Sheriff's task force to search cars in Milwaukee for guns

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel ^ | 7 May 03 | Reid J. Epstein

[flashbunny]

This isn't an invasion of privacy. It's a consent search. They ask you if they can search your vehicle. If you consent, they search, hence the name. If you don't, they don't, and you go on your way unless they have a legal reason to detain you.

You don't live in milwaukee county, and countless others who have posted on this don't either, but I do. David Clarke is the most professional and competent law enforcement officer I've seen in this area in the last few decades. He doesn't accept excuses or shoddy work. He doesn't bury things behind the 'blue line', he does his job and he does it well. The amount of training he has required of deputies (40 hours) and the fact that he is limiting this only to trained deputies follows a pattern with him - things will be done right and within the law, and he will keep on top of things to make sure they are done that way.

Crime in milwaukee increased while it decreased elsewhere because chief art jones is an incompetent hack who plays the race card when his policies come back to haunt him. He disbanded the gang squad and stopped consent searches not because of constitutional issues, but because he found a racial angle to play up. That's it.

The deputies have 40 hours in constitutional training. 40 hours. How many do you have? The people who say this is unconstitutional obviously haven't read it lately. A consent search doesn't violate anyone's rights. It's within the bounds of the BOR. If you can find out how it violates it, post the amendment and explain how it relates to a search where a person was asked for and gave consent to a search.

Consent searches are done all across the country. Are consent searches done in your community? Do you even know the answer to that? Or are you just reacting to this because it sounds good?

If a consent search is a violation of constitutional rights, then ROE v WADE was a valid constitutional decision, because apparently things can be written into the constitution that aren't actually there.

[flashbunny]

Please, for your own sanity, follow what I've learned: Don't bother debating _Jim. Instead, go to your nearest door and engage it in a conversation. It's much more rewarding.

[budwiesest]

UNDER AGE gang members can run around with Uzi's?

Any underage gang member with an Uzi would be quickly neutralized in the society I envision where membership would not bestow priviledges.

I would assume elder members in a gang might want to voluntarily restrict gun possession to those capable of expressing the greatest amount of self control as opposed to having all h*ll break loose on their heads.

[ChefKeith]

NAZI (AND JACKBOOT THUG) ALERT!

This election cycle will end up all about (OMG!) the dreaded inanimate object called a gun.

Forget the FACT that people kill people, not guns.

Again... what don't they understand about "SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED"

gotta go I can't risk the rise in BP level.

[plusone]

When the 2nd refers to 'arms', does it just mean guns or can the definition be broadened to include any weapon? If, for example, some inventor discovers a way to mass produce mini-nukes the size of coffee cans that are powerful enough to exterminate one city block, and sells them for 500 dollars: A) Does he have the 2nd amendment protection to do so? B) Would you knowingly live next door to someone who had bought one?

[Boot Hill]

The UnVeiled Lady asks:   May I ask WHY you shouldn't quote the 4th."

To avoid giving them the idea that you may be a member of some right-wing militia. In most states, they can hold you and your vehicle in place while they go and obtain a warrant. Since that warrant would have to based upon probable cause, try to avoid giving them any probable cause by what you say to them.

--Boot Hill

[Travis McGee]

Follow up question: is refusal to give consent to search probable cause for a search warrant?

This is my fictional take on the subject of "consent" (sic) searches, from my novel.

*************************************************************************************** The young father in the white Ford Taurus, the second car from the front of the line, said “No sir, I won’t open my trunk without a warrant, and I do not ‘consent’ to be searched.”

The Virginia National Guard corporal standing outside his driver’s side window looked around, confused. This situation had not come up before. Could this guy just refuse? Was that allowed?

The holdout’s young blond wife said “Martin, just do like he says. Don’t make trouble; the girls are frightened.”

“Honey, it’s the point of it. This is still America, and there’s still a Constitution.”

“Daddy, why are there soldiers here? Is there a war?” asked seven year old Danielle from the back seat. Her four year old sister Ashley next to her in her booster seat sucked her thumb, afraid without knowing why.

“No sweetie, there’s no war. The soldiers are helping the police to look for some bad men.”

“Criminals daddy?”

“That’s right sugar plum, criminals.”

Another man walked up to their window. Martin Palmer could not tell if he was from the military or the police: he was dressed in black from his helmet to his boots, with no badge or insignia in sight. The man in black rapped on his driver’s side window with the steel muzzle tip of his black submachine gun. “Open up! Get out! Now!”

“Officer, do you have a warrant? What’s your ‘probable cause’ to search our car?” Martin Palmer was trying very hard not to show the fear he felt, holding onto the wheel to keep his hands from visibly shaking. He hoped he did not sound as afraid as he felt, he remembered the Eagle Scout in Maryland who had had his face shot off point blank by an FBI undercover agent with an M-16 rifle after a mistaken traffic stop.

