The Brown Shirts are coming soon to a neighborhood near you.
Mark
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/bluesky_exnews/19991108_xex_turn_your_ne.shtml
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MONDAY
NOVEMBER 8
1999
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[WND Exclusive ]
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'Turn in your neighbor'
Connecticut law allows
gun confiscation without crime
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By Edward G. Oliver
© 1999 WorldNetDaily.com
Ominously dubbed the "turn in your
neighbor" law, a new Connecticut gun
control provision -- which proponents
predicted would be rarely used -- has
already resulted in police seizing
firearms and ammunition from four gun
owners since Oct. 1 when the law took
effect.
Hailed as groundbreaking by gun control
advocates, the law reportedly opens up a
new frontier for gun laws in the coming
election season.
As originally written, the provision would
have allowed seizure of firearms by police
based on unproven allegations by any two
persons in an affidavit to a judge. The
language was later modified to require
that two police officers or a state's
attorney go before a judge with the
belief, after investigation, that an
individual "poses a risk of imminent
personal injury to himself or herself or
to other individuals," in order to obtain
a warrant to seize the subject's firearms.
No crime needs to have been committed for
the seizure to take place.
Alleged threatening behavior, cruelty to
animals, alcohol and drug abuse or prior
confinement in a psychiatric facility can
be considered by a judge in assessing
whether an individual poses an imminent
risk of danger. The law requires that a
hearing be held within 14 days of the
firearm seizure, although critics say in
practice the 14-day hearing will be
delayed for months. If the subject is
proven at the hearing to be an "imminent
risk," he loses his firearms for one year.
Thompson Bosee, of Greenwich, Conn., had
his guns and ammunition seized by police
on Oct. 29 under the new law. Bosee told
WorldNetDaily he suspects that a neighbor,
with whom he has had words regarding the
neighbor's driving on Bosee's property,
might have reported him.
"They had a warrant for my guns, they
arrested my guns," said Bosee. A member of
both the NRA and the American Gunsmithing
Association, Bosee said he works on his
guns in his garage and is not ashamed of
it. Police simultaneously served a
"failure to appear" warrant from an
eight-year-old traffic charge.
Although Greenwich Police would not
comment, they released a list of the guns
and ammunition they seized from Bosee,
including six handguns, three rifles, one
shotgun, one submachine gun and 3,108
rounds of ammunition.
A spokeswoman from Handgun Control Inc.
told WorldNetDaily, "The gun lobby likes
to use scare tactics in order to frighten
people away from any kind of reasonable
gun control laws. We support the law. It
has to meet a pretty strict standard, we
feel it is in the general interest of the
person themselves as well as the general
public. We think there should be an outlet
for families to say, `Look, my sister or
my cousin is showing signs of losing it,
we know he has a gun, we want to make sure
he can't hurt himself or others.' They
should have that option." Asked if HCI
would like to see the law in other states,
she answered, "If other states want a
similar law, we certainly would support
it."
To many, the "gun lobby" means the
National Rifle Association. However, a
spokesman described the NRA's position on
the issue to WorldNetDaily only as
"neutral."
But Jerry Tramontano of the Gun Owners
Action League, likened the provision,
which was tacked onto an instant check
bill, to the proverbial camel's nose under
the tent. The GOA has been a long-standing
opponent of instant check, he told
WorldNetDaily, believing it amounts to a
national registration database. Lamenting
what he sees as a lukewarm defense of the
Second Amendment in Connecticut, he said,
"Look what happens when you're willing to
compromise a little -- you get a lot,"
adding that one of the law's victims is
already planning a constitutional
challenge.
Attorney Ralph Sherman, chairman of
Connecticut's pro-gun "Gunsafe" group
acknowledged that the search and seizure
provision, which he opposes, did result
from a compromise on the total gun bill
the NRA supported. The Connecticut
legislature is not very "pro-gun," he
said, but is divided on the issue. The
state would have ended up with an even
worse bill had gun rights advocates not
compromised, he said. The huge Firearms
Safety Act had 20 provisions attached to
it, some of which were positive for gun
owners, he said.
The so-called "turn in your neighbor"
provision allows for the issuance of a
search warrant without the necessity of
meeting the basic constitutional
requirement of probable cause, said
Sherman. Probable cause, he explained,
means there must be good reason to believe
that the items being searched for are
connected to a crime -- not just a general
feeling that somebody might commit a crime
someday.
The law's cruelty to animals justification
for gun seizure scares him the most. "If I
throw a rock or a newspaper at a dog in my
yard or in my garden, that doesn't mean
I'm mentally unbalanced. What if a
neighbor doesn't like me and sees that?"
The law also violates the due process
principle, Sherman said, which establishes
that a suspect is innocent until proven
guilty. If someone points a weapon at
another without justification and
threatens his life, said Sherman, "fine,
take the gun or knife or can of gasoline
away and arrest him." But a verbal threat
like "I'm going to get you someday,"
happens all the time, and is not
justification for seizing guns, he said.
"Police can always seize property in
connection with a crime. The purpose of
search and seizure is to get evidence that
somebody committed a crime."
Joe Graborz, Executive Director of the
Connecticut Civil Liberties Union, an
affiliate of the ACLU, told WorldNetDaily
the law "continues to invest unusual and
far-reaching powers in police authority
that does not belong there" by requiring
"police to act as psychologists in trying
to predict and interpret behavior." He
said the warrant can be issued on just the
complaint of two police officers, without
the need for anything more as far as
suspicion of a crime having been
committed. "What is the standard of proof
on this, where the police authority acting
as the government violate your right to be
safe and sound from undue interference in
your own home? The way this law is
written, it can and will be easily abused
by police."
In the wake of a recent shooting by a
Xerox worker in Hawaii, Handgun Control
spokeswoman Naomi Paiss told ABC news that
the already heavily gun-controlled state
could use the law Connecticut just passed.
The ranking member of the Judiciary
Committee in Connecticut, Republican Rep.
Robert Farr, seemed to concur, telling
WorldNetDaily: "The idea is to get the
guns away from individuals that clearly
shouldn't have them."
At a Nov. 4 panel discussion on the
controversial law at the Hartford
Statehouse, Democratic Rep. Richard
Tulisiano said he opposes the provision
mainly on Fourth Amendment grounds,
declaring, "We've created the home
invasion under color of law." Anything
found in the search for guns can be used
against you, said Tulisiano, such as cash,
which will be confiscated as drug money.
"Anybody with money is going to be a drug
dealer, a dog will sniff it, all money is
tainted," he said
Farr defended the law, citing the example
of a mentally troubled war veteran in his
district as the first to have his guns
seized, saying that's what it is designed
to do -- prevent trouble before it
happens. There is no "magical line" at a
citizen's front door, Farr added, noting
that police can enter without a warrant in
many emergencies. It is difficult with
current gun laws to get firearms away from
mentally disturbed persons, said Farr.
"I'm willing to risk them losing guns for
14 days, than having a tragedy."
A member of the Pistol Permit Review
Board, M. Peter Kuck, said, "I find this
law to be pretty dangerous, Does this
sound like America to you? It's not the
America I grew up in."
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