Clean Your House Before Your Guns
Posted by John Kullman on August 20, 2010 · 2 Comments
This week Rockford, Illinois police responded to a call that a house was being burgled. Upon entering the home they determined the burglar had left and that the 67 year old home owner was gone. (He still hasn’t been found). What the police did find was a filthy house filled with garbage and over 300 firearms strewn about. The home was condemned as a health hazard and the firearms were taken to determine if any were stolen or had been used in a crime. To date, none of the weapons have been traced to any illegal activity and the owner isn’t being charge with a crime. Some bloggers are complaining about the police department’s actions but here at FirearmsTruth we speak the truth, even if it is a hard truth to swallow.
The police had a legal right to enter the home without a search warrant because of an exception to the 4th Amendment’s rule against illegal search and seizure. The doctrine is known as exigent circumstances, otherwise known as an emergency situation. The police entered the home thinking the burglar was still in the home or that the owner might be in need of medical attention because of the break-in. Once inside, they can gather any potential criminal evidence if it is found in the normal course of a burglary investigation. According to the report, the home was a public hazard because of the trash piles found in the home and it was condemned as a livable habitat.
Once condemned, the police had a right to take the firearms to both secure them from another attempted robbery and to check their legality. (Especially considering the owner still hasn’t been found and is thought to be out of town).They also have the right to remove and or search the trash for incriminating evidence. The lesson to be learned here is that if you own firearms, keep a tidy home.
If the owner is found and he is able to clean his home so as to make it habitable again, the police should give the firearms back unless an illegality is found. While one neighbor complained that there were too many firearms in the house, unless there is a local or state regulation about the number of guns that can be stored in one dwelling, they should be returned. The owner could also rent a storage garage to put the guns in if he has trouble complying with the cleanliness laws of Rockford.
Did the police seize the piles of trash, too? There’s yer evidence of a crime right there. And it would have eliminated this dastardly public hazard. I hope the police did their duty to protect the public from these killer piles of trash.
I’m having a little trouble wrapping my brain around this whole concept of piles of trash in a private place being a “public hazard” though….someone help me out with that one, would ya?
Where to start. Just because you own a home doesn’t give you the right to do anything with that home that you want. Rotting trash interferes with others quiet enjoyment of their property. