A dangerous proposal in Congress

[biku324]

Originally Posted by Rodan

Exactly.

Unfortunately "law and order" isn't always the same as "right" or moral. Many folks have done terrible things throughout history in the name of 'law and order'.

When the difference is unclear, especially to those wearing badges, people suffer.

Sorry, not buying. Truly unjust laws don't withstand court scrutiny or legislative revolt. The reason we have laws is to keep those in power from inflicting their view of 'rirght' or 'moral' on people who don't share that view. Law doesn't establish good or bad; it establishes only minimum standards of behavior that can be enforced by civil or criminal courts.

[dockmurgw]

OK, it's a tossup...I can't decide who gets the bravest man in the world award.
The guy who carried an Iron My Shirt sign at a feminist rights rally...
Or biku324 for expressing his opinion in this forum.

[Yaworski]

Originally Posted by dockmurgw

Or biku324 for expressing his opinion in this forum.

Bear in mind that biku324 is part of a protected class.

[biku324]

Originally Posted by dockmurgw

OK, it's a tossup...I can't decide who gets the bravest man in the world award.
The guy who carried an Iron My Shirt sign at a feminist rights rally...
Or biku324 for expressing his opinion in this forum.

This forum is the best online for allowing opinions on these kinds of topics.

[Rodan]

Originally Posted by biku324

This forum is the best online for allowing opinions on these kinds of topics.

Considering the editing going on in this very thread, I find that statement quite ironic.

[biku324]

The folks that own the Forum get to run it their way. Not even a question about that.

[RetCapt]

Originally Posted by Rick H.

And what is a "criminals rights"? The answer is they have the same "rights" as anyone else. What they actually receive are several WARNINGS, not rights! Miranda is Not and has NEVER been a right! Why this ever became a commonly used term for Miranda I will never know because it is a warning to them, to keep their mouths shut and if they don't, anything they say can/will be used against them. Just another one of those terms that people continually misuse and no one ever corrects. You can spend years searching the Constitution and Bill of Rights and you will never see the term "Miranda" anywhere in them. And don't kid yourself for a second, the bad guys know Miranda better than most cops, prosecutors and lawyers and when to ask for a lawyer. In 30 years of doing cop work Miranda never bothered me at all. In most cases when an suspect invokes his Miranda Warnings I knew I had him by the short hairs and had the right person. It is all nothing more than a big game made more complex by.....(Surprise!) lawyers looking for a loophole for their client. Remember too that Miranda Warnings don't have to be given if a suspect isn't asked questions about his/her involvement in a specific event. It's all really quite simple.

As for obtaining a search warrant, this too is no big deal and in fact made my job easier. It was just another hurdle to get over and now search warrants in most jurisdictions can be obtained in minutes instead of hours or days. Once a warrant is in hand little can be done by a suspect to stave off the inevitable.

Rick H.

Agree.

Miranda (and before that Escobedo and Dorado) was not a problem. Miranda is only necessary when both custody (arrest, not temporary detention) and interrogation are present. Rick H. nailed it as far as I am concerned. An individual invoking his/her Miranda rights has good reasons to do so. My experience was always that innocent persons, when accused of the commission of a crime, immediately proclaim their innocence rather than leaving that question open while invoking their Miranda rights. Either way, when the suspect did invoke their Miranda rights, we walked away from any further interrogation.

In some cases, murders, where we knew the suspect was guilty, we may have had to wait for years, but we did get it, via DNA. In each of these cases, our suspect was indeed guilty. They had not invoked their Miranda rights. They just lied. But we had no way to rebut those lies. Did defense counsel know this? I don't know, despite how obvious it was to us.

So a question: In cases such as I have cited above, where a guilty person evades conviction for decades, who benefits and who loses? Clearly the suspect benefits because all this time he is free. Does LE lose? Except for those who investigated the case and it became part of them (which happened to a very close friend of mine and it killed him), not the rest of LE, because there are always so many other cases that keep on coming. That leaves society. Society expects the criminal justice system to put away such individuals, but instead such individuals are free to continue to endanger society.

Search warrants were/are not an obstacle, provided we had probable cause. If not, no warrant, so don't apply.

We used search warrants a lot in patrol, but a lot more in detectives because what we were investigating was after the fact.

I always counselled my troops that if they had probable cause to search, but there was no hurry, to get the S/W to have the protection of judicial review. A frequent instance of this was on vehicle stops on major cases, where we knew there was evidence inside the car, and thus sufficient P/C to search. By impounding the car and getting the warrant the opportunity for defense counsel to contest the legality of the search is greatly limited.

I had my troops convinced that a search warrant was their best friend. The other side of that coin is that search warrants are defense counsel's worst enemy, because of less opportunity for courtroom theatrics and gymnastics to try to obfuscate the issue of guilt.

So the generalization of "...said no cop ever.." is, in my opinion, indicative of a lack of knowledge of how law enforcement investigations really do work.

[biku324]

Originally Posted by Yaworski

Bear in mind that biku324 is part of a protected class.

What class is that? Who decides on it? How does it work? For what?

I was the protected 'package' on many occasions over the past year in Mogadishu, where when leaving the Halane Base, Westerners need a protective services detail to protect against simple attacks, complex attacks, IEDs, and kidnapping - was that part of a 'protected class?'

