Jeff White
New member
Instead of jumping in on the 300 new ATF agents thread, I think I'll start a new one.
Folks, one of the stated goals of our enemies, HCI, VPC etc. has been to drive a wedge between law enforcement and the NRA and law abiding gun owners and LEOs. They have publically stated that. From the looks of the above mentioned thread and a couple others I've seen, they are succeeding.
I've worn a uniform all of my adult life. I've been in the Army for nearly 25 years and have been a fully sworn reserve LEO for the past 14 years.
I'm going to relate some tough judgement calls I've made in the past 14 years and bear in mind I only work about 60-120 hours per month. Full time LEOs deal with this on a daily basis. You can flame me if you think I made the wrong call, but I'd like you to tell me what YOU would have done.
Situation 1: You are called to a domestic disturbance in a mobile home park. Upon arrival, you find two families going at it over a fight their children had. You and the other officer separate the fueding parties. You are invited into one of the mobile homes to talk with the father of one of the children. He is drunk, and on the verge of being combative. As you are talking with him and trying to calm him down, you notice a nice display cabinet full of firearms. After temporarily calming the situation you leave. Back at the station you are entering the disposition into the computer. Do you make an entry noting the presence of weapons in the house?
Isn't that gun registration...even on a small scale? I did make a note that there were firearms in the house. I did it for the safety of any other officers who would have to respond to a domestic at that location. Given the subjects alcohol abuse and temper it was a safety issue. What would you do.
Situation 2: You are on patrol, state law where you work requires that all firearms be unloaded and cased while being transported in a motor vehicle recent legislation makes any weapons violation involving a firearm a felony. A pickup with out of state plates pull into traffic in front of you. In the gunrack in the rear window rides an uncased Remington 700 with a nice scope. What do you do?
I stopped the pickup. Advised the driver of the state law and assisted him in wrapping the rifle in a blanket and stowing it behind the seat. Could have made a nice felony arrest, seized the rifle. Could have ignored it altogether, let it be another officer's problem...but maybe the other officer would have made the arrest.
Situation 3: Another officer on the shift has made a small drug arrest out of a traffic stop. The kid with the dope decides to "work" the charges off. He goes to his suppliers house and buys some more, he goes in with your marked money and returns with more dope. You go to the judge and he issues a search warrant. The guy he bought from is a real dirt bag, has a record of battery to police officers and is known to posses weapons. He lives with his elderly mother.
How do you serve the search warrant and not endanger your officers, the elderly mother, or the suspect? No knock dynamic entry in the hopes of securing everything before you startle mom into a heart attack? Walk up to the door and ask for entry?
We used an officer he knew to get him to the porch on a ruse about some other activity, once he was on the porch, three officers went in the back door, weapons drawn but held down against their thighs to keep from startling mom and secured the room where the drugs were.
I won't even try to defend the actions of some agencies. There are bad LEOs just like there are bad doctors, lawyers and computer programmers.
I'd like everyone who really thinks that all law enforcement is the enemy to think about how they'd handle those situations.
I'm sure very few people know how thin a line there is between a free state and a police state better then the police. Police make calls like those above on a daily basis. For the most part they don't want to put anyone in jail that doesn't belong there. I think that the majority of LEOs I know wish something would be done to hold those people responsible for Ruby Ridge, Waco and all of the other bad operations accountable.
Wear the badge for a while...at that level you don't make policy or Supreme Court decisions...you just live with all of that and try to do the best you can.
Jeff
Folks, one of the stated goals of our enemies, HCI, VPC etc. has been to drive a wedge between law enforcement and the NRA and law abiding gun owners and LEOs. They have publically stated that. From the looks of the above mentioned thread and a couple others I've seen, they are succeeding.
I've worn a uniform all of my adult life. I've been in the Army for nearly 25 years and have been a fully sworn reserve LEO for the past 14 years.
I'm going to relate some tough judgement calls I've made in the past 14 years and bear in mind I only work about 60-120 hours per month. Full time LEOs deal with this on a daily basis. You can flame me if you think I made the wrong call, but I'd like you to tell me what YOU would have done.
Situation 1: You are called to a domestic disturbance in a mobile home park. Upon arrival, you find two families going at it over a fight their children had. You and the other officer separate the fueding parties. You are invited into one of the mobile homes to talk with the father of one of the children. He is drunk, and on the verge of being combative. As you are talking with him and trying to calm him down, you notice a nice display cabinet full of firearms. After temporarily calming the situation you leave. Back at the station you are entering the disposition into the computer. Do you make an entry noting the presence of weapons in the house?
Isn't that gun registration...even on a small scale? I did make a note that there were firearms in the house. I did it for the safety of any other officers who would have to respond to a domestic at that location. Given the subjects alcohol abuse and temper it was a safety issue. What would you do.
Situation 2: You are on patrol, state law where you work requires that all firearms be unloaded and cased while being transported in a motor vehicle recent legislation makes any weapons violation involving a firearm a felony. A pickup with out of state plates pull into traffic in front of you. In the gunrack in the rear window rides an uncased Remington 700 with a nice scope. What do you do?
I stopped the pickup. Advised the driver of the state law and assisted him in wrapping the rifle in a blanket and stowing it behind the seat. Could have made a nice felony arrest, seized the rifle. Could have ignored it altogether, let it be another officer's problem...but maybe the other officer would have made the arrest.
Situation 3: Another officer on the shift has made a small drug arrest out of a traffic stop. The kid with the dope decides to "work" the charges off. He goes to his suppliers house and buys some more, he goes in with your marked money and returns with more dope. You go to the judge and he issues a search warrant. The guy he bought from is a real dirt bag, has a record of battery to police officers and is known to posses weapons. He lives with his elderly mother.
How do you serve the search warrant and not endanger your officers, the elderly mother, or the suspect? No knock dynamic entry in the hopes of securing everything before you startle mom into a heart attack? Walk up to the door and ask for entry?
We used an officer he knew to get him to the porch on a ruse about some other activity, once he was on the porch, three officers went in the back door, weapons drawn but held down against their thighs to keep from startling mom and secured the room where the drugs were.
I won't even try to defend the actions of some agencies. There are bad LEOs just like there are bad doctors, lawyers and computer programmers.
I'd like everyone who really thinks that all law enforcement is the enemy to think about how they'd handle those situations.
I'm sure very few people know how thin a line there is between a free state and a police state better then the police. Police make calls like those above on a daily basis. For the most part they don't want to put anyone in jail that doesn't belong there. I think that the majority of LEOs I know wish something would be done to hold those people responsible for Ruby Ridge, Waco and all of the other bad operations accountable.
Wear the badge for a while...at that level you don't make policy or Supreme Court decisions...you just live with all of that and try to do the best you can.
Jeff