I don't understand why the police and military have blindly taken to confiscating firearms and not questioning it. Each has a responsibility to uphold the US Constitution. The confiscation of arms is clearly a violation the 2nd and 4th amendment. I server in the USAF for 20 years, and if you felt an order was unlawful you have an obligation to question it and not comply. This is extremely important as our rights are eroded away. It also sets precedence for situations like this. Since the media has painted anyone who owns firearm as not politically correct it's being played down. I have written everyone I could and suggest you do the same. We are giving up right that our fore fathers fought and died for...
Responsibility to not comply with unlawful orders?
- Thread starter als54
- Start date
TheeBadOne
Moderator
source?
http://www.jpfo.org/alert20050909.htm
September 9, 2005
IF YOU DON'T LIKE THE TRUTH, DON'T READ THIS ALERT!
"Police Begin Seizing Guns of Civilians - Local police officers began confiscating weapons from civilians in preparation for a forced evacuation of the last holdouts..."
It sounds like a headline from _Unintended Consequences_. But it's happening now -- today -- in New Orleans. Law enforcement officials are confiscating the legally-owned firearms from law-abiding citizens without due process, without warrants, and without cause, leaving their owners utterly defenseleses and at the mercy of looters and thugs.
According to an article in the New York Times (http://tinyurl.com/9ot44), the police superintendent P. Edwin Compass III decreed that no civilians in New Orleans will be allowed to carry firearms of any kind, even if they possess permits to do so. "Only law enforcement are allowed to have weapons," he said.
(Well, not quite. The New Orleans police department will not be confiscating the weapons of private security personnel, guaranteeing that only those wealthy enough to afford a private bodyguard can be assured of protection).
Second Amendment advocates have long warned that such confiscations would undoubtedly occur in the event of major catastrophe. That they were right is not a surprise. Sadly, neither is the fact that few gun owners have resisted the confiscations.
Over the years, Americans have become increasingly ignorant about what rights they really have. Inalienable, individual rights have given way to "junk rights" -- privileges to be granted or withheld at the whim of the government. So if the government demands that they give up their guns, it's only natural that they should comply. The police officers and soldiers who are confiscating the firearms are either equally ignorant about citizens' rights ... or _simply don't care_ about following unConstitutional orders.
We've stated repeatedly that we must restore a Bill of Rights culture in this country. Until the populace knows all of its rights _and insist those rights be respected_ , the "brown-shirting" now in New Orleans will only get worse.
In just a few weeks, JPFO will release its latest documentary, "Bill of Rights or BUST!" This efficient, effective tool can quickly and easily help people understand their rights, and points out how our government is stealing those rights away. The introductory price for this high-quality video is only $19.95 postpaid, a $5 savings!. You can pre-order "Bill of Rights or Bust!" today by visiting www.jpfo.org/videostore.htm#borob.
We MUST educate our fellow citizens about the Bill of Rights, or what's happening in New Orleans today probably will happen in your town tomorrow.
Wanna bet the brownshirts aren't lusting to do it?
- The Liberty Crew
September 9, 2005
IF YOU DON'T LIKE THE TRUTH, DON'T READ THIS ALERT!
"Police Begin Seizing Guns of Civilians - Local police officers began confiscating weapons from civilians in preparation for a forced evacuation of the last holdouts..."
It sounds like a headline from _Unintended Consequences_. But it's happening now -- today -- in New Orleans. Law enforcement officials are confiscating the legally-owned firearms from law-abiding citizens without due process, without warrants, and without cause, leaving their owners utterly defenseleses and at the mercy of looters and thugs.
According to an article in the New York Times (http://tinyurl.com/9ot44), the police superintendent P. Edwin Compass III decreed that no civilians in New Orleans will be allowed to carry firearms of any kind, even if they possess permits to do so. "Only law enforcement are allowed to have weapons," he said.
(Well, not quite. The New Orleans police department will not be confiscating the weapons of private security personnel, guaranteeing that only those wealthy enough to afford a private bodyguard can be assured of protection).
Second Amendment advocates have long warned that such confiscations would undoubtedly occur in the event of major catastrophe. That they were right is not a surprise. Sadly, neither is the fact that few gun owners have resisted the confiscations.
Over the years, Americans have become increasingly ignorant about what rights they really have. Inalienable, individual rights have given way to "junk rights" -- privileges to be granted or withheld at the whim of the government. So if the government demands that they give up their guns, it's only natural that they should comply. The police officers and soldiers who are confiscating the firearms are either equally ignorant about citizens' rights ... or _simply don't care_ about following unConstitutional orders.
We've stated repeatedly that we must restore a Bill of Rights culture in this country. Until the populace knows all of its rights _and insist those rights be respected_ , the "brown-shirting" now in New Orleans will only get worse.
In just a few weeks, JPFO will release its latest documentary, "Bill of Rights or BUST!" This efficient, effective tool can quickly and easily help people understand their rights, and points out how our government is stealing those rights away. The introductory price for this high-quality video is only $19.95 postpaid, a $5 savings!. You can pre-order "Bill of Rights or Bust!" today by visiting www.jpfo.org/videostore.htm#borob.
We MUST educate our fellow citizens about the Bill of Rights, or what's happening in New Orleans today probably will happen in your town tomorrow.
Wanna bet the brownshirts aren't lusting to do it?
- The Liberty Crew
TheeBadOne
Moderator
numbers?
TheeBadOne
Moderator
Ah, use the one to paint all the others with.
"Then the California Highway Patrol – the CHiPs! – came and demanded we turn over our weapons.
What are you going to do? We were certainly outnumbered so we turned over the guns. Then, an hour later, they brought them back. With no explanation."
http://www.nola.com/newslogs/breaki.../nola_Times-Picayune/archives/2005_09_10.html
What are you going to do? We were certainly outnumbered so we turned over the guns. Then, an hour later, they brought them back. With no explanation."
http://www.nola.com/newslogs/breaki.../nola_Times-Picayune/archives/2005_09_10.html
Edward429451
Moderator
You always say that stuff, TBO. When I first started reading those responses from you, I understood your point. But over time I see its like a cliche'd stock answer for you. Lemme ask you something..
How many would be enough for you to say too many?
On sources...How many reports would it take for you to say hey something weirds going on and it don't seem right?
Do you think the media would be allowed to report so many that people would sit up and take notice? Of course not. I think they allow the media to report just a very few of the abuses so as to plant it in peoples minds that 'mistakes happen' and while a few abuses occur, we're still on your side, thereby conditioning people to expect some abuses and wrongs to them without making a fuss about it.
Get real man, a series of single brushstrokes on a canvas eventually begins to show a big picture regardless of if its viewed to the tune of somewhere over the rainbow.
I believe in not going off half cocked and overreacting but also think its just as foolish to blindly stand behind the administration because there wasn't XXX amounts of reports of whatever. If what you continue to assert is true then when do we see Bush & other (State) leaders come on the tube and give their little no tolerance for abuse speech, to reassure the public that they are really on our side? They do it on other issues, why not abuse?
Even I realize that everything we hear is not true, from both sides! The truth is somewhere in the middle, and the middle my friend is way right of where you hold them to be, and a danger to the American people.
Yeah. One's too many. Would you happen to have the link to the article where Hourichi got sentenced to life for murdering Vicki? When abusers are not held accountable on a single case basis, they fail to back up your position and make you look goofy for backing them up. No offense.
How many would be enough for you to say too many?
On sources...How many reports would it take for you to say hey something weirds going on and it don't seem right?
Do you think the media would be allowed to report so many that people would sit up and take notice? Of course not. I think they allow the media to report just a very few of the abuses so as to plant it in peoples minds that 'mistakes happen' and while a few abuses occur, we're still on your side, thereby conditioning people to expect some abuses and wrongs to them without making a fuss about it.
Get real man, a series of single brushstrokes on a canvas eventually begins to show a big picture regardless of if its viewed to the tune of somewhere over the rainbow.
