Um, that's EXACTLY what they did, Supergeniuses.
Multiple sites today are foolishly parroting the asshole anal-ysis (and I won't point fingers or name names, but the culprits' fingerprints are out there, kids) that the Seattle PD executed a warrantless seizure of a man's legally-owned weapons.
Just a suggestion, but maybe - just maybe - you want to track that kind of red-meat bullshit back to the source, before going off - you should pardon the pun - half-cocked, let alone half-assed.
Herewith, the actual incident, from KATU TV's website:
SEATTLE – The city’s police department became the first law enforcement agency in the state to force the surrender of a firearm under a new law known as an “extreme risk protection order.”
The incident involves a man who lives in Belltown, who neighbors said had been intimidating people for the past year - even staring-down customers through store-front windows with a gun holstered at his side.
Mental illness is suspected, but that new law allowed police to legally disarm him.
“He was roaming the hallways with a .25 caliber automatic,” said Tony Montana, who knows the man from his apartment complex. “And it created a lot of fear obviously because I didn't know if he was coming after me or gonna just start shooting the place up."
The man, who we are not naming, is also well known to the bars and restaurants below his unit along Second Ave. The volume of complaints convinced Seattle police to seek an extreme risk protection order - or “erpo” – which allows law enforcement to legally remove guns from people deemed a danger to themselves or others.
In this case, the man refused to comply. Because of the new law, police were then able to return with a warrant and force the man to surrender the firearm.
Clever readers with IQs higher than their shoe size will note the key phrase "return with a warrant".
For the fucktards in the blogosphere (and they are legion), the term for going to a judge, swearing out an affidavit, and returning to seize the therein-described person or contents is known by the catchy phrase "due process" since at least the time of Blackstone's Commentaries in 1740, one of the foundation stones of the US Constitution and Bill Of Rights.
So much for breathless suggestions from brainless jackholes that "tyranny has landed in America."
(And I should not have had to back-track through four sets of links before I hit a primary source, which immediately corrected the errors on those same low-IQ, low-reading-comprehension websites. Just saying: if the dunce cap fits, wear it with pride.)
Internet dumbassery for the win. Here's your prize.
That is jurisprudence as it's always been, for centuries hereabouts.
If you're too stupid to get that, STFU: you're not tall enough for this conversation.
Does that mean these laws are a good idea, or even pass the Constitutional sniff-test?
No, it fucking does not.
"Today on the DUH! Channel..."
And now Mr. Unnamed Sketchy Individual has legal standing to go to court, contest the validfity of the warrant, and recover his legally-carried property, seized for nothing other than the vague unease of gunfearing wussy lackwits, and a dearth of any nameable criminal acts. If TPTB fail to comply forthwith, he can go after them, with a bit in his teeth and a clear conscience. There should only be about ten organizations and 50,000 lawyers champing at the bit to take that case to court. (The NRA, in all likelihood, will be found on the back of a milk carton, to a metaphysical certainty.)
He can also afterwards, or concurrently, sue the ass off of SPD, the City of Seattle, and the State of Washingcommunist in federal court, for egregious prima facie violations of the Second, Fourth, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments of the US Constitution.
Immediate injunctive relief pending a decision, followed by filleting and barbequeing this unconstitutional bullshit with all the legal trimmings, would be a likely conclusion.
He should also sue John Does One through Fifty, and serve every local business and his co-tenants in his building, and depose them to find out who called, for conspiring with police to violate his constitutional rights for no probable cause nor criminal conduct.
Slapping the shit out of jackholes like that in the wallet is the only way to get their attention. A million bucks a piece for everyone that made a complaint should do for starters, and induce people to MYOB unless they see a criminal act. Truth is an absolute defense, but your precious feeeewings should get you jacked, stacked, and double-racked.
If that fails, load your magazines, and open season, with no bag limit.
This is still the sort of tyrannical bullshit that begets wars, and it's going to get cops shot for doing it.
10 comments:
Great summary. Again, reason number 1867 as to why public open carry (even if legal in your state) is a really really really a stupid idea at this time.
Speaking of suing, some of the kids (with parental consent of course) from Parkland HS are filing suit against Roscoe P. Coltrane's department and the school district. First of many. Broward County gubmint is about to file bankruptcy. Need to go to Costco to stock up on popcorn supplies...
