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Bloomberg and the Fourth Amendment
I've been out of action for a while -- personal matters, work, and then my main computer died this morning. But some good news: Judge rules NYC systematically violated Fourth Amendment with its stop and frisk (for firearms) policy. She orders some pretty serious remedies.
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Is it that clear? Suppose they stopped and frisked every 7th person who walked down a particular street.
The biggest problem with stop and frisk is not the 4th amendment problem but that it is designed exactly to specifically violate the 2nd Amendment.
The whole point of the stop and frisk program is to presume that only criminals would bear arms, that citizens have no business bearing arms to defend themselves, and then to search everyone in order to arrest those bearing arms and scare honest people away from bearing arms by making them fear a search and arrest.
The end result is a nerf environment for criminals who generally are physically and mentally able to dominate an ordinary unarmed person since it is their way of life, it is a skill they spend their time perfecting while honest people go to work. Criminals don't need arms to commit crimes, especially when their prey - ordinary people - are rendered defenseless by the law.
Now a just punishment would be to lock Bloomberg in the same jails as those who were arrested, even for just a night.
Actually, elected officials who glaringly violate the Constitution should spend the rest of their lives in prison, no parole. We have allowed these evil corrupt people to abuse us since the Union began.
The law is pretty clear on police performing Terry stops; there must be a reasonable articulable suspicion that the person is involved in criminal activity. We went through this when handgun open carry began to move here in Washington. The police would tell us that the mere presence of a handgun was reasonable suspicion that a crime was afoot, only they couldn’t articulate what crime. In State vs Casad the court said “It is not unlawful for a person to responsibly walk down the street with a visible firearm, even if this action would shock some people.” See also: http://onemansthoughts.wordpress.com/tag/state-v-casad/
It is illegal for the police to stop people and frisk them or demand ID without a reasonable articulable suspicion that the person is involved in a crime. It doesn’t matter if they choose them randomly or based on the degree of pigment in their skin. I’m amazed that the policy had survived this long- it would have been thrown out in any other State.
New Yorkers are apparently OK with sacrificing a few rights for some perceived safety (if there really is any). What they fail to understand is that some particular activity they hold dear could just as easily be deemed ‘dangerous’ in the future, and subject them to police harassment. Religion, clubs, whatever, can be considered a hazard to public safety. Once the standard has been set, it’s often difficult or impossible to change it.
How much of the drop in NYC violent crime could be attributed to the stop and frisk policy? I'm not a defender by any means, but I know some people do defend that policy on grounds of effectiveness.
Chris:
There was a period of time about when John Lindsey became mayor that the people of NYC really became sheep. Prior to 1968 the only thing that you needed a permit for was a handgun and that was because of the Sullivan Act in the early 1900's. Sullivan was a politician who at the behest apparently of one large criminal organization created this law. The only ones affected by it where the rival criminal organizations and the common people in NYC. People in the rest of the state pretty much had no problems getting a handgun permit.
In 1968 a firearms permit for rifles and shotguns came into effect but it was shall issue and just registered them. People still carried them quite openly on subways and buses and in the streets. No one got too crazy. In fact at that time a good number of the colleges both public and private still had small bore teams and firing ranges on campus. Lots of competitions were held.
The mid to late 70's is when things got crazy when you had the various riots in NYC, Newark, NJ and other places.
At that point the elite decided that their safety meant everyone else needed to be disarmed and the ball started rolling to we come to the present day idiot Bloomberg.
Bloomberg a couple of years ago sent police over to a guy in Brooklyn who had a historically accurate, (late 1700's IIRC), muzzle loader made for him. Bloomberg found out because the guy was interviewed on TV about it.
The law in NY did not allow for the registration of muzzle loaders but that did not determine Bloomie he wanted it done and so sent the police to intimidate the man.
Giuliani lowered the crime by enforcing the "quality of Life" laws and it dropped like a stone. Previously the major were hand wringing progressives who just moaned and groaned but would not do anything because it might upset certain communities that voted democratic. At least it would upset the self appointed leaders of said communities.
Bloomberg has undone some of Giuliani's stuff but has become the Nanny of the East with his insane "health" policies.
Jeff, can't add anything more to that!