I believe in not going off half cocked and overreacting but also think its just as foolish to blindly stand behind the administration because there wasn't XXX amounts of reports of whatever. If what you continue to assert is true then when do we see Bush & other (State) leaders come on the tube and give their little no tolerance for abuse speech, to reassure the public that they are really on our side? They do it on other issues, why not abuse?
Even I realize that everything we hear is not true, from both sides! The truth is somewhere in the middle, and the middle my friend is way right of where you hold them to be, and a danger to the American people.
Yeah. One's too many. Would you happen to have the link to the article where Hourichi got sentenced to life for murdering Vicki? When abusers are not held accountable on a single case basis, they fail to back up your position and make you look goofy for backing them up. No offense.
Some there think that universality is the one true measuring stick. As I have posted numerous times, I do not restrict my concern to what a President says or does or what a Governor says or does since my rights are far more likely to be violated at the municipal level by a Mayor, City Council, and their hired help, the local PD.
Rick
"the others"?
I AM one- been a cop since Carter was pretending to be president, I do not like many of the directions my profession has been heading for the past 15 of those years, and stuff like this underscores my point.
Yes, one is too many. You can bet your rear-end that the order wasn't given to just one officer. My point is that the first cop never said "Under what constitutional umbrella are we seizing all these guns? That's what I thought. Hell NO I won't do that, and you're nuts if you do."
I have a limit to what I will do to my fellow citizens, and that limit is called the constitution. I also have some discretionary authority, and something called common sense. I have made these limits crystal clear to the other cops I work with on several occasions.
Some don't seem to grasp the notion that you can actually do that.
That kind of puts a Citizen between a rock and a hard place. You don't want to get up in a LEOs face and bring on a knot on the head or jail but your Constitutional rights are superior to what some toadie instructs LEOs to enforce.
I detest the commie slogan, "The end justifies the means" but in the case of constitutional rights in a real bind I suppose hide the guns and lie. Maybe better to be a coward today and live to fight with all your might tommorrow. You can't win against massive power.
I detest the commie slogan, "The end justifies the means" but in the case of constitutional rights in a real bind I suppose hide the guns and lie. Maybe better to be a coward today and live to fight with all your might tommorrow. You can't win against massive power.
Let's think of the danger that cops would be in, if they conducted house-to-house searches to confiscate the guns.
First of all, some people might start shootin' as the cops arrive.
Even if they do not, are the cops going to be doing thorough, exhaustive searches of all of the houses they go into? How could anyone expect them to get 100% of any firearms contained in a given house? There could be LOADS of guns that were purchased or obtained without showing up on any list the government or police have. So the cops could be "surrendered" a small assortment of guns -- the ones they go in knowing about -- and then shot in the back as they leave with the ones they didn't know about. And that mystery will always exist -- "Did they get all the guns that were there to be gotten?"
This kind of a plan has "losing proposition" written all over it, for the cops.
For one thing, getting the guns turned over won't be saving anybody even if it does get done effectively. For another thing, it'll be a dangerous road to go down because it's gonna piss a lot of (armed) people off.
-blackmind
First of all, some people might start shootin' as the cops arrive.
Even if they do not, are the cops going to be doing thorough, exhaustive searches of all of the houses they go into? How could anyone expect them to get 100% of any firearms contained in a given house? There could be LOADS of guns that were purchased or obtained without showing up on any list the government or police have. So the cops could be "surrendered" a small assortment of guns -- the ones they go in knowing about -- and then shot in the back as they leave with the ones they didn't know about. And that mystery will always exist -- "Did they get all the guns that were there to be gotten?"
This kind of a plan has "losing proposition" written all over it, for the cops.
For one thing, getting the guns turned over won't be saving anybody even if it does get done effectively. For another thing, it'll be a dangerous road to go down because it's gonna piss a lot of (armed) people off.
-blackmind
als54 . . .
I want to make two points that I am sure will be unpopular; before I do however, als 54 thanks for your Air Force career of service to America.
