If you haven't heard already, Washington D.C. is aiming to violate not just the Second Amendment (the right to bear arms) with its draconian laws and attitudes towards its citizens, but also the Amendments supporting an American's right to privacy. Though there is no explicitly stated 'right to privacy' in the U.S. Constitution, the Supreme Court has ruled there is an implication of such a right resident in the First (privacy of belief), Third (private property, or privacy of home), Fourth (as the Third), Fifth (privacy of one's affairs), Ninth (privacy as a right not specifically enumerated by the Bill of Rights), and Fourteenth (due process) Amendments; the D.C. Mayor and Police Chief seek to violate these as well.
While they're at it they may as well declare martial law.
What I'm talking about is the "Safe Homes Initiative" (read about it here and here); a program announced by D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fentry and Police Chief Lanier yesterday (March 13, 2008). In another example of liberal Orwellianism, the program actually renders a home less safe.
"Safe Homes" allows police to search private residences door-to-door for handguns and drugs. That's right – D.C. is going to send police officers door-to-door to search a for guns and drugs. Without probable cause to search or a warrant signed by a judge. That flickering flame you hear in the background is the U.S. Constitution being consumed by fire.
Sure, officers are supposed to ask for permission to search the premises; liberal thugs and socialist apologists can cite that as a loophole for the program to pass Constitutional muster. But what happens when the officers are not given permission? Am I to expect they would simply walk away without further incident? Clear thinking folk are suspicious of such a tactic; what happens when you're stopped at a sobriety checkpoint and refuse the officer? It's not very pretty after that, is it?
Too, there is the sham of amnesty. The plan is touted with an amnesty clause similar to the gun buy-backs wherein if a handgun is found, the officers won't arrest the property owner (in D.C. it is illegal to even own a handgun – a blatant Second Amendment infringement). The police will investigate the origins, and to the extent possible, the use of the confiscated handgun; if it is found to have been used in a crime, charges will be filed. So the program isn't really offering amnesty, is it? Oh, and never mind the trivial infringement of the Fifth Amendment with such a plan.
The Fifth Amendment protects an American from self-incrimination. How is filing charges against the property owner not an infringement of this right? Sure, if the property owner wasn't the one committing the crime, he or she still abetted the criminal by stashing the handgun, right? So the amnesty provision of the program is a lie of omission; we are told that folk who turn over the handguns are immune to prosecution, but not that the immunity covers only the possession of the handgun; it appears the authorities are free to charge whomever they can relative to the firearm's illegal use.
What isn't mentioned is one of the other facets of the D.C. gun ban; long gun storage. In D.C., residents who own long guns (rifles and shotguns) are compelled by law to lock the weapon with a trigger lock or in a safe; in either case the weapon is to be unloaded. The "Safe Homes" program doesn't specify what protections are afforded a citizen should an officer happen to find an unlocked or loaded long gun. In the absence of such direction, I imagine the homeowner will be charged and the firearm confiscated.
This program is vulnerable to the dreaded "racial profiling" argument that is preventing us from safely securing our airports and airlines. D.C. could have an ugly lawsuit on its hands from such a profiling practice. Though in this case it's not racial profiling, it's class; only those sections of D.C. where there are a higher proportion of lower class citizens will be searched. The neighborhoods of rich and affluent (such as the neighborhoods where the city council members live?) won't be searched. So the program is not really about keeping homes safe, it's about taking away handguns from the folks who need it most for personal and home defense.
Adding to this stinking pile of fascism is the fact that this program begins March 24th, just after the Supreme Court hears oral arguments in D.C. v. Heller. D.C. has tried to legislate handguns out of the hands of private citizens for over thirty years; now that it looks like the legislation will be struck down as un-Constitutional, the mayor and police chief want to physically remove them, forgetting their civics lessons about inalienable human rights.
Let me touch on something less high minded and more insidious; one of the program's goals seeks to undermine parental authority in addition to the annulment of private property rights. Lanier has the notion parents are not in charge of their own children and cannot control them.
Lanier says, "It [the program] focuses on parents or legal guardians who think their children have a gun in the house and are uncomfortable with searching for it themselves."
The way I read that statement means that Fentry and Lanier do not believe a parent is capable of running his or her own home or rearing his or her own children in D.C. In a fine example of nanny-state interference, Lanier admits she feels like the state can do a better job. Were I a parent, I'd be insulted on so many different levels by her arrogance.
Keep in mind it's not just D.C., my friends; Boston is conducting a similar program this month and Philadelphia is considering it. Nothing spreads so fast as fascism, eh?
Liberal thought and action in this country stopped surprising me some time ago; I've come to expect the most socialist thought and position from our folk on the left and have not been disappointed. It's been something of a sport for me to watch them twist themselves around questions of personal responsibility, liberty, and freedom in order to explain to Americans how socialism is really just an advanced and more compassionate form of capitalism. But this – this surprised me. Even in my most gloom-and-doom scenarios I never envisioned 2008 as the year openly socialist forces in this country turned openly fascist. I guess we can add the names Fentry and Lanier to those of Clinton, Obama, FDR, Stalin, Mussolini, and Hitler in the annals of history.
To circle this tractor-trailer completely, let me opine a bit further. We must carefully weigh our options for Congress and President this coming election in November 2008. With this program in D.C., Boston, and perhaps Philadelphia it is becoming clear this ballot is not about the economy, the Iraq War, or some ubiquities and unexplained change. This election is about direction, about fundamentals, about the essence of what it is to be an American; do we want to lose our republic to the tyranny threatening at our door, or do we want to keep it?
We can only keep it if we throw off such programs as "Safe Homes", fire public administrators like Lanier, vote out or impeach public officers like Fentry, reject the notion that socialism is matured capitalism, and demand with the authority of our Founding Fathers that our rights be respected.
I, for one, want to keep it.
