America’s Transition to Preemptive Law Enforcement

There is a disturbing trend in American law enforcement and in our courts: They have been enforcing nonexistent laws, misapplying laws, arresting people who are obviously innocent, and arresting people on suspicion that they might be thinking about doing something illegal. This is similar to the policing philosophy in England, where police often preemptively detain people and seize household goods “for the safety of all concerned”. In my estimation, this is just one notch below arresting folks for “thought crimes” (a la Orwell’s novel 1984) or “pre-crime”, (a la Philip K. Dick’s novella that became the movie Minority Report.)

Here are some recent examples:

  • In 2006, Ward Bird of Moultonborough, New Hampshire was legally carrying a firearm on his own property when he warned a mentally disturbed woman trespasser to leave his property. She later filed charges against him and he was convicted of “Criminal Threatening.” (The jury was not allowed to hear about the woman’s mental history nor her long history of filing frivolous lawsuits.) His sentence was later commuted, but he didn’t get the full pardon that he deserved. As a convicted felon he can no longer vote or own a gun for the rest of his life.

The most recent article about Rev. Henry bothers me for several reasons:

1.) From the report, all of the guns seized seem to be perfectly legal, and the largest number of any category seem to be .22 rimfires. (I counted 54 of them listed.) This is hardly some would-be mass murderer’s arsenal.

2.) The report listed all of the guns by serial number. So they obviously ran traces on them. But there was no mention of any of the guns being stolen or in an illegal
| configuration.

3.) Since when is being a clergymen incompatible with being a gun collector? If it were, then they’d have to defrock more than 70% of the ministers who live in the southern and western United States.

4.) Why did the police lay out just the black guns from Henry’s collection for the press photographers? (I guess that the majority of guns with wood stocks looked too mundane and nondescript, hmmm?)

5.) Why would the guns and ammo even be seized at all, without a criminal charge or even reasonable suspicion to believe that a crime had been committed?

6.) Why do the police so consistently store seized guns by tossing them in garbage bins, resulting in lots of dings and scratches? Would they treat someone’s collection of Meerschaum pipes, antique radios, or Hummel figurines the same way?

7.) What exactly constitutes “too many” guns? (Where I live, 230 guns would be considered “a real nice collection”, but in Texas, Rev. Henry would just be considered a novice collector.)

8.) Since statistically cars kill more people than guns each year, then why is a big collection of fast cars cause for admiration, but a large gun collection cause to suspect the worst? (Unless, of course you are an anonymous millionaire.)

Conclusion

I urge SurvivalBlog readers to be vigilant. If you see or hear of incidents of “pre-crime” policing going on in your community, then speak up about it quickly and vociferously. Cell phones equipped with built-in video cameras are now ubiquitous, so film everything if you witness a questionable encounter with law enforcement, or have one of your own. Offer to help with the legal defense of those that are wrongly accused. Write letter to the editor of your local newspaper. If the “pre-crime” policing trend is allowed to continue, we can kiss the Fourth Amendment goodbye. We must be just as steadfast about the Fourth Amendment as we are about the First and Second Amendments!

I also urge law enforcement officers to show restraint when in doubt about the innocence of a suspect. You never know when you are going to push a wronged person the wrong way. You might end facing a Brian Christine, or a Gordon Kahl, or a Joe Stack, or a Carl Drega. Whether they are right or they just feel that they’re right, sometimes people are willing to stand up and fight to the death if they believe they’ve been wronged.