Boston police are launching a program that will call upon parents in high-crime neighborhoods to allow detectives into their homes, without a warrant, to search for guns in their children’s bedrooms.
First they get people used to the police searching around in their homes without a warrant. Then when they refuse it will be probable cause for a search warrant.
[Via an email from Jason.]
I thought the exact same thing, but I bet they don’t even wait for people to get used to it. Even if the warrant is later struck down, the word will already be out that is an offer you can’t refuse. And of course, since it is a warrant to search for a gun, they will do a no-knock SWAT raid that wrecks the house and terrorizes the whole complex rather than having two detectives show up with the warrant and knock on the front door.
I read the whole article, and this thing really illustrates how big a gap we have in this country. Call it red-state vs. blue-state, or city vs. rural, or poor vs. middle-class, or whatever you want. But the target “demographic” for that program isn’t Xenia Joy’s pistol in Joe Huffman’s house. It’s a pistol in the closet of some gang-banger, whose own mother is so afraid of (and for) her son that she WANTS the cops to take his gun.
Responsible gun-owning parents who have introduced their children to shooting as a positive activity are very far removed from that world. I really think most simply CAN’T visualise themselves in the shoes of the people these programs are targeted at. And it goes both ways. A single mother whose 14 year old son is using drugs, carrying a pistol, and cussing at her doesn’t give a damn for the Second Amendment. She wants that gun gone before he either kills or is killed.
I’m not saying that makes the program OK. Some of the promotors of that program are undoubtedly trying to increase police power and decrease gun rights. But many of them are simply trying to help parents whose “children” are totally out of control.
How that “child” got so out of control is another thing entirely, and I won’t go there.
Pro-gun folks tend to be those who were raised to handle the responsibility of owning a gun, and who attempt to teach their children responsibility as well. Anti-gunners aren’t so fond of personal responsibility, and tend to look to the law to take its place. The two mindsets are simply incompatible.
I wish I could actually offer something constructive, but this divide seems impossible to bridge.
But many of them are simply trying to help parents whose “children” are totally out of control.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
How that “child” got so out of control is another thing entirely, and I won’t go there.
I won’t either but that is where the proper solution is. What they are doing now is at _best_ treating a symptom; IMO, the “treatment” is worse than the symptom.