“My ‘probable cause’ is you’re an asshole who refuses to give consent for a search, that’s what! Now get out! Out! Out!”

(Read the rest of this chapter called "The Checkpoint" by clicking HERE.)

[The UnVeiled Lady]

Thanks for the info, I guess I AM a member of the right wing conspiracy so I appreciate the knowledge.

[babaloo999]

Right. I got pulled over for speeding once and was asked if I would let them search the vehicle.

Naturally, I said "no, why do you want to do that?" The standard reply is "you seem kind of nervous to me".

Idiots, and this was a DPS(Texas) trooper, people who I have infinitely more respect for than ordinary police.
Not that I dislike police. They're just people, after all.
I just don't like people, apparently. Anyway.......

I finally let them search, they said they would call the dogs so I let them search because I would be gone after a quick search.

These "officers" looked everywhere but under the hood. I almost went to jail for insisting that they look under the hood.

Whew, that was fun. Anyway, the point is, they will just make up something like "you seem nervous" or something else to get inside your vehicle. So friends, don't give them anything to find, it's as simple as that.

[Travis McGee]

NOT the end of the story. Now you have just proven to be an evasive and suspicious character, and they will find a way to crack you open like a nut, even if it takes a few hours.

[Travis McGee]

You can always abuse his shallow vanity and use him for a dozen bumps on a decent thread. He never clues in.

[tahiti]

"THIS is point those who *blindly* support the Second Amendment FAIL to comprehend - firearm ownership is not for every one - there HAS to be some qualification such as sanity (sound mind), of-age, clean, non-felony record ..."

I do not understand how you can characterize "...shall not be infringed" as a failure of comprehension.

Let's analyze your arbitrary "qualifications" for firearm ownership for their consistency to the presumption of liberty.

--"sanity": what is the definition of sanity? I can make a case of an insanity judgement to be labeled on all of the citizens that encouraged our government to unconstitutionally prohibit the private property owners of the airlines from encouraging their customers to carry their firearm on the aircraft as a deterrent to potential hijackers.

--"of age": We drive autos at 16, at 18 we can be drafted to die for our country plus leave our parents homes, but cannot consume alcohol until we are 21. What arbitrary age are you going to pick to exert a constitutional right to keep and bear arms?

--"clean": Clean from what? Are you talking about ingested chemicals? Which chemicals? Just illegal chemicals or illegal plus some legal chemicals? What about prescripted chemicals? What about food additives? When did the 9th amendment get repealed?

--"non-felony record": A divorced man, with children and thus saddled with court ordered child support payments, loses his job in the telecommunications industry (11,900 furloughs in that industry in April '03 alone) and begins to fall behind on the child support payments.

After six months of non-payment or $5,000 of missed payments, which ever comes first, that man will be charged and probably be convicted of a felony.

Now, after that conviction, he cannot exert "...the right of the people to keep and bear arms..." by your reasoning.

In all of your examples, all you have accomplished is disparaging and denying liberties and lining the pockets of the lawyers with the money of average citizens caught in the web of your arbitrary qualifications for firearm ownership.

As a brilliant attorney with the CATO institute has so clearly stated in the second amendment lawsuit in DC, "Arguments on the “reasonableness” of the law would reduce the litigation to a mere policy debate, rather than the indispensable debate on the meaning of the Second Amendment and the constitutionality of the D.C. gun ban."

[Smokin' Joe]

You got it!

If you say "No." to a consensual search, then you must have something to hide, right?

Which means that they now have probable cause to search your vehicle.

Tell us, sir, have you quit beating your wife yet? Yes or No.

[Travis McGee]

Here's how I deal with the "special black uniforms" in my checkpoint chapter. The purpose of all black uniforms is to instill instant fear in cowed peasants, just as it was with the Gestapo and SS in Nazi Germany.

Another man walked up to their window. Martin Palmer could not tell if he was from the military or the police: he was dressed in black from his helmet to his boots, with no badge or insignia in sight. The man in black rapped on his driver’s side window with the steel muzzle tip of his black submachine gun. “Open up! Get out! Now!”

I posted a link to that chapter back around 47.

[Smokin' Joe]

Read the yellow sheet. Those qualifications are there.

[flashbunny]

That seems like it would almost be cruel if it wasn't so funny.

[Flyer]

The last time I refused a "Consent to Search" I was on the side of the road for an hour and a half and was searched anyway.

[Travis McGee]

I know! For some reason the expression "useful idiot" springs to mind.

[Dan from Michigan]

Nukes aren't 'arms'. They are destructive devices.

[Travis McGee]

Interesting search story!

I wonder what the silent K-9 command is for "I know you don't smell any drugs Fido, but sit by the door and bark anyway."