Grave hunting MacGyver style

Charles Soper graduated early
from the Colorado School of Mines
to join the army air corp.

Several years ago, when I was visiting my paternal grandparents in Denver, I asked about the person from whom my middle name and my father's name derives - Charles Soper - my grandfather's brother. Charles was a navigator on a B-17 during WWII and as the story goes was returning to England after a bombing mission and in the fog over the Channel, they hit another plane and everyone on-board was killed.

My grandparents said Charles was buried in Denver. I was surprised and asked why we never had gone to see the grave? They didn't know; by that afternoon we were driving around Fairmount Cemetery. We asked the main office for a map and they put an "x" on the map for where the plot was located. As we drove to the location, my grandparents made comments like, "This doesn't look right, the pine trees were tiny." Asking when they were last there, the said, "1945, for the funeral." Over 65 years later, trees had grow up.

As we walked around the location, we didn't see the grave. I got to noticing there was a line of markers and then none for a while. Looking at the map and hearing my grandparents say in the background it was between two pine trees, I decided "x marks the spot" and pulled out my Swiss Army knife and sunk it into the grass. (To this day I still don't know why I decided to do that) The blade hit something hard. It was like a scene from MacGyver! I cut a piece of sod and began to see a letter appear - S, then O - P - E - R! We pulled a bottle of water from the car and uncovered and washed the rest of the marker. It had sank 2 inches below the grass. My grandparents contacted the cemetery and the marked was lifted to regulation height.

As we approach the 71st anniversary of VJ Day, we must never forget those who gave the ultimate sacrifice and the families who carry the heavy hearts for the nation. It is to those who have worn the uniform that I salute.

Beauprez’s anti-gun past may come to haunt him

When asked about the Second Amendment, Bob Beauprez has a tendency of only talking about Governor John Hickenlooper’s policies.

So what about Bob?

A mere 14 years ago, Beauprez and and former Governor Bill Ritter were on the Amendment 22 band

Bob Beauprez flip-flops on 2nd Amendment.

wagon, which was a state-wide referendum calling for special restrictions for gun shows. These included an instant background check for certain sales that take place at a gun show, even if not required had the same sale occurred not at the gun show.

Amendment 22 passed with 70 percent of the vote.

During the 2006 contest between Beauprez and Ritter; Beauprez claimed Ritter loved gun control, whereas he supported the Second Amendment. This claim was the basis of one of the Both-ways-Bob ads which mocked Beauprez for flip-flopping on the Second Amendment.

The Independence Institute defended Beauprez’s mistake, by claiming the error was due to poor journalism by the Denver Post.

However, going back a bit further, when Beauprez was Colorado Republican State Chairman, he sent out a letter to GOP legislators calling for the party uniting on new gun control laws in the aftermath of the Columbine Shooting.

At the time, Rocky Mountain Gun Owners responded to the message by saying, “Gun rights supporters are told, in essence, to sit down, shut up, and take their medicine.”

Beauprez constantly called for closing the “loopholes in our gun laws.” The Owens Administration, working with Chairman Beauprez, crafted legislation to reign-in gun shows, proposed mandatory gun locks, and moved to disarm Coloradoans between the ages of 18 and 21.

Even Congressman Tom Tancredo voted for an assault weapons ban and a ban on magazines, along with making a few incriminating statements after the school shooting.  

The strategy, in the wake of Columbine, was to compromise a little on gun control, in order to maintain control of all three branches of state government. The results of the 2000 General Election saw the Republicans lose the State Senate to the Democrats.

The question now turns, has Beauprez become a hard-line Second Amendment kind of guy?

Recently, the question of gun control arose during an Aspen gathering. Aspen is not necessarily the friendliest of towns for gun advocates. Beauprez, playing to the audience said, if elected, and if a (gun control) repeal comes to me, I’d sign it.

Beauprez further stated that people with mental illnesses shouldn’t have easy access to guns.

Sounds a bit like the old Beauprez?

Perhaps compromising on some aspects makes political sense in some areas of strategy, but once you go down the road of giving an inch, before you know it, you’ve given a mile.

To be fair to Beauprez, he has claimed that a propensity to commit crime must be an element of limiting the Constitutional rights of someone who is mentally ill.

If society knew who had a propensity to commit a crime before a crime occurred, then why wouldn’t we create a pre-crimes police force, as illustrated in the film Minority Report to stop all evils before they occur?

Beauprez has also failed to define who would be legally classified as mentally ill? Does one visit to a psychologist mean a citizen could be pre-empted from their Second Amendment rights?

Prior to endorsing Beauprez this week, State Senator Greg Brophy, had declared both Beauprez and Tancredo weak on the Second Amendment. Yet in his endorsement, Brophy steered clear of gun talk, saying Beauprez had the best odds of winning.

Perhaps being soft on the Second Amendment is the key to winning the even-split urban-7th Congressional District twice, but for voters in rural Colorado the difference between the incumbent and Beauprez regarding gun control is a shady haze of grey.

All hope is not lost.

Republicans Mike Kopp and Scott Gessler, both have served America in the Army and both believe the Second Amendment is a right not to be compromised.

The Rocky Mountain Gun Owners feels the same way and has given Kopp and Gessler the two-thumbs-up.

Defeating Hickenlooper will be tough, but victory only comes if there is a candidate who can draw distinctions, not blur the differences over key policy issues, such as the Second Amendment. 

