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Murdock

Police set to search for guns at homes
Voluntary program is issue in community

By Maria Cramer, Globe Staff | February 9, 2008

As Boston police prepare to go into some of the city's most dangerous neighborhoods, knock on doors of private houses, and ask if they can search for illegal guns without a warrant, officials are trying to pitch the idea of the plan as friendly cooperation to residents who still see it as a threatening intrusion.

A friendly looking logo - a drawing of a house surrounded by the sun - adorns the brochure police have drafted to explain and promote the initiative, "Safe Homes." Photos of officers playing baseball with children and chatting with teenagers dot the pamphlet. Twice, police have taken calls from listeners on a black radio station in Roxbury.

By the time they start going door to door next month, police hope they will have reassured clergy, neighborhood leaders, and parents who still see the program as a way to violate the privacy of residents in neighborhoods with a large population of minority-group members and and immigrants.

"There is a big trust issue," said Deputy Superintendent Gary French, who will oversee the Safe Homes program. "I think a lot of people think there's going to be some kind of behind-the-scenes hook to this, and there really isn't. The reality of it is it's strictly a program aimed at getting guns out of the hands of juveniles."

Police plan to search for weapons in four Dorchester and Roxbury neighborhoods by late February or early March. Relying on the tips from schools, community organizations, and parents, they will look in the rooms of any children whose parents or guardians give consent to the search, French said. (The program does not apply to anyone over 18, because they are legally adults and parents can no longer give consent to a search of their rooms.)

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Police set to search for guns at homes - The Boston Globe

 

Buzzby

It sounds like a good plan to me. It's entirely voluntary and aims at getting firearms out of the hands of people who cannot legally possess them. I keep my firearms, other than the one I keep available for home defense, in a locked gun safe. I would probably put that one in the safe before I allowed a search as it's nobody's business what firearms I may or may not own.

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sterbo

I thinks it's an absolutely horrendous idea.
We open our doors to governmental surveillance on the most personal level,
one of our most cherished constitutional rights being spun as, 'Here we are to save you, to protect you from the ever proliferating boogie man.
"We won't transgress, we just want to look around so if some nasty person/s have guns they shouldn't have we will find them for you and life will be as you always hoped and dreamed" - *fade to B&W with Beaver Cleaver's thankful grin to Mom and Dad Cleaver*

We citizens of this country are on the verge of finding ourselves in free fall.
If we don't realize that security is that which we must constantly protect by engaging in a global effort to see to it that the disenfranchised are empowered to have real freedom, like we enjoy, then all will be lost. There is where our power lies. There is where we ought give our blessing and permission for Governmental intervention.
This thin veil of trading our security for Black Boots and fake smiles traipsing through our homes represents one of the most loathsome moments in the current events of our lives...

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Buzzby

Why all the fuss about a voluntary program to keep guns out of the hands of minors? If my teenage kids had guns hidden around the house, I'd certainly like to know about it. Under this program, the cops can search only if you give them permission and then only where you tell them they may search.

king cola

If a parent owns a gun then they already know theres a gun in the house but for adults that don't own a gun they might want the house checked to see if their kid has one. One thing about this is that parents themselves can search for the weapons. What if the cop finds a joint in a teenagers room during the search or some illegal fireworks which the parents could have already known about but forgot was in there? Does the kid get busted when the parents could have searched the room themself for weapons? This is stuff that parents should think about or the parents that wouldn't have their own kid arrested. The thing about adults searching their kids rooms is then the kid usually gets pissed by yelling at the parent for invading their privacy. It's the parents or the cops that are going to search but I think the parents should be the ones to do it, it's their house and their rules. They are doing this to search for weapons but if they didn't find weapons but something else that is illegal wouldn't someone end up arrested because permission was given for the search?

 

Andrew87

I agree with Buzzby and king cola. I think as long as the police don't get pushy, this will work out well.

Lit_Match

As has been stated, it's voluntary, there's nothing governmental about it. If you have a sawed off 8 gauge and let the cops look anyway, sucks to be you (although I think there should be laws against police departments conducting this sort of activity).

As far as rights goes, until the majority of Americans are willing to participate in this little democracy of ours, don't hold your breath. At this point, state senates and congress can take and take with little opposition, what opposition there is comes from organizations (MPP and NRA for example) which depend on private funding. On top of that any group that publicly opposes the established laws is instantly branded as lunatic or anti progressive by the media.

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steakii

I think saying this search is for illegal guns is just a cover story. They want to look in these room for anything illegal, not just guns. If they find anything else illegal, they will probably charge the kid with it. It seems like a good idea on the surface, have cops search the rooms of teens to find guns, but i would guess alot more arrests will be made than firearms.

Murdock

Yes, I fully expect to see more pot arrests from this fishing expedition than gun arrests. Or are the police offering some type of immunity where they'll simply take the contraband and not involve criminal possession proceedings?

justsomeguy

king cola kit it on the head