traversed the wild wild west. Whether it is the caped crusader, Batman, defending Gotham City, Spiderman saving the world or the endearing serial killer Dexter Morgan, stabbing a rapist, who got off because of a botched Miranda reading, in his famous kill room, people love vigilantes. Forces of good eradicating evil, which lurks everywhere, including in the minds of movie goers, delivers inspiring vindication and peace of mind to audiences, whose demand for such, is insatiable.

Anthony Hopkins, best known for his Oscar Best Actor winning performance as the serial killer Hannibal Lechter, in the movie Silence of the Lambs, played a lesser known role in the movie Fracture. In the thriller, Hopkins plays Ted Crawford, a meticulous and brilliant structural engineer in Los Angeles. After catching his wife having an affair, Crawford shoots her. In a coma, he is charged with attempted murder. During the trial he defends himself and convinces the judge to throw out the charges against him on account of illegally obtained evidence. Willy Beachum, played by Ryan Gosling, is the young prosecuting attorney with a 97% conviction rate, who is headed to a lucrative career in private practice. After his acquittal, Crawford (Hopkins) in an act of cold blooded murder, pulls his wife’s life support system in the hospital. In the meantime, Beachum finds new evidence and arrests Crawford in his LA mansion, who responds, “This is America, you can not try me again, that would be double jeopardy.” To which Beachum calmly states, “We tried you for attempted murder, since your wife died, we have filed murder charges against you”, as Crawford is being handcuffed. A brilliant scene capturing the necessary essence of good triumphing over evil, a phenomenon which endures deeply within the human psyche.

My business career notwithstanding, I grew up in a science family. My father, who earned his PhD from Brown University, was an internationally known polymer physicist, who enjoyed a distinguished career in private industry, public service and academia. One of his closest friends, a United Kingdom based scientist, had risen to the position of senior executive in a major chemical company. This gentleman would routinely stay at our home during his business trips to the United States. I have vivid memories, from my early childhood, of my father and his friend, turning their brilliant scientific minds to the “tellie”, as the television is commonly referred to in England, to watch cowboy and indian shows. Their favorite, by a wide margin, was The Lone Ranger, by this time enjoying considerable success in reruns. The English are fascinated by cowboys. The talented executive would ask my mother, “Where are the cowboys, I want to meet some.” America has followed in England’s slipstream for centuries, copying most if not all of their, customs, social norms, political structure, legal and financial systems and religious trends, with one glaring exception. While England had Knights, a profession absent from American history books, they never had cowboys. Something I learned by the age of eight, a fact that I passed along to my contemporaries, which was always met with blank stares.

Why would the creators of the Lone Ranger, producer George Trendle and writer Fran Striker, pick the State of Texas as their setting? Possibly because there is no better place in America for projecting the image of cowboys firing rifles while riding on horses through the vast open spaces, which are so plentiful in the Lone Star State. A place certainly no stranger to crime and corruption, which provides a fertile ground for vigilantes to set up shop. Let us face it, Texas and cowboys go together like barbecue and hot sauce.

Texas, a state which boasts “Don’t mess with Texas” and “If you kill someone here, we will kill you back”, prides itself on having some of the most liberal gun laws in the country. Only California can lay claim to more executions than Texas. Some facts about the Lone Star State’s gun laws and gun crime statistics;

- No waiting period to purchase a firearm,

- No registration required,

- No limit on magazine rounds,

- Concealed holders require a permit,

- Guns allowed in schools,

- 2011 Texas reported 699 deaths by firearms, 10 times the number reported in the countries of France and England combined.

On Christmas Eve 2009, 21 year old Lenora Frago could have used the help of the fictional characters, Lone Ranger and Tonto. Ezekial Gilbert, age 30, decided to celebrate the eve of the birth of Jesus Christ, by hiring a prostitute. While many were attending church services, family dinners and baking cookies to leave by the chimney for Santa Claus, Mr. Gilbert was scouring Craig’s List for his early Christmas present. After arriving and entering Mr Gilbert’s apartment, Ms. Frago received her $150 fee. According to court testimony, what followed was not disputed. Mr. Gilbert testified that Ms Frago began walking around in an attempt to stall according to the defendant. She then left the apartment in order to deliver the money to her associate who was waiting outside in a car. The transaction would spin tragically out of control at this point. Mr. Gilbert, sensing a deception, grabbed his loaded AK-47 and chased the fleeing Ms Frago as she sped away from the scene in her accomplice’s car. At this point, Mr. Gilbert fired several rounds into the car, one of which hit Ms. Frago in the neck. She would lapse into a coma and die three months later. A truly remorseful, Mr Gilbert testified that he was only attempting to shoot out the tires of the vehicle and that he never meant to hit anyone.

By some estimates there are 100 million AK-47-style assault rifles in circulation around the world. The gun’s inventor, Russian Mikhail Kalashnikov, “I invented a weapon to save the motherland, to save the state from fascism, my career has been dedicated to my country.” The perfect killing machine has been used in every war since it’s invention in 1947. The weapon has the ability to fire 10 — 7.62 X 43 mm bullets per second, with a velocity of 710 meters per second, 26 inches deep into a human target as measured in ballistic gelatin, swine muscle tissue. The Ak-47 sadly is the weapon of choice in acts of mass violence around the world. From our piece, Annie Get Your Gun, written in the aftermath of the Newtown, Connecticut shooting;

“In advance of major surgery, such as cardiac bypass, the performing surgeon requires that the patient undergo a complete medical evaluation in order to determine if they are of sufficient health to withstand the stress of the operation. With the “mother” of all non-militaristic battles looming over gun control, America finds herself in serious need of a major physical. In a fight that promises to make prohibition look tame, America, more polarized than at anytime in history, braces for a struggle over an issue, which evokes visceral emotions on both sides. Only abortion, taxes and equal rights can claim to be members with the Second Amendment who is residing in it’s own private club of incalculable controversy.”

