How nice

The ATF trains dogs to detect explosives. This is obviously useful for bomb searching and post blast investigation. But there are some things I didn’t know and don’t exactly approve of (emphasis mine):



The ATF explosives detection canine, a graduate of ATF’s 10 week explosive detection training program, has been conditioned to detect explosives, explosives residue, and postblast evidence. As a bonus, because of their conditioning to smokeless powder and other explosive fillers, ATF trained explosives detection canines can detect firearms and ammunition hidden in containers and vehicles, on persons and buried underground. With the assistance of support systems such as the National Response Team, Explosives Technology Branch, ATF Laboratories, Certified Explosives Specialists, and the ATF Firearms Branch and Tracing Center, the ATF canine program is producing a viable tool to assist law enforcement with their war on violent crime.


Such a bonus.


With roughly 40% of the population exercising their 2nd Amendment rights the ratio of false positives (innocent people “caught” exercising a specific enumerated right) to true positives (people with criminal intent) is going to be extraordinarily high. Those false positives will be singled out for searches and general harassment. If the dogs were being trained to detect Jews, gays, or some other minority would the government be posting it on their website?

Share

3 thoughts on “How nice

  1. the ratio of false positives (innocent people “caught” exercising a specific enumerated right) to true positives (people with criminal intent) is going to be extraordinarily high

    I’m sure the ATF would be delighted to solve that problem by making anything that would currently be a false positive illegal as well.

  2. It’s also not true. Or rather it is, but it’s so marginally effective that dog trainers do not consider it useful.

    The dogs are trained to alert on the VOCs given off by nitrates. The concentration given off passively by loaded ammo are so low as to be essentially useless for scent identification and alerting; unless a weapon has been fired in the past few hours.

  3. Just imagine, a trained “bombsniffing” dog alerts on your person/car/premises.

    Immediate, warrantless search?

    “i thought he reached for a weapon after the dog alerted”

Comments are closed.