The Police State Marches On
Via Steve, comes news of home raided because it’s power bill was unusually high. A high power bill is grounds for a warrant and raid?
This reminds me of a guy I wrote about here whose house was searched for guns and they knew he had guns because all the guns were legally registered and specified in the warrant. His house was raided to look for legally owned weapons.
March 29th, 2004 at 10:26 pm
I have to ask where this story originates. Down here where I am (Louisiana), I own over twenty guns and none are “registered”. Some are on the books at the gun shop where they were bought, but some are from private purchases and there is no trail between me and the original buyer who might be listed on some dealer’s book.
As a former holder of a FFL, whe I got out of the business, I had to send my bound book record of purchases and sales to the BATF as my license expired. Each purchase I made was recorded when I bought the gun, and the buyer’s information was recorded when I sold it. He had to fill out the federal form 4473 to buy, and those went to the BATF when I got out of the business also. But if he sold the weapon to a private individual, he was required to record nothing. No paper trail past him. No registration. And all perfectly legal, as it should be.
March 29th, 2004 at 10:34 pm
The gun story was from Stamford, however the link to the story is now dead (curse time-limited links). I’m assuming a local ordinance required registration.
March 29th, 2004 at 11:39 pm
I used to live in Stamford, and there was no gun registration required at the time. The only guns that would be required to be registered would be class III firearms. It always bugs me when people ask if my guns are registered. No, they are not, neither are my computers or fax machine.
April 1st, 2004 at 12:14 am
This case bothers me more than the warrantless search case that has been a big thing in the blogosphere, and not just because (1) my power bills are high, and (2) I think most anti-drug laws are a dumb idea. That said, the decision probably was acceptable, at least from a constitutional standpoint. According to Eugene Volokh, this raid was one of 25 that happened on the same day after a product of a six month investigation. Out of these 25, cops found marijuana in 20.