First, they came for the drunk drivers
Wow:
It’s about time we get real about gun control in our cities. If we can have sobriety checkpoints and now motorcycle checkpoints, why don’t we have cops creating gun checkpoints? Have them create checkpoints in the city where the gun violence is running rampant.
Give the cops metal detectors and make people stop and get checked for guns. They are illegal and they are a lot worse than drunken drivers, and motorcyclists without the correct credentials. Let’s get real here and start doing something about all these guns on our streets.
An old misattributed quote: They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
June 12th, 2008 at 10:19 am
The suggestion won’t hold up to a court test because a person carrying a gun – even illegally – in a car is not an immediate threat to society simply by carrying the gun.
The contrast is that a person driving drunk or operating a motor vehicle without proper training is an immediate threat to the public and public safety. Hence, checkpoints are considered legal for drunks, but not much else.
June 12th, 2008 at 10:25 am
WHERE ARE ZEE PAPERS!?!?!?
Nice, using a metal detector on a car. This checkpoint thing is insanity, and now the TSA has ‘ruled’ that you have to have your internal passport to fly. Awesome!
June 12th, 2008 at 10:29 am
FYI…regarding the quote:
http://www.futureofthebook.com/stories/storyReader$605
The actual original quote which can be attributed to Franklin due to the high probability that it was he who wrote it: “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety”
June 12th, 2008 at 10:40 am
And then there’s that whole 4th Amendment thingy….
June 12th, 2008 at 10:45 am
Rustmeister: such searches would be entirely “reasonable” and therefore compliant with the Fourth. And if you don’t think so, then just ask them and they’ll tell you so.
June 12th, 2008 at 10:46 am
This brave new world is starting to look more and more like the bad sci-fi flicks depicting a police state. I’ll need to purchase some gray overalls and learn to walk along concrete walls in the shadows in order to blend in since I have no state issued tattoo identifier on my wrist yet.
June 12th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
Remember that Chris Matthews says “they ought to check people on sidewalks like they do getting on airplanes” for guns.
June 12th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
That’s my local paper. I was in McDonald’s for lunch the other day, so I picked up a used copy of the Albany Times Union, since I would never buy one, and opened it to look for the usual anti-gun article, editorial or letter to the editor. No surprise. It’s habitual with them. Peckerheads! The First Amendment is sacred to them, but the Second Amendment doesn’t exist with these people, and when it gets in their way, the Fourth Amendment is nowhere to be found either. But what’s the point in arguing? The police in the City of Albany already can and do stop anyone they please and pat them down to search for a gun, and the Supremes said that it was alright for “officer safety”.
June 12th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
Did Checkpoint Mumbles write that letter?
June 12th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
Are you saying that Ben Franklin didn’t say, “They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”?
As for “Chief” Lanier, “4th Amendment? We don’ need no steenkin’ 4th Amendment!”
June 16th, 2008 at 4:48 pm
If guns are “illegal” in your area, you have unconstitutional laws and irrational laws. Guns in the hands of law-citizens save lives of large numbers of innocent victims. Your statistics are are wrong. Automobile accidents take far more lives than guns. We need government to get out of our lives and let us be responsible for how we live. For example, as sensible as I think seat belts are, adults should not be legally required to wear them. If someone is dumb enough not to use a seat belt, he or she should suffer the consequences…why are we wasting police resources to enforce seat belt laws when we have violent criminals on the streets. If you do not want to take responsibility for your life, fine; don’t try to force your views on the rest of us who are saner, more knowledgeable, and mature.
As you might gather, I a feed up with anti-gun advocates like yourself who are responsible for thousands of violent attacks and deaths by your knee-jerk reaction to guns and your niave view of reality.
June 16th, 2008 at 9:12 pm
“…why are we wasting police resources to enforce seat belt laws when we have violent criminals on the streets.”
Because one seatbelt arrest makes more money for the county, city, state, than 1000 arrests for murder or rape or any other violent crime.