This is on Drudge with no text yet.  I know we've had several discussions over whether or not anyone has ever been prosecuted for 922r violations.  We might soon find out.  It sounds like illegally configured ARs/AKs are a likely target.

[url]http://www.drudgereport.com[/url]
Steady run of arrests continued Tuesday as agents of the federal bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms pursued tips and found individuals with illegal rifles...

I dont see it at all

Ok, so where are all the "tips" program shills at now ??  
Hey, that guy down the street has a gun.....LET'S REPORT HIM !!  AND THAT GUY, AND THAT GUY......PROOF YOU ASK ?? WE DON'T NEED NO STEEENKIN PROOF !!!

Illegal rifles? I wonder if there are any 'post bans in pre-ban configurations' in there.

I'd love to know what the hell the probable cause is that is getting some judge to issue warrants for this?

Somebody should be disbarred.

Believe it or not hearsay (depending on the source and circumstances) can be enough probable cause for Judge to issue a search warrant. A search warrant is very easy to get. In spite of what you see in T.V. and movies, in almost 15 years I have never heard of a Judge denying a search warrant.

So much for our Fourth Ammendment rights. The word of a crack head or a pissed off neighbor is all it takes for the ATF to come barreling into my house....

Drudge is now posting a link to the New York Times, but you have to sign up to get to the article.  It should pop up elsewhere a little later.  I'm not going to register with those putz's.

Those fucking ATF scumbags!  There are mass murderers rampaging the DC area so these fucks waste their time busting a few unrelated people for technical violations of a bullshit law.  They should have their heads handed to them for this!  I swear, this country is so full of such fucking stupid shitheads, most of whom work for the government, that I could scream!  ARRRRGGGHHHHH!  

You are witnessing the gun grab right before your very eyes.  [50]


[:(!][:(!][:(!][:(!][:(!][:(!][:(!][:(!][:(!]

If you're referring to a no knock, that's another story. You need articulable facts that a person with a history of/propensity for violence is likely to be present at the time the search will be executed. I did have a Judge refuse a no knock, it's rare but it happens. As far as the fourth amendment goes, searches conducted with a search warrant are not considered unreasonable searches in the eyes of the U.S. Supreme Court. That's why we have search warrants.

I checked out the NY Times article drudge referred to. The article deals primarily with the sniper investigation. Here's the only part referring to the ATF and gun searches/seizures:

[b]Federal agents say they have been receiving many tips from residents alarmed about gun-owning neighbors. "Most of these are possessed legally," said Michael Bouchard, chief agent of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, in the hunt.

"However, some are possessed by people who shouldn't have them," Mr. Bouchard added, cautioning against alarmist reports when the individuals are questioned.[/b]

Remind me to tell you guys about the time I got a search warrant for a womans vagina. True story BTW.

Sukebe,

   How much "crack" did ya find?

I'm not against the use of search warrants per se, nor did I say they violate the Fourth Amendment. I understand and agree that they are a necessary tool for law enforcement to properly do their job.  What I did not care for was the fact that, as per your experiences,  judges have no problems arbitrarily issuing search warrants on unsubstantiated 'hearsay' (as stated by you) or other vague 'evidence'. To me that's just an excuse for doing an end run around the fourth amendment.

P.S. "Spit out" the info on the vagina warrant..Do tell!!!

Good guess. She had a plastic baggie with about 40 rocks in it stuffed up there. We put her 2 sons and one daughter in prison for trafficking. We did 7 search warrants at her house and always came up with nothing more than a few crack pipes (this was after making controlled buys with C.I.'s). Finally one who was close to her got pissed at her and gave her up. She would take the money and leave the room and return with the rock. She would keep that baggie full of crack in her crack all day. Trust me, nothing else was going up there. After we did a search of the house she thought she rooked us again. The look on her face was priceless when I served her with her copy of the warrant for her vagina. We took her to the local E.R. with the intent of them doing a pelvic exam and retrieving the dope. She decided to take a female Narc into the head and give up the dope and avoid the spectacle that would take place in the E.R.. I didn't see it but when she relayed the story of how Aunt Jemima (not real name) started digging in her snapper and came out with the baggie and just tried to hand the slimy, stanky thing to the Narc, I almost pissed myself. She ended up getting the pelvic exam anyway. I didn't trust her to give it all up (it seemed like such a small amount for such a large hiding place) and it was important to establish a procedure for future similar searches.