Mr Gilbert was arrested and charged with murder.

Upon hearing the news, my first reafction was stunned disbelief, however, after studying the Texas Penal Code’s section which deals with the issue at hand, I begrudgingly concurred with defense attorney Roy Barrera Sr, when he said during closing arguments;

“The members of the jury should correctly apply the law of Texas in reaching a non guilty verdict”

Joined by his son, Bobby Berrera, the defense team argued that their client had the right to use deadly force to retrieve stolen property at night, specifically the $150 My Gilbert paid to Ms Frago for sex. Once the sex failed to materialize, the defense successful argued that the cash paid became stolen property. Not disputed was the fact that their client fired two rounds from his legally possessed AK-47 assult weapon, nor did they dispute that Mr Gilbert intended to have sex with a prostitue, a felony upon the third conviction in the State of Texas.

Texas Penal Code 9.42 states;

§ 9.42. DEADLY FORCE TO PROTECT PROPERTY. A person is

justified in using deadly force against another to protect land or
tangible, movable property:
(1) if he would be justified in using force against the
other under Section 9.41; and
(2) when and to the degree he reasonably believes the
deadly force is immediately necessary:
(A) to prevent the other’s imminent commission of
arson, burglary, robbery, aggravated robbery, theft during the
nighttime, or criminal mischief during the nighttime; or
(B) to prevent the other who is fleeing
immediately after committing burglary, robbery, aggravated
robbery, or theft during the nighttime from escaping with the
property; and
(3) he reasonably believes that:
(A) the land or property cannot be protected or
recovered by any other means; or
(B) the use of force other than deadly force to
protect or recover the land or property would expose the actor or
another to a substantial risk of death or serious bodily injury.

Texas defines deadly force as the degree of force likely to cause death or serious bodily injury, which includes actually firing a gun. However, the threat of using deadly force by displaying a weapon, if it is intended to cause apprehension that an actor will use deadly force if necessary, is defined by law as the use of force not deadly force. In Texas it is presumed that deadly force was reasonably necessary if it is used against an individual who was unlawfully or forcibly entering or entered into an occupied home, business, or vehicle or is attempting to forcibly remove another against his or her will from an occupied home, business, or vehicle. Deadly force is also presumed to be justified to prevent the commission or attempted commission of murder, aggravated kidnapping, sexual assault, aggravated sexual assault, robbery and aggravated robbery. The prosecution team argued, logically but not convincingly, that Mr Gilbert or any other citizen of Texas can not compel someone to commit an unlawful act, such as prostitution. By arranging “sex for hire” a potential felony in the State of Texas, the prosecution claimed that Mr Gilbert waived his right to use deadly force in recovering his $150, illegally gained stolen property according to the State. Prosecutors argued that the Texas law was put in place for “law-abiding” citizens, not people trying to force others into prostitution. Mr Gilbert’s attorney countered that, regardless of his client’s motive, the prostitution was nothing but a scam designed to steal his money.

A Bexar County Texas jury, comprised of Mr Gilbert’s peers, deliberated for less than eleven hours before they acquitted the defendant on all charges. If You Please’s correspondant, Englishman Abroad had this to say about the verdict,

“In most of the world, caveat emptor is the rule of business. Latin for let the buyer beware. It sounds likecaveat vendor, Latin for let the seller beware, is the unwritten rule of law of Texas. A legal principle specifying that the seller is legally responsible for warranting the quality and suitability to task of the item purchased.”

If You Please is neither against guns nor for prostitution, per se, what we are for is America. We respect an individual’s right to bear arms and to defend themselves against unlawful acts. But, imagining that this country’s Founding Fathers envisioned a man killing a prostitute with an AK-47 over $150, when they added the 2nd Amendment to the United States Constitution, is fantasy befitting inclusion in HG Wells’ classic science fiction masterpiece, The Time Machine.

From our piece, President Obama Misses the Target;

“As a society we accept negative consequences as trade offs for many of the liberties which we enjoy. We accept tens of thousands of highway deaths annually as the “cost” associated with driving automobiles. Americans need to weigh the right to keep and bear arms granted to citizens by the United States Constitution against the tangible cost that comes in the form of over ten thousand homicides a year. The intangible cost is our image worldwide, which of course is very real, but immeasurable in the short term. Longer term, America’s wild west gun slinging image, increasingly out of step with the rest of the world, continues to drain Her goodwill, which unfortunately, so many people died by firearms to create.”

The Texas State motto is Friendship derived from the Caddo Indian word Tejas meaning allies or friends. The leadership, who cling to an unfathomable quest to preserve the gun slinging wild west culture ingrained in the history of their State, might want to place some “conditions” on this saying and take note of the ancient Chinese philosopher, Lao Tzu, who wrote two thousand years ago, “If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.”

If the The Lone Ranger and his sidekick Tonto were on the scene that fateful Christmas Eve in 2009, Mr Gilbert would undoubtedly have awakened on Christmas morning to find a healthy does of coal in his stocking, for starters. Vigilantism, taking the law into one’s own hands is clearly illegal, however, if done correctly, especially in the movies, it can be effective. What Mr Gilbert did was cowardly, Texas law aside. With these types of cowboys roaming the plains of Texas, I seriously doubt my father or his friend, if they were still with us, would pay much attention. Most likely the pair of scientists would give a resounding “Hi-Ho, Silver! Away!” to these modern day cowboys.