Gun owners are suspects
As reportedly happened during the DC sniper incident, gun owners are suspects again for the crime of happening to own a similar rifle to one used in a crime:
Authorities investigating a shooting spree that left one man dead and two injured in restaurant parking lots are focusing on the weapon the gunman used.
It appears to be either an SKS or AK-47-type assault rifle that could be used to fire a 7.62v-by-39 mm round, North Augusta Public Safety Department Lt. Tim Pearson said. Investigators want to talk to anyone in the area who owns a similar weapon or ammunition, Pearson said.
It may well be just for questioning but I doubt this method is particularly effective at, you know, solving a crime.
December 2nd, 2005 at 11:46 am
My guess is that Tim Pearson is a transplant from New York or somewhere else. Otherwise, anyone who was in the least bit familiar with South Carolina would realize how incredibly dumb his request is.
Hell, there might be a few million SKS and AK47 clones in South Carolina alone.
December 2nd, 2005 at 12:44 pm
The only thing I see wrong here is the police not returning guns taken for ballistic fingerprinting. If you have a sniper killing citizens at random, you have to cast a wide net. Sifting through everyone with the same type of gun makes as much sense than sifting through everyone with a white van, which the police also did.
December 2nd, 2005 at 12:48 pm
I see plenty wrong here. Owning a gun, car, whatever should not make you a suspect.
December 2nd, 2005 at 1:09 pm
Last I heard there were something like 7 million SKSes in the U.S. No telling how many AK pattern rifles. It’s a lot of guns.
“Investigators want to talk to anyone in the area who owns a similar weapon or ammunition, Pearson said.”
What does that mean, exactly? That they expect people to voluntarily show up at the police station next Saturday?
Look, maybe the police are just getting the word out about the type of gun used, hoping to job someone’s memory that their friend who said something funny also owns one of those guns. But it does come across like they’re going to start investigating people. At the least it does come across as ham-fisted.
December 2nd, 2005 at 1:33 pm
Correct me if I’m wrong, but when I read the article I got the distinct impression they had a good description of the suspect. Why wouldn’t they be looking for a person who matched that description and then find out if he owns a 7.62X39mm?
And how, pray tell, do they know it’s an AK or an SKS and not a Mini-30? Eyewitness accounts?
December 2nd, 2005 at 1:36 pm
Not as high profile, but it happened in California, too. Except it was Marlins in some flavor of .45
Neither South Carolina nor Georgia (N. Augusta is just across the river from Augusta) maintains a registry of ‘assault weapons’ or any other kind of guns.
And if the classifieds and Thrify Nickel type ads are any indication, Bubba has a whole lot of SKSs and AKs.
December 2nd, 2005 at 3:31 pm
No shit. I own several guns that shoot commie ammo. It’s cheap, plentiful, and reliable.
December 2nd, 2005 at 6:25 pm
It sounds like their basic assumption is, the killer obtained his gun legally (unlikely), and is dumb enough to tell the cops about it (very unlikely). Like the cops running around Maryland grabbing .223 rifles for ballistic testing instead of going out and looking for the DC snipers, they’ll only find the law-abiding owners.
Which illustrates gun-grabbers worst mental block: they can’t comprehend the phrase law-abiding gun owners.
December 2nd, 2005 at 11:04 pm
Anyone dumb enough to talk to police, especially the feds, without a lawyer at their side advising will get what you would expect. Policing isn’t about policing anymore.
December 3rd, 2005 at 2:52 pm
I’m encouraged by this line of reasoning…hopefully, more people will apply it to racial profiling.
December 5th, 2005 at 2:09 pm
Correct me if I’m wrong, but when I read the article I got the distinct impression they had a good description of the suspect
You’re wrong. They had bullets and vague suggestions that shots may have come from a white van. It turned out the killers were not driving a van, so the ballistic evidence was the only reliable clue the police had to work with.
it does come across like they’re going to start investigating people
The horror! A sniper is terrorizing a major metropolitan area and the police are investigating people! Where will it end?
If a sniper ever starts killing people in Knox County, at least we’ll have the arguments on SayUncle about why the police should not be investigating any leads to loosen the tension.
December 5th, 2005 at 2:43 pm
I never said any such thing. I said being a gun owner should not automatically make you a suspect and that that method would not be effective to find the criminal.
December 5th, 2005 at 5:45 pm
Being a gun owner does not automatically make you a suspect. Being the owner of the same kind of gun used in a random killing for which there is little or no evidence available to limit the search makes you a suspect.
