My Brother in law has spent the last couple of years building himself a AR one pice at a time all Leagal . He is not a gun guy he just wanted a AR . He lives in town and asked me if he could come out and shoot . I told him sure if I'm at work my son would help him set up . They came over the other day I was at work . My son took his Marlin papose , 1915 Enfield my Mini 14 and P89 . They shot for a while picked up all the brass and targets . This was my Brother in law his Son 15 My Son 16 . I have owned this property all my life this is a rural area out side of City limits . Most everyone out here shoots . With the simi auto,s it may have sounded quite intence for just a little while most of it was slower target shooting but Someone called the police . There is a new family that has moved here recently but they shoot , 2 County officers moved out here a couple of years ago but some one is shooting out here every day . After they ran out of ammo and cleaned up My Wife was watching our Grand Kids 2 and 5 years old My son was watching TV there was a knock at the door 3 patrol car loads of county officers were at the door and when my son went to open it they pushed it in . My wife does not deal with things well and got hysterical they told her she was being hostile and they would have to search the house and made my son show them every gun in every room . My old Red bone hound behaved herself but our Chauaia ( spelling for small Mexican dog ? ) wanted to bite and one of the officers kept getting close to her with his hand on his side arm . They went into my room I keep my Prepps and of corse its full of Military gear and Ammo cans and kept commenting on my Sniper rifles . Now I would say they have a file on this . When they could not come up with anything they said its a ordinance that you can only shoot for one hour and they needed to see if they had broken it . How would a law like that work If you had 5 shooters and a hour was up and 2 shooters did not get to shoot they would be denied the right to shoot or is all 5 get a hour each then thats 5 hours . During Dove season shoots go on for hours . The police are never called here and are seldom called to this part of the county its all farms mostly . No one in my family is having any kind of trouble . This was just abuse of power .
Just Shooting
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DAMN!!!...id be having a talk with the officers that live close by..that is if none of them were a part of that squad that came out..
P.S...and maybe have a talk with a lawyer about it as well
P.S...and maybe have a talk with a lawyer about it as well
I agree, something sounds fishy here. Especially the pushing the door in part, I'm not sure how that was warranted. Then searching your house because your wife was worried? I'd be worried too if multiple police officers came pushing through my door.... I'd double check this with another officer then a lawyer as well if you can
Call an attorney. That's my advice. They broke your 4th amendment rights under federal law, and depending on what state you're in, they broke other laws defending against illegal search and invasion of privacy.
jimLE has a great idea, too. If the neighboring cops weren't part of it, you might ask them, but if you have a legal case, then a lawyer should be the 1st on to hear about it. I would also check local & state ordinances to see about the "1 hour" rule. That sounds like total nonsense to me. I've never heard of anything like that in any state. There's plenty I haven't heard of, but I'm just about willing to bet on this... My guess is that it all came up from someone claiming yall were shooting FULL auto, not semi auto. Regardless of what they thought about full auto, they have to have "Reasonable cause" to execute a search. Full auto is legal in many places with Class III/Trust ownership, so even if it was full auto, this doesn't constitute reasonable cause. If your family had broken a local ordinance about shooting for more than one hour, then you would have to see what the penalties are for that. I doubt it's jail time, more like a fine.
You might try calling their Chief, too. Let him know and see what his reaction is. I still think the best thing is to contact a lawyer as soon as possible.
PLEASE KEEP US POSTED ON THIS. This is an egregious abuse of power and no American should be subjected to illegal searches.
jimLE has a great idea, too. If the neighboring cops weren't part of it, you might ask them, but if you have a legal case, then a lawyer should be the 1st on to hear about it. I would also check local & state ordinances to see about the "1 hour" rule. That sounds like total nonsense to me. I've never heard of anything like that in any state. There's plenty I haven't heard of, but I'm just about willing to bet on this... My guess is that it all came up from someone claiming yall were shooting FULL auto, not semi auto. Regardless of what they thought about full auto, they have to have "Reasonable cause" to execute a search. Full auto is legal in many places with Class III/Trust ownership, so even if it was full auto, this doesn't constitute reasonable cause. If your family had broken a local ordinance about shooting for more than one hour, then you would have to see what the penalties are for that. I doubt it's jail time, more like a fine.
You might try calling their Chief, too. Let him know and see what his reaction is. I still think the best thing is to contact a lawyer as soon as possible.
PLEASE KEEP US POSTED ON THIS. This is an egregious abuse of power and no American should be subjected to illegal searches.
Psalms...just saw this post...you might consider giving Westcoast a shout, he is in law enforcement, he might be able to quote you something. I just got off the phone with my team mate who is a deputy county sheriff and my other team member is part of city police, both have no idea about the 1 hour rule...no such thing exists in Texas that is for sure. As for entering your home, they have had a warrant. You can check that both in the blotter and the county clerks office, because all judge appointed warrants must be filed and are part of public record. Based on your comments, it doesn't appear your son agreed or your wife agreed to a search, which as Alabaster commented must be "Probable Cause" and in the warrant it must state what they are looking for in said domicile. Sounds like backwoods country justice working here. As for JimLe's comments about visiting your neighbors, I certainly would. I have five LE neighbors and all of them know what I maintain as far as weapons in my home.
Also I can't remember who else was law enforcement in the forum, but you might as Danil54grl, her husband is retired law enforcement, nothing like retired L.E. people to know the "written law".
Hope everything works out for you, but like Alabaster say's "secure a lawyer", mine is on my speed dial.
Get a lawyer, and best of luck. Police are, in my limited experience, allowed to do pretty much whatever they want in whatever manner they want, no matter the legality. I had a friend in college who was stopped by a plainclothed officer when he and a group of friends got a little intoxicated. John, my friend, said that the officers (there were two, not in uniform) approached the group and one of them put his hand on John' shoulder to restrain him. They had not identified themselves as LE yet. John jerked away from what he perceived as another civilian touching him for no good reason, and he was tazed and taken in. The cops claimed that John swung on one of them; they had to justify use of the tazer. John had three witnesses versus the two officers and he just finished paying fines and making court visits to have "assault on a peace officer" removed from his record. Not trying to one up you, just a word of caution. I'd say if nothing came of it, leave it be. Otherwise you may give them a reason to come back again and harass you further. This sort of thing makes me really upset to be sure, please do keep us posted no matter what your course of action.
Besides checking out all the legal angles I would give some serious thought to changing the location of some of those items. Never can tell the outcome now that they have seen things.
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There are four main circumstances in which a warrant is not required for police to search your house:
1. Consent 2. Plain View 3. Search Incident to Arrest and 4. Exigent Circumstances
They are probably going to use #4 as an excuse. . . . This exception refers to emergency situations where the process of getting a valid search warrant could compromise public safety or could lead to a loss of evidence. This encompasses instances of "hot pursuit" in which a suspect is about to escape. A recent California Supreme Court decision ruled that police may enter a DUI suspect's home without a warrant on the basis of the theory that important evidence, namely the suspect's blood alcohol level, may be lost otherwise.
That is just crazy! We have had law enforcement called out on us many times before . . . a neighbor called in saying it sounded like WWIII. One of the boys got their hands on some dynamite for Christmas and of coarse when all the boys get together there is always gun fire involved. If it's not law enforcement its the fire department for our bond fires. . .
1. Consent 2. Plain View 3. Search Incident to Arrest and 4. Exigent Circumstances
They are probably going to use #4 as an excuse. . . . This exception refers to emergency situations where the process of getting a valid search warrant could compromise public safety or could lead to a loss of evidence. This encompasses instances of "hot pursuit" in which a suspect is about to escape. A recent California Supreme Court decision ruled that police may enter a DUI suspect's home without a warrant on the basis of the theory that important evidence, namely the suspect's blood alcohol level, may be lost otherwise.
That is just crazy! We have had law enforcement called out on us many times before . . . a neighbor called in saying it sounded like WWIII. One of the boys got their hands on some dynamite for Christmas and of coarse when all the boys get together there is always gun fire involved. If it's not law enforcement its the fire department for our bond fires. . .
Theshadowknows, I have to respectfully disagree with you on that. There are different things that each individual feel are not to be violated for any reason whatsoever. Personally, I feel like my home is one of those things. You have to draw the line somewhere, or you're making a statement(To yourself if no one else) that you are willing to lie down and take whatever is thrown at you. As a Christian, I believe in turning the other cheek, but this mentality is what got the Jews in trouble in Germany. This might be an extreme comparison, but if we don't stand up to people who are willfully violating our human rights, then we are allowing a greater evil to be committed. When problems are left alone, they go from bad to worse. Unless you are willing to sacrifice more and more of your personal life and more of your family, then you will need to take some level of action. Whether it be to call their superiors, to call an attorney, or preferably both... As Mountain*Heart said, you never know how these things might end. You may come home one day and find your firearms, preps, valuables, or more missing. That might sound presumptuous, but keep in mind, they violated a law of nature that has stood since the dawn of time. You don't force your way into another man's home and do as you please. If that had been during the caveman times, people would have been swinging clubs all over the place.
Really, there has to be a line, or there has to be a submission of all personal privacy, space, property, and peace of mind.
Really, there has to be a line, or there has to be a submission of all personal privacy, space, property, and peace of mind.
I'm kicking this back and forth I know I'm getting folks involved that can challenge any 1 hour shooting ordinance that is most likly some county thing . This is something that would just be used to push shooters around . As far as anything ealse I havn't decided .