So I'm not accused of going off topic, my point is you can get a search warrant for anything.

LMAO..Too funny!!

I was already registered and had a little trouble finding my password. The article didn't have much info about gun seizures that I could find. Save your time and don't go to the site.

... LOL, so I guess [b]Pamela Lee Anderson[/b] could smuggle a few kilos huh?

The Ohio Revised Code defines what a Judge may consider as probable cause for a search warrant. Among other things it lists Hearsay. Hearsay on it's own can be grounds to issue a search warrant in the State of Ohio. It's seems to me that it does violate the spirit of the fourth amendment. Never the less it is the law in Ohio and I'm sure other states as well. Most Judges prefer more than hearsay but they are not bound to accept anything more than that. Example; I responded to a shooting shots fired call at a three unit apartment house. I found a guy dragging a dying woman down the stairs. Long story short, he had shot his wife (his second) in the head. During the follow up investigation the Dicks found out that his first wife (whom he had divorced) came up missing a couple of years earlier and no one had heard from her. There was no evidence to suggest that simply because he had killed his second wife that he had also killed his first wife. The Dicks asked for a search warrant to search his home for the remains of his first wife. They got it and tore up some concrete. Nothing was found but believe it or not after no sight of her for a couple of years, she was back in town 2 months later.

Time for a clue!   I made a mistake in jhust about every pice of igformation theuy wanted, including my e-male address.

It stilll excpted me........

Isn't the drug war great? [:|]

Two crack heads at the crack house one turns to the other and says " Hey rufus, your crack smell like fish. Rufus replies. " Sho do smell like fish when eyes cooking it, but it leaves a rubber boot taste in your mounth"

All it takes is one anti to sit at a gun range and copy down license plates.

"Mr. TIPS? Yes, I saw a suspicious-looking guy loading up a bunch of 'machine guns' in his truck and he's heading down I-10 right now - here's his license plate number..."

They can have mine bullets first!

Just remember, this is what our goverment representatives had to say about the BATF:

Read the Committee print of “[b]The Right to Keep and Bear Arms[/b]”; Report of the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Committee on the Judiciary/ US. Senate, 97th Congress, Second Session, published in February 1982.
(Excerpts from pages 19-23)

[b][blue]“Based upon these hearings it is apparent that enforcement tactics made possible by current federal firearms laws are constitutionally, legally, and practically reprehensible. Although Congress adopted the Gun Control Act with the primary object of limiting access of felons and high-risk groups to firearms, the overbreadth of the law has led to neglect of precisely this area of enforcement.”[/blue][/b]

[b][blue]“The Bureau’s (BATF) own figures demonstrate that in recent years the percentage of its arrests devoted to felons in possession and persons knowingly selling to them have dropped from 14% down to 10% of their firearms cases.”[/blue][/b]

[b][blue]“Yet, subsequent to these hearings, BATF stated that 55% of its gun law prosecutions overall involve persons with no record of a felony conviction, and a third involve citizens with no prior police contact at all.[/blue]
 [red]The Subcommittee received evidence that BATF has primarily devoted its firearm enforcement efforts to the apprehension, upon technical malum prohibitum charges, of individuals who lack all criminal intent and knowledge.”[/red][/b]

[b][blue]“These practices, amply documented in hearings before this Subcommittee, leave little doubt that the Bureau has disregarded rights guaranteed by the constitution and the laws of the United States.[/blue]
 [red]It has trampled upon the second amendment by chilling exercise of the right to keep and bear arms by law-abiding citizens.
 It has offended the fourth amendment by unreasonably searching and seizing property.
 It has ignored the Fifth Amendment by taking private property without just compensation and by entrapping honest citizens without regard for their right to due process of law.”[/red][/b]

Readers of “Unintended Consequences” will be very familiar w/ these statements.

