The first example is out of Florida, where the Tampa city council is trying to get the governor, Rick Scott, to write an executive order finding concealed carry permit holders do not have the right to carry their weapons concealed. The mayor of Tampa cites the dangers that exercising your Second Amendment rights poses to the political class at the Republican National Convention (because these people are important!), much like the Secret Service don’t want you protesting near any presidential events.
“The venues hosting both the Democratic and Republican National Conventions have officially barred attendees from bringing weapons onto the premises, but that does nothing to dismantle the right of any permitted gun owner to carry a concealed weapon outside the buildings where thousands of protesters are expected to gather.” The venues are private locations and have the right to deny access to permit holders, as should be; but here the organizers want to deny you your First and Second Amendment rights outside the venues. Tampa wants a “Clean Zone” where protesters would be able to rally near the venue (but I would assume at a safe distance and in a location where they can’t harass these scions of the nation.
In Seattle, the police want to videotape protests. After the Occupy idiots rioted at the Seattle port, police want a law stating, ”No person shall become the subject of the collection of information on account of lawful exercise of a constitutional right or civil liberty…” changed. After all, these police are important…your rights are secondary to their safety.
Meanwhile, just because you aren’t a suspect in a crime, doesn’t mean the SWAT team in Albuquerque won’t kick your door down and assault you. Here, Bernalillo County deputies were investigating a double homicide, when “noticed activity in a unit two doors away, and decided to raid that one, too—without a warrant.” Due process, that’s only something we’ve had since the Magna Carta, but it is inconvenient to the folks in power…so illegally they’ve been legislating it out of existence with no-knock laws for the drug war, lenient warrant policies in the terror war, and unconstitutional legislation like MAP21, the National Defense Authorization Act, and the Enemy Expatriation Act. The politicians have set the mood for the police, who now just assume they can do whatever the hell they please.
The BCSO “officers knew they’d need a warrant to search the apartment and seize evidence, but didn’t think they’d need one to break down the door and force [the residents] to the floor at gunpoint. So while one officer requested a search warrant, eight other officers battered down the Gamboas’ door, stormed it with shotguns raised, and made the Gamboas lie flat on the floor.” The correct response here, of course, is for the department to fire every officer connected to the incident, but that won’t happen.
And as more and more people arm themselves to protect themselves from criminals, their politicians, and their police, the official response has been to arm the police with military surplus, increase SWAT involvement in the simplest of law enforcement operations, and to ignore their own responsibilities. Have no mistake: the police are at war with the very people they are supposed to protect, and this conflict of interests puts every one of us in danger.
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