Jim's comment is spot on imo.
As sure as shit though if some whacko dude was staring me down packing a gun I'd be more than a little concerned, Might even take it to the next level.
So, snowflakes felt threatened even though the gun never left the holster and the man wearing the gun never verbally threatened to remove the gun from the holster?
I agree, he should sue everyone in sight for violation of his rights based upon nothing more than feelings.
A lot of people see "warrant" and then they say "it's all good".
Aesop,
Thank you.
There seems to be a lot (the amplifying microphone of the intertubes can produce that effect) of voices that seem to be hoping for hostilities to break out.
This kind of imprecision in reporting events (such as you just tamped down) is no different (in type if not in volume) than MSM crap.
Good job.
@Gray
A warrant means TPTB are still following Marquis of Queensbury Rules.
The law under which they obtained it is the problem, but that gets redressed in court or at the ballot box.
Claiming they acted without a warrant when the facts are exactly otherwise is irresponsible and inexcusable.
Instances and actions like this fall under the category of
"The Process Is The Punishment". This is where the criminals
in power engage in an abusive and often violent attack on the
rights, property and safety of a citizen who has done NOTHING
ILLEGAL. They do this because they are shielded by the insanity
called "Qualifed Immunity" whereby they can commit any and all
violations and atrocities with total impunity. The victim in this
particular instance may be able to find some white knight group
to come to his legal aid and shoulder the burden for opposing this
massive governmental overreach. Then again he may not....meaning
that if the victim of this abuse wants "justice" (sic) he must
fork over huge amounts of his own $$$ and not a small amount of time
and grief to oppose this official criminal misconduct. In short this
means that the people engaging in this type of state sanctioned
assault on rights can safely assume the VAST MAJORITY of their victims
cannot and therefore WILL NOT oppose them in the kangaroo banana
republic pseudojustice system that we are afflicted with. And on the
rare occasions someone does actually take such actions to court AND
prevail.......guess what they get.....Their OWN PROPERTY BACK. The odds
of them receiving any meaningful reparations for the abuse suffered is
small and would if awarded come from the pockets of the victims...the
long suffering taxpayer. The ENTIRE REASON for laws such as the one
cited in this case is to circumvent our rights and force the 'little guy'
with no resources to do battle against a behemoth in a system where the
odds are stacked against the 'little guy' from the outset.
The same is true for presumptively seizing an arbitrary amount of cash, on the farcical grounds that it must be the proceeds of criminal activity.
I'm not arguing this is a good law; indeed, it needs to be thrown out in haste.
But the assertion that it was some extra-legal warrantless seizure is recockulous, and as the links demonstrated, completely false.
That's the sort of horseshit I expect on MSNBC, not nominally pro-2A websites.
people who'll lie to sell a proposition, even one you're nominally in favor of, are already your enemy.
He is lucky the Pigs didn't just stuff the door and kill him. _revjen45
A measured, rational response is needed - in March 2010 an Oregon state employee was subject to an early morning, unwarranted raid on his home. This is a link to a summary of the event, along with other embedded links for further detail.
http://www.oregonfirearms.org/03-17-10-outrage
Ultimately, Mr. Pyles did sue for this blatant violation of his Constitutional rights, but according to those who were most knowledgeable of the event and the circumstances, he was his own worst enemy - had he taken the advice of competent legal counsel he had pretty much a slam dunk case. Instead, he went flying off the handle and, as a result, his case was tossed out of court. According to one local activist, the state "nutted and slutted" him very effectively, portraying him as a deranged individual, rightly or wrongly. Last I heard, he moved to Florida, ironically enough.
Mind you, this event occurred years before Oregon passed anything like the ERPO that was invoked in WA state, but Oregon has since passed its own version of ERPO. But in the interim years, again in Oregon, you also had the case of a local videoblogger, Michael Strickland, who was forced to defend himself at a BLM rally - he conducted himself in a textbook manner, holstering his weapon after the threat was neutralized, and even had the event captured on video. Last I heard he had been convicted of 21 counts of felony menacing...for a clear cut case, captured on video, of self-defense and rational response.
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