December 5th, 2005 at 5:49 pm
And that should not make you a suspect no more than, say, driving a particular car or, as manish said, being a particular race.
December 6th, 2005 at 11:36 am
It’s a really simple concept. Crime happens, investigators gather clues, investigators follow up on clues.
Racial profiling is a wholly different beast. In racial profiling, there are no clues. There is not even a specific crime. The cops just stop or search a person because of their appearance in hopes of finding something to charge them with. In one case the cops start with a prejudice and go looking for evidence of a crime. In the other case they have evidence of a crime and go looking for the criminal. That they might question innocent people during the process is not an affront to anyone’s rights. Taking an innocent person’s property is an affront. Obtaining a search warrant on non-specific evidence would be an affront. Knocking on an innocent person’s door and asking questions is not an affront.
Why is that so hard to understand? What would you do if you were a police chief in Maryland or Virginia or DC and a sniper had just killed a third person in three days and all you knew was what type of gun was used?
December 6th, 2005 at 12:58 pm
I understand that but I’m afraid we’ll have to disagree. I don’t think racial profiling is wholly different in that some times said profiling is specifically applied. Also, I don’t consider the case in the CNS article a matter of Knocking on an innocent person’s door and asking questions.
Also:
They did not know the type of gun just the caliber.
December 6th, 2005 at 3:36 pm
Now you are just being evasive.
December 6th, 2005 at 3:38 pm
No, I am not. I think it’s rather important that our assumption of the facts differs.
December 7th, 2005 at 9:08 am
You could easily answer the “What would you do?” question based on the actual facts, but you evaded that question with nitpicking over what “type of gun” means. I’m not a gun freak; my gun terminology is weak. Adjust as necessary and move on instead of acting like a snotty grammar teacher. I didn’t say they knew the exact make and model of the gun. That’s not what “type of gun” means. Rifles are a type of gun of which there are many varieties. Guns that fire .38-caliber bullets are a type of gun of which there are many varieties. Anyone who is actually trying to converse can work past quibbles over definitions and terminology. You are just being evasive.
December 7th, 2005 at 9:24 am
I’m not acting like a grammar teacher. There are probably dozens and dozens of guns that fire a 223 round. Some of those guns are handguns, even. As for what I would do, not sure as I have no experience in police training. I do know that I would not go door to door harassing people because they may own a 223 caliber weapon. And since they didn’t drive a white van, that lead would have been dead.
I refrained from answering your ‘what would you do’ because hindsight is always 20/20.
December 7th, 2005 at 2:48 pm
You refrained from answering my question yet again because you know I have a valid point, and you are too proud to admit it. “I would not go door to door harassing people because they may own a 223 caliber weapon” translates to “I would not pursue the one piece of solid evidence I had.”
An unregulated militia being necessary for the security of a free state, the use of ballistic evidence in criminal investigations shall not be permitted.
December 7th, 2005 at 2:56 pm
That was not the one piece of evidence they had. I know that because that’s not what led the the capture of the snipers. Ballistic evidence would require they have the supect’s gun, which they did not. Simply put, going door to door and antagonizing gun owners is an unreasonable search and prohibited by the fourth amendment. And, without probable cause, they could not get a warrant.
December 7th, 2005 at 2:59 pm
And, again, I am not answering your question because I do not know all the facts. I do know, however, that the actions the police can take in an investigation are restricted by law.
December 7th, 2005 at 6:11 pm
they could not get a warrant
A point I made several posts ago! The police are not restricted from knocking on anyone’s door or talking to a person out in public. They can not enter a home uninvited nor compel cooperation and answers to their questions, and in this case they were not obtaining warrants, simply hoping for cooperation. Asking you whether your 223 caliber weapon is in your possession and asking you to voluntarily submit it for ballistic fingerprinting is allowed. Searching your home for the gun or confiscating it is not allowed unless they have enough additional evidence to convince a judge to issue a warrant against you specifically.
If you don’t answer their questions or produce the gun, they might try to make you sweat and change your mind. That gets into the gray area, and they risk having evidence obtained that way thrown out of court if you have competent counsel. Perhaps it is the distinction between a simple inquiry by investigators and a formal search that is keeping us from resolving this debate.
December 7th, 2005 at 7:02 pm
‘If you don’t answer their questions or produce the gun, they might try to make you sweat and change your mind’
That’s kinda what I took issue with, see the cns link above.