This should anger each and every one of us who reads this. You should see red, and you should wonder why this is allowed. This should make your blood boil and make you want to surround the local ATFe and police station and shout for justice.

“WALLINGFORD – A usually quiet mobile home park was shaken Friday morning when about 15 officers from the U.S. bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and local police descended on one of their neighbor’s homes with force.”They had their guns drawn and were surrounding the house,” said Jennifer Monroe of Hosford Bridge Road. “These weren’t small guns, they were machine guns. It wasn’t normal.” “

Go HERE for more.

I have no issue with the police (or ATFe) executing a search warrant. Nor do I know all the details in this case. Perhaps the Boyntons have broken a law (I really don’t know). What I do know, and what I find both objectionable and disturbing, is that the authorities executing the search warrant need to handle things like this in a different manner. Breaking down doors in the early morning hours (or at any time, really) for a simple search warrant rather than knocking on the door and asking is a bit of overkill.

WHY?

Why not knock on the door and show the search warrant, and ask for permission? Why force your way into a home and trash it? (I’m not going to discuss the fact that the officers had to request cooperation from the searchee to open the safes and the fact that the searchee cooperated. (under similar situations, I might not be as cooperative…).

Knocking down someones door at 6 am is not a good idea when there are reasonable alternatives. The door to someone who is, to all reasonable expectations, a law abiding citizen. Someone inside my home at 6 am uninvited is subject to harm. It would not be a good idea for police or other authorities to enter my home with a battering ram at any time. I would hate to harm an officer who thinks he is doing his/her job, and I would most likely end up shot, or dead.

The increased use of such tactics is disturbing, and the fact that we as people and citizens act instead like subjects disturbs me more. Why do we allow it? Are we that sheeplike? Where is the outcry for the authorities to use other tactics or methods? Was there reason to knock down door at 6 am? Was there a reason that they felt that they couldn’t just knock on the door an execute the search warrant? Was there a valid reason to destroy property and to trash the house? I realize that there are situations that call for such tactics (like drug house raids) but to use them in a situation like this, on the home of a decent, law abiding citizen is just wrong.

Perhaps they needed the practice and thought that this would be a good search with which to get some. I don’t know. But someone needs to answer these questions. Someone in the ATFe needs to explain why these tactics were used, rather than a simple knock on the door. Just because there are guns in the house is not a good enough answer. Guns by themselves do not pose a danger to police executing a search warrant UNLESS they use tactics described in the article. Nor should the regard for the officers safety just because is is the easiest way for the officers to secure the scene quickly take precedence over civil and property rights. Property rights, the right to be secure in your own home (that pesky constitution again) and just plain decency should take precedence unless there is a clear and present danger to the officers known before the warrant is executed.

This is a slippery slope here. If we allow this, then we are subjects.

All the officers on the scene, local LEO and the ATFe officers should be held accountable. The ATFe for their actions, and the local LEO for allowing it without justification. Local LEO allowed (and cooperated with) the ATFe agents to break into a house with no justification. None. They are as culpable here as the ATFe agents. THEY ALLOWED A CRIME TO BE COMMITTED. Warrant or no warrant, they allowed someones home to be broken into. The judge who signed the no knock warrant (if one exists) should also be held accountable.

Someone needs to go to jail for this action. Were I to break down his door, I’d be charged with a crime. Why not the officers and agents?

Knocking on my door is the best way. Failing to knock will place all of us in danger.

BTW, this shows how useless a gun locked in the safe is for home defense. It couldn’t be used to defend the home. It was, really as useless as a paperweight would be.

I don’t have that handicap.

Officers: KNOCK (gently is best!) on my door. Wait for me to open it. I will cooperate, and there is no need to place yourselves in mortal danger to execute a legal warrant.

Other methods may not have the outcome that we all want to see.

Just a thought.

ETA: A friend sent me this quote from Aleksandr Solzhenitzyn from The Gulag Archepalego:

“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand? . . .”

Things that make ya go “HMMMMM”.

I’m just sayin’.

I was at a gun show all weekend, and for some reason the scheduled post didn’t, but lets not forget armed forces day was on Saturday.

Thank any serviceman you see this wwek.

Thank them for the fact that you are reading this in englis. Thank them that you can read this blog that has opinions different from the current administration.

Thank them for the fact that you can enjoy the freedom that you have.

Or just say thank you.

It ain’t what the media and the DNC has made it out to be. Teasing, taunting, embarassment, shame, or even waterboarding.

THIS lady would like to tell what real torture is like…..

But the media doesn’t cover stuff like that, “cause it won’t fit their agenda.

Read THIS to find out what the senate is considering…….

That rope is looking better all the time.

A tax on soda pop (to pay for health care) that they are gonna shove down our throats.