Ah, the secure knowledge of the world's ways learned from one's armchair.

[BC38]

Originally Posted by biku324

Childhood stories are surely the very best way to inform one's thought processes.

I'll take those "childhood stories" about Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Adams, and all the other patriots who opposed that gun-grabbing-king over the revisionist "stuff" that people are being gaslighted and brainwashed with today. Thank you very much.

[Buford57]

Originally Posted by NFrameFred

I've often posited that position. Those who long for Big Daddy Goobermint to control everything with an iron fist they don't like or fear salivate at twisting the language with it's antiquated phrasing to mean things like "the militia is the National Guard" and other misapplied definitions. In that context, "well regulated" indeed inferred 'arms sighted in by adjustments coming by practice and familiarity with the weapons'; by a militia comprised of all the citizenry who could bear arms for the common defense.

It strains credulity under any stretch of the imagination that the people who had just risked their fortunes and very lives to rebel against an authoritarian juggernaut that tried to take their very means of armed resistance by unjust law would immediately turn around and advocate such for themselves and their fellow countrymen. The idea that could be the case defies common sense.

"Regulate" is an antique gunsmith term that is still used today to describe adjusting shotgun or other fixed sight barrels to the proper point of aim to coincide with the impact of the projectile(s).
"A well regulated militia" equals a defense force of our own citizens that knows how to shoot,maintaining willingness, preparation and proficiency.

The first documentation of my family in this country is fine levied against my ancestor for reporting to a 1643 Connecticut militia meeting with his firearm not "in order". Whether that meant dirty, worn flint or insufficient ammo isn't clear, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't for having a15 round magazine or a tinfoil hat.

[BC38]

Originally Posted by Rick H.

And what is a "criminals rights"? The answer is they have the same "rights" as anyone else. What they actually receive are several WARNINGS, not rights! Miranda is Not and has NEVER been a right! Why this ever became a commonly used term for Miranda I will never know because it is a warning to them, to keep their mouths shut and if they don't, anything they say can/will be used against them. Just another one of those terms that people continually misuse and no one ever corrects. You can spend years searching the Constitution and Bill of Rights and you will never see the term "Miranda" anywhere in them. And don't kid yourself for a second, the bad guys know Miranda better than most cops, prosecutors and lawyers and when to ask for a lawyer. In 30 years of doing cop work Miranda never bothered me at all. In most cases when an suspect invokes his Miranda Warnings I knew I had him by the short hairs and had the right person. It is all nothing more than a big game made more complex by.....(Surprise!) lawyers looking for a loophole for their client. Remember too that Miranda Warnings don't have to be given if a suspect isn't asked questions about his/her involvement in a specific event. It's all really quite simple.

As for obtaining a search warrant, this too is no big deal and in fact made my job easier. It was just another hurdle to get over and now search warrants in most jurisdictions can be obtained in minutes instead of hours or days. Once a warrant is in hand little can be done by a suspect to stave off the inevitable.

Rick H.

I don't get it.

As to Miranda - as I read it the first part is basically an extension of the 5th Amendment - you don't have to say anything, but if you do it may be used to incriminate you.

The right to competent legal council - the second half of Miranda is the 6th Amendment in a nutshell.

The requirement for a warrant is the embodiment of the 4th Amendment.

Everyone HAS 4th, 5th, and 6th Amendment rights. So how is Miranda NOT a recitation of a suspect's rights? The suspect is being INFORMED of their rights - under the assumption that many people are ignorant of their rights.

Given the state of our education system, the presumption of ignorance isn't surprising to me.

JMO...

[steelslaver]

Originally Posted by biku324

You will always find me on the side of law and order. Always.

and in 1773 you would have tried to arrest my great great great great grandfather for tossing tea in Boston harbor and in 1776 you would have worn a red uniform. After all that was the side of "Law and Order"

Laws like the one this thread is about are all fine good, except for the FACT that eventually they WILL be interpreted to mean anyone with a gun who has spoken out against the government or the current administrators of the same and history does bear this out. The who determines the nuts and bolts of it is HUGE. Very few of us would every get a hearing at the Supreme Court level. Lot of people have spend a lot of time behind bars waiting for a law to be over turned.

The people who brought us Ruby Ridge, never spent a day in jail for killing innocent people over a bogus gun charge. I am sure they were "always on the side of law and order too."

[biku324]

Originally Posted by steelslaver

and in 1773 you would have tried to arrest my great great great great grandfather for tossing tea in Boston harbor and in 1776 you would have worn a red uniform. After all that was the side of "Law and Order"

Horse manure. This isn't the 18th century and today's Americans have more wealth and freedom than our forefathers dreamt of.

[steelslaver]

What does today's wealth have to do with how YOU most certainly would have behaved in the late 18th century. You of course are welcome you opinion,, but I am 100% certain mine is correct

[biku324]

Originally Posted by steelslaver

What does today's wealth have to do with how YOU most certainly would have behaved in the late 18th century. You of course are welcome you opinion,, but I am 100% certain mine is correct

Wealth and freedom. Use the whole quote.

[handejector]

I think we've covered it.
I doubt it will pass.
We have a very important issue to focus on at the moment, i.e., saving and rebuilding the NRA.
Read this if you haven't already, and please spread the word! ----
https://smith-wessonforum.com/2nd-am...#post141941951