Mike

Sukebe:

[puke][puke][puke]

YUP! [beer]

This is all invalidated by:

"...[b]the existence of this individual right [2nd Amendment] does not mean that reasonable restrictions cannot be imposed[/b] to prevent unfit persons from possessing firearms or [b]to restrict possession of firearms particularly suited to criminal misuse.[/b]" -John Ashcroft in a memo to the Supreme Court appending the Emerson and Haney briefs.

I once wrote a search warrant that included a guy's rolls of fat.  He was an incredibly fat crack dealer who was know to carry baggies of crack by lifting up a big old fold of fat and stuffing the baggie underneath.  When I finally saw the guy in person in court, it was obvious that he could've carried whole kilos in that fashion.  Dude was huge.

I hear alot of name calling pointed in the direction of the ATF, when we all know the people getting illegal weapons charges BROKE THE DAMN LAW!

They broke the law and they knew it. The ATF caught them and now they will go to jail.

o ya, shoot at them that will do a lot of good. stupid comment.

That's why the prices of Fender Guitar cases are going up on Ebay...Man I'm making a killing!

This comes as no surprise. They are desperate and desperate times bring on desperate measures. The MD killer made them look foolish so in order to justify thier meaningless existence they have to take a bunch of "illegal" guns of the streets. Them bayo lugs were a real threat to society, we had to do it. This is getting ugly fellas. If the killing spree continues without a capture, expect a few of us to get a visit from the man, and that visit will have nothing to do with the killings because it will be a 'tipster' who saw a rifle case in your car or some BS.

Tell you what, I really wish I was a trial attorney in Maryland right about now.

Lawsuit city, I would have guarenteed employment for a decade at least.

"No one is bound to obey an unconsitutional law and no courts are bound to enforce it."
-16 Am Jur 2nd, sec 177 late 2nd, sec 256

Christ, I can hear you down the road

2002: "Having a telestock on a postban is illegal! Send the bastards to jail!"

2005: "Having an AR-15 is illegal! Send the bastards to jail!"

2010: "Having a rifle is illegal! Send the bastards to jail!"

Actually it seems all arrests so far are for ex-cons having guns-not people having illegal guns.

Sorry to disappoint you Spade.

Maryland has a big problem with this because from March 12 to Oct. 6 of this year Maryland was not supplying information on criminal convictions to the National Instant Check System as required by law.

[url]http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20021016/ap_on_go_co/congress_sniper_4[/url]

No, it's NOT stupid, it's as American as apple pie. What's stupid, is allowing people to pass and enforce these types of laws using JBT tactics... The real perps are the legislators, then the judges, but the doorkicker will do. He took an oath too...

Sukebe - Man, thats just plain NASTY[:X*][puke]

After my angry post last night, I kinda figured I'd wake up to be disappointed that it wasn't the "Big One (tm)."  Oh well, back to sleep until they run out of "prohibited persons."

Yes. It is crucial that a tax collection agency enforced victimless crime laws.

... and you wonder why people are so mean to you, I guess they just need to analyze your collective responses closer [;)]

grumble grumble grumble

http://www.washtimes.com/metro/20021017-90194126.htm

The Washington Times
www.washtimes.com
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Authorities check gun shops for clues
Steve Miller
THE WASHINGTON TIMES