___________________

Matthew Soper, Letter to the Editor, Beauprez’s past may come back to haunt him, Delta County Independent, May 21, 2014, at A2.

Matthew Soper, Letter to the Editor, Beauprez evaluated on the Second Amendment, Gunnison Country Times, May 21, 2014, at A14.

Murder rate way down, unsolved murder rate way up*

As unbelievable as Hadiya Pendleton’s ruthless murder, less than a mile from President Obama’s home in Chicago, is the reality that only 66% of those who murder are ever brought to justice. Pendleton’s murderer continues to remains at-large.

Marred by the mass-shootings of 2012 was America’s statistical achievement of seeing the lowest murder rate in the past 50 years. Hidden by the smoke of the gun debate is the disturbing reality that unsolved murders are nearing an all-time high.

Pendleton was murdered a mile from Pres Obama's home.

In 2011, according to the US Department of Justice, the murder rate was 4.8 per 100,000 people, which is contrasted to the 1980 high-water-mark of 10.2 per 100,000. It is estimated that after non-culpable homicide cases for 2012 are wound-up, the statistic will be around 4.6 – the rate hit back in 1963.

When graphed on a chart, the national murder rate looks like a bell-curve, with murders steadily increasing from 1960 to 1980 and then decreasing ever since. The lowest murder rate during the past 100-years was in 1957 – there were 4.0 per 100,000. If society does nothing, the projection is such that the US will near the 4.0 mark in a few years.

Vice President Joe Biden, outlined nine proposals for reducing homicides, which include: requiring background checks for all gun sales, banning assault weapons, limiting ammunition magazines to ten rounds, providing tax dollars for gun violence research, school emergency preparedness, and mental health coverage. Each recommendation noted that ‘no single law, or even a set of laws, can prevent an act of violence.’ Yet none focus on apprehending perpetrators.

The US has serious problems, for example, from 2011 to 2012 murders in Chicago increased by 38% to a devastating 506. Pendleton’s murder marks number 42 for 2013. By contrast, 418 people were murdered in New York City last year and seven so far have been murdered in 2013.

According to the UNODC, every US Territory, over the past decade, has seen a general increase in murders. Puerto Rico has the highest murder rate at 26.2 per 100,000 people. A record breaking 1,136 murders occurred in 2011 alone. Yet, Puerto Rico boasts twice as many police officers per capita as any US state.

Shockingly, only 25% of the murders in Puerto Rico result in the police apprehending the culprit. This was the case in New Orleans in 2010. Last year, homicide investigators improved this number to 39%, and were able to reduce murders by 3%. It is unfathomable that over half of the 193 murders during 2012 resulted in an accused being brought before the courts.

From 1980 to 2008 nearly 185,000 homicides went unsolved in the US, according to a Scripps Howard News Service study. Some cities, like New Orleans, have low murder clearance rates. Meaning the police were able to present the court with an accused. Others, like Washington, DC, have nearly doubled their success rate to a laudable 96%. Nearly 6,000 homicides go unsolved every year in the US. A national average of 66% is unacceptable.

While the Biden working group and the emotions of the nation cling to media images of recent shootings, a larger problem is law enforcement’s inability to bring more suspects before the courts.

If America truly cares about justice for victims’ families, society needs to invest resources to bring perpetrators to justice. Sophisticated investigating techniques and the quashing of minor criminal offences that are working in Washington, DC and New York City should be used to help municipalities like Chicago and New Orleans and territories like Puerto Rico.

When does society begin the conversation of addressing low murder clearance rates? Society needs to move beyond looking at the sensationalizing effect of recent mass shootings and see the big picture.

The US murder rate is at a 50 year low and dropping, despite recent outliers in the data. Concern, which should be sounding alarms, is the low national average of solving these murders.

To quote former President Bill Clinton, “There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America.” The US has the knowledge and the resources to better solve homicides; there is void of political will power. It is time to implement successful techniques to bring murderers to justice.

If society truly cares about tackling murders, the debate needs to be about unsolved crimes, supporting local law enforcement, and not about the implementation devices (eg guns) used to commit the offence. 
__________________________________________
*M Soper, Murder rate way down, unsolved murder rate way up, OpEd, Western Slope Watchdog 17 February 2013: 4+ <http://westernslopewatchdog.com/2013/02/murder-rate-way-down-but-unsolved-murders-way-up/> accessed 18 February 2013

What are the odds: High School friends reunited on same flight*

Bill Helmsing and Matt Soper randomly met on same flight a decade after graduating from high school together

Delta High School friends reunited on same flight from Boston to Denver. Captain Bill Helmsing, with the 1st BDE 10th Mountain Division, and Matt Soper, who is studying Intellectual Property law at the University of New Hampshire, had not seen each other for 10 years and were surprised to be flying home for the holidays together. 

Helmsing, a West Point graduate, is stationed in Ft. Drum, New York and is about to deploy to the Regional Command East in Afghanistan as a member of a Security Force Advise and Assist Team. 

Soper is an alumnus of Colorado Mesa University and the University of Edinburgh’s Faculty of Law and plans on sitting the New York Bar Exam in July 2013. Helmsing and Soper graduated from Delta High School in 2003.
______________________________________________
*'You Saw It', Grand Junction Daily Sentinel 28 February 2013: 8B