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Strange program in Philadelphia
According to this story, the city is establishing a program where, if a citizen consents to an officer searching their house for guns, they won't be charged based on any guns found.
I could grasp the idea of an amnesty, but can't see the relevance of consent to search. Of course, the reporter might be off base here. Or maybe the idea is that a person only gets amnesty if he lets officers search the house to make sure that's the only one. (One problem with drafting amnesties, BTW, is figuring out how to exclude someone who's already cornered: you don't want a team to execute a search warrant and be told as they enter "there are sawed-off shotguns upstairs, I want to turn them in and get the benefit of the amnesty."
I'll stay in AZ, thank you. Where if an officer asks you what guns you have in your house, the next question is likely to be how much you want for the Glock.
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Weird. Possessing a gun in Philadelphia isn't any more a crime than it is in any other part of the state. Unless the person who holds the property is a prohibited person, which a lot of people are in the crappy neighborhoods. I need to link to this and offer my $0.02 :)
Considering the fear, distrust and downright HATRED that the "target audience" for this proposal feels towards the PPD, I doubt there'll be many takers.
Of course, since the proposal doesn't mention "other" items or substances which may be illegal, it would only take one granny led out of her house in handcuffs for marijuana possession to put this particular program out of business.
Philadelphia is attempting to stop or dissuade people from buying guns in the first place. They've got ads all over saying, "That gun you bought for a criminal could end up killing a child."
Philadelphia is a complete disaster.
So technically a pissed off spouse can call while you're at work and have your guns confiscated? I see that occurring more often than any criminal activity being prevented.
Philadelphia can offer whatever shamnesty they want. It won't stop the state from enforcing their gun laws nor the Feds (i.e. sawed off shotguns).
It's a ploy to trick people.
Seems to me this is trying to attract consent from individuals who don't own the guns that would be found -- such as parents with criminal offspring living at home, or anti-gun spouses with criminal (or, I suppose, even just gun-owning) partners.
I suspect the police doing the searches won't much care whether the guns they find are "illegal"; they'll take all the guns they find.
The last line of the article is telling. The hotline is to report "guns", not "illegal guns".