After an uptick in city homicides this year, the vast majority of them involving guns, law-enforcement officials have created a task force to try to rid the city of illegal guns.
The unit, funded with $5 million from the state, will hire retired Philadelphia homicide detectives and others to target neighborhoods where gun violence is most pervasive.
Police also plan to ask home owners at times for consent to search their homes without a probable-cause warrant, District Attorney Lynne M. Abraham said Monday.
I wonder if saying "No" will raise eyebrows amongst this private police force (you'll note the searchers are ex-police officers).
Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett, whose office will oversee the task force, does not plan to include his investigators in the warrantless searches, Corbett spokesman Kevin Harley said."We'll be taking information gathered from those searches, but we're going to be specifically investigating gun crimes that are already committed," Harley said. The task-force agents will conduct searches only after getting warrants, he said.
Now here's the thing- is refusal to allow a private citizen employed as some sort of mercenary cop to search your home going to be enough to have them issue a warrant for the official agents to do their search? Seems to me that they might be operating on the principle that only those with something to hide could possibly oppose this- after all, if you had an illegal weapon in your home, would you allow this outfit to search your home without a warrant?
Let's see how long it takes for other cities to follow suit. I'm sure the anti-gun brigade thinks that this is just a swell idea.
No comments:
Post a Comment