Published 10/17/2002


------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Investigators hunting the Washington area sniper have cast the net far and wide over the region's gun community — confiscating sign-in logs from shooting ranges, tracking sales of .223-caliber weapons and knocking on gun owners' doors.
    Montgomery County police and agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) came knocking on the door of Ken Scott's home in Silver Spring twice last week, asking for his thoughts about the shooting spree and about where he was during the times of the shootings.
    Mr. Scott, confident the account of his whereabouts eliminated him as a suspect, said that either his neighbors gave his name on the tip line or investigators singled him out because he owns a gun shop.
    On Tuesday, ATF agents arrived at Mr. Scott's Article II Unlimited store in Silver Spring accompanied by a man who had sold Mr. Scott a .223-caliber rifle — the same round that has killed nine and wounded two persons in the sniper attacks. The agent wanted to see the gun, but it had already been resold, Mr. Scott said.
   [b][blue] "Based on what they said to me, it seemed they were checking everyone who owned any gun that shoots that [.223-caliber] ammunition," Mr. Scott said.[/b][/blue]
    [b][blue]Some gun owners reported that ATF agents had taken people's rifles to perform test-firing experiments and later returned the weapons. [/b][/blue]The Washington Times could not confirm the reports.
    Authorities declined to comment on the probe of gun dealers and gun owners. An FBI spokesman for the multiagency task force searching for the sniper said that they were using every possible strategy to catch the killer, and that countless interviews were being conducted.
    U.S. marshals from the task force questioned the owner of Schelin Guns in College Park last week about a [b][blue]man who took a firearms-safety class at the shop in late September, less than a week before the shooting spree began Oct. 2 in Montgomery County.[/b][/blue]
    The federal agents checked the class roster and asked about sales of .223-caliber rifles, said store owner John Schelin, who had not recently sold that type of weapon.
    The agents told Mr. Schelin that they were following a tip about a specific man who took the class, which is mandatory when purchasing handguns or rifles such as AK-47s or AR-15s, which are considered assault weapons.
    A Northern Virginia man recently visited by ATF agents was asked whether he owned a .223-caliber weapon or had access to a white van, which has been seen at the scene of some of the shootings. The man, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said he answered no to both questions, and the agents left.
    [b][blue]He also said the agents told him that neighbors submitted his name to the tip line because he owns guns.[/b][/blue]
    "You have all these news agencies saying to call the tip line if you know anybody who owns guns, if you know anybody with a white truck or anybody acting suspicious. You know, people act on that," he said. "It's too broad of a spectrum, and the ATF have to be thorough."
    [b][blue]ATF agents last week confiscated the sign-in log from the firing range[/b][/blue] at Clark Brothers Guns in Warrenton, Va. The log included the signatures, some illegible, of customers who had used the range during the past six months, said owner Steve Clark.
    "I don't know what they hope to glean from it," he said. "I guess they are trying anything."
    Lamar Miller, a handwriting expert in Summerland Key, Fla., formerly with the Alabama State Forensic Lab, said the signatures could provide information beyond who used the range.
     But it would be difficult to link a signature to the writing on the tarot card found at the scene of the Oct. 7 shooting outside a Bowie school that critically wounded a 13-year-old boy, he said.
    "That's not to say it can't be done," Mr. Miller said. "You could find some similarities that might bear following up. They are trying to find some similarities such as the size of the letters and the shape of the letters. If there are [similarities] they would probably try to obtain more writing samples."
    Task force investigators also paid a call on the Bethesda-Chevy Chase chapter of the Izaak Walton League of America, a conservationist and outdoorsman organization that operates a private firing range in Poolesville on the western edge of Montgomery County.
    [b][blue]ATF agents have visited numerous gun shops in the Washington area to review sales records and federal 4473 forms that list buyer information for every firearms sale. In some instances, the investigators made copies of documents[/b][/blue], said gun shop owners and employees.

Copyright © 2002 News World Communications, Inc. All rights reserved.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Its unbelievable. Are they this stupid that they can think that they can catch the killer this way?

Or are they this corrupt?

Every gun owner in the MD area should read & follow the advice outlined in this article... [url=www.gunowners.com/batf.htm]What to do When the BATF Comes- A-Callin'[/url]

Read it, live it, and [b]pass this info along!!![/b]

no, it is stupid. Unless it's a full blown revolution, the people over throw the government, shooting at them will just cause more gun laws.