A “sin” tax on sugary drinks. First booze, then tobacco, now soda pop.

Then salty foods, then fatty foods (and ice cream!), then anything that they feel is bad for you…

Screw them, trying to make the world safe for everyone. Let us make our own decision.

And I have a question: If I have a rum and Coke, is that double taxation????

I just talked to my Dad (who actually reads this blog) and he pointed out that some of my posts are somewhat inflammatory. (I mean them to be, btw).

He said that I come close to crossing the line, and wonders if someday “they” are gonna come haul me off. Could be that that will happen. I doubt it, but it could.

So much for free speech…..My parents fear the government enough to worry about my safety. Is this freedom? I appreciate the fact that they worry about me, but the fact that they worry about my freedom and well being due to this insignificant blog and the subjects and opinions that I post make me wonder if this country still has freedom of speech.

I love my country, I do NOT trust my government at all. But I am saddened that my parents fear for my safety. I am saddened because this is in effect, fear that the constitution will be discarded. A fear that jackbooted thugs will haul their son off in the middle of the night because of an opinion.

A free man does not fear his government. A slave fears his master. Tyrants are feared. A subject fears his ruler.

I fear many things. But I do not fear that “they” will take me away. If “they” should decide to do so, so be it (if there are enough of them, they will). I will fight the best I know how. But I do not fear. I do know that some might find themselves or their cohorts a wee bit ventilated perforated damaged during my arrest.

But I am saddened that my parents (who are at least partially responsible for my attitudes and values), who taught me love of country and appreciation that I was born a US citizen, now fear for my safety from some government official because of a bit of published opinion.

I am sad for them and sad for the country. I am sorrowful that it has come to the point that they fear their government. What has this country come to? Why have we let it become so? Why have we done nothing to change it? Why do we allow it?

Would our founding fathers be proud of what we have let this country become?

I think not.

Via Western Rifle Shooters Association:
I am reminded of the cannibal paradox. The paradox is that there are a lot of people in starvation scenarios who turn to cannibalism and starve anyways. They starve because the cannibalism taboo is so strong that they wait too long and are past the point of no return before they do what they need to survive. There is [also] a point of no return when it comes to revolution.

Via Instapundit comes this gem from England.

Note to self: Be more quiet next time lest the cops show up at the door and disturb my frolic.

I mean, Jesus H. Christ. Where will it end? I have wanted to crucify several neighbors over the years who played their stereo too loudly or ran a Harley outside my window at 4 AM, but if they are that loud at THAT, I ask them if they eat a special diet or if they take special vitamins or if there is a book that I need to read……But call the cops? I doubt that they would do anything, and the officers would take forever to stop laughing.

No wonder England is circling the rim.

And the economy is exactly where they said it would be WITHOUT the taxpayer shafting stimulus package.

Apparently the whole stimulus thing was for naught. Debt for generations without any decent result.

Great.

THIS is gonna be ugly in a year or two……First they will call anyone they don’t like a “suspected terrorist”. Then they will expand the things that they can hold up (other than transferring a firearm) to end up where if you aren’t in favor of something the government does, and are vocal about it, they can prevent you from operating a car (by not letting you renew your driver’s license, or whatever they want like travel from your state, simply in the name of security. “Appropriately suspected” my ass.

Eric Holden SHOULD not even let this bill see the light of day. as it is unconstitutional…..But he will let it and it could pass.

No right to face your accuser or the charges. Just your name on a list with the reasons redacted….If you have evidence that someone is a terrorist then charge them, if not, then leave them alone.

“First they came for for the Jews…and I remained silent…….”

See the rest here if you need to educate yourself.

And think about dusting off that rope if your congressman votes for it. I bet you have a tree handy……..

As the Western Rifle Shooter’s Association says:
“Build a politician a fire, and he will be warm for a day.

Set a politician on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life.”

Kinda hard to argue with ain’t it?

“I have no problem with rich people who supported Barack Obama, but those who express surprise at his class warfare political chatter and passion for the regulation of business simply were not paying attention.”

Visit TigerHawk. for the rest of the story.

Sure hope that those that voted for Mr. O enjoy the “Change” that they voted for. It’s no surprise for most of us who voted against him. I can see the folks who had nothing and therefore nothing to lose. But well educated, intelligent, hard working people? WTF were they thinking? It’s nopt like he has changed his spots or anything. He’s being what he is….A socialist.

At least we have a politician who is actually following up on his campaign promises…..For whatever that might be worth.

Worth watching, and a good idea.

I’m up for it.

How about you?

It worked in the 60’s and 70’s. Hell, it even got us to give up in Vietnam….

Might work this time too. If nothing else it’ll shake up Mr Obama and his minions.