I, too, served over 20 years on active duty (Navy). I believe the proper interpretation of the US's "lawful order" policy for military personnel is that one is not to execute unlawful orders. However, IMHO, anyone serving under the penalties of the UCMJ must be very certain that an order in unlawful before refusing to execute it, since the serious penalties re refusing to comply with a lawful order immediately attach -- and there certainly are some "murky" areas, as well as those that are clearly "black" or "white".
For example, are you CERTAIN that the Fourth Amendment's prohibition against unlawful seizures apply in New Orleans right now? I do not know Louisiana law -- and I am not an attorney -- but I would guess that somewhere in that state’s statutes the governor is empowered to take extraordinary measures under extreme circumstances, in which case there would be "due process of law". The fact is "due process" does not necessarily mean a legal proceeding before property can be seized, if appropriate laws have already been enacted that allow administrative action to be the ONLY required step -- obviously, with potential appeal to the courts.
Let me offer a poor -- but it is the only one I can think of offhand -- example to illustrate this concept. The TSA is empowered by law (I suspect) to establish regulations for airline security; the details are left to the TSA by the enabling statutes. TSA administrative decides -- no legislation, but "due process of law” because the enabling statue permits TSA to do so -- that all knives are prohibited. Accordingly, when you inadvertently leave -- and, I would guess, we all have done this -- your one-inch blade penknife in your pocket, you are given the “last minute” choice between not boarding the plane or turning the knife over to TSA.
The point here is there is no specific law -- in this hypothetical example -- that talks to "one inch blade penknives", but there is statute that allows TSA to establish detailed administrative regulations in accordance with that law.
I would bet that Louisiana’s governor has corresponding administrative powers, pursuant to some broad and non-specific law, to take actions for "the public welfare and safety" during “emergency situations”. None of us like this and it certainly goes against our "political grain", but I strongly suspect there is a basis in statute and, therefore, these seizures are neither unlawful nor do they violate the "due process" clause.
With all this said, at best the foregoing is only well-reasoned and mature speculation; I have not done any research to ascertain the laws that apply.
Wit best regards to my fellow armed forces retiree -- Roy
I want to make two points that I am sure will be unpopular; before I do however, als 54 thanks for your Air Force career of service to America.
I, too, served over 20 years on active duty (Navy). I believe the proper interpretation of the US's "lawful order" policy for military personnel is that one is not to execute unlawful orders. However, IMHO, anyone serving under the penalties of the UCMJ must be very certain that an order in unlawful before refusing to execute it, since the serious penalties re refusing to comply with a lawful order immediately attach -- and there certainly are some "murky" areas, as well as those that are clearly "black" or "white".
For example, are you CERTAIN that the Fourth Amendment's prohibition against unlawful seizures apply in New Orleans right now? I do not know Louisiana law -- and I am not an attorney -- but I would guess that somewhere in that state’s statutes the governor is empowered to take extraordinary measures under extreme circumstances, in which case there would be "due process of law". The fact is "due process" does not necessarily mean a legal proceeding before property can be seized, if appropriate laws have already been enacted that allow administrative action to be the ONLY required step -- obviously, with potential appeal to the courts.
Let me offer a poor -- but it is the only one I can think of offhand -- example to illustrate this concept. The TSA is empowered by law (I suspect) to establish regulations for airline security; the details are left to the TSA by the enabling statutes. TSA administrative decides -- no legislation, but "due process of law” because the enabling statue permits TSA to do so -- that all knives are prohibited. Accordingly, when you inadvertently leave -- and, I would guess, we all have done this -- your one-inch blade penknife in your pocket, you are given the “last minute” choice between not boarding the plane or turning the knife over to TSA.
The point here is there is no specific law -- in this hypothetical example -- that talks to "one inch blade penknives", but there is statute that allows TSA to establish detailed administrative regulations in accordance with that law.
I would bet that Louisiana’s governor has corresponding administrative powers, pursuant to some broad and non-specific law, to take actions for "the public welfare and safety" during “emergency situations”. None of us like this and it certainly goes against our "political grain", but I strongly suspect there is a basis in statute and, therefore, these seizures are neither unlawful nor do they violate the "due process" clause.
With all this said, at best the foregoing is only well-reasoned and mature speculation; I have not done any research to ascertain the laws that apply.
Wit best regards to my fellow armed forces retiree -- Roy
WE have the luxury of being able to sit away from the incident, and discuss it. Being in NO right doesn't afford you that ability. As I see it when they knock on your door you have 4 choices.
1. Refuse (politely, and explain the constituional aspect)
2. Refuse (rudely, and with extreme prejudice)
3. Comply
4. Lie, and keep your mouth shut about your stash.
The first 3 will have immediate, and severe consequences.
The third if done properly will allow you to hold onto some of your resources.
There are some on this forum that would dictate that because it is an order from a LEO, that it would be absolutely unlawful for you to not comply.
Me, I say we should all grab 5 friends and march down to NO to put a stop to this. Oh and if the NRA was all they say they are, they would be right in tow.
1. Refuse (politely, and explain the constituional aspect)
2. Refuse (rudely, and with extreme prejudice)
3. Comply
4. Lie, and keep your mouth shut about your stash.
The first 3 will have immediate, and severe consequences.
The third if done properly will allow you to hold onto some of your resources.
There are some on this forum that would dictate that because it is an order from a LEO, that it would be absolutely unlawful for you to not comply.
Me, I say we should all grab 5 friends and march down to NO to put a stop to this. Oh and if the NRA was all they say they are, they would be right in tow.
Baba Louie
New member
While I sometimes think about such things, I do not lose any sleep over American LEO or the American Military to comply with unlawful orders as a whole.
We saw a video or two of LEO in NO knocking in doors to see if there were any fatalities within and we witnessed edited versions of encounters with a few stay behind citizens who were disarmed and told to evacuate... when they clearly said they did not wish to.
While those videos made me cringe and they MIGHT represent ALL of the LEO/Mil emergency response teams, I sincerely doubt it. ALL of the LEO's and Mil personnel I know are ALL firmly aware of Joe Citizen's rights and are sworn to uphold the Law of the land and do so, sometimes to the detriment of their own well being.
Now, should Senator Feinstein actually get a law passed with Presidential signature requiring ALL American Citizens to turn in ALL of their now outlawed firearms... then WE DID something wrong by allowing that. Needless to say, the Cops would be very busy as there would probably be a whole lot of new armed & dangerous outlaws to confront.
Might happen.
If we allow it.
We saw a video or two of LEO in NO knocking in doors to see if there were any fatalities within and we witnessed edited versions of encounters with a few stay behind citizens who were disarmed and told to evacuate... when they clearly said they did not wish to.
While those videos made me cringe and they MIGHT represent ALL of the LEO/Mil emergency response teams, I sincerely doubt it. ALL of the LEO's and Mil personnel I know are ALL firmly aware of Joe Citizen's rights and are sworn to uphold the Law of the land and do so, sometimes to the detriment of their own well being.
Now, should Senator Feinstein actually get a law passed with Presidential signature requiring ALL American Citizens to turn in ALL of their now outlawed firearms... then WE DID something wrong by allowing that. Needless to say, the Cops would be very busy as there would probably be a whole lot of new armed & dangerous outlaws to confront.
Might happen.
If we allow it.
RWK, without any research on my part either, I suspect you are right in your theories.
I'm a cop, and I'm all in favor of an armed public. Especially in circumstances like N.O. Let them keep their guns. The innocent will have the ability to protect themselves, and the thugs will know that every target may be more heavily armed than they are.
I have to tell people sometimes, it's not law enforcements job to protect you. It's not. There are not enough cops to give everyone a personal bodyguard. All we can do is respond when something does happen. Each person is responsible for his/her own safety.
I'm a cop, and I'm all in favor of an armed public. Especially in circumstances like N.O. Let them keep their guns. The innocent will have the ability to protect themselves, and the thugs will know that every target may be more heavily armed than they are.
I have to tell people sometimes, it's not law enforcements job to protect you. It's not. There are not enough cops to give everyone a personal bodyguard. All we can do is respond when something does happen. Each person is responsible for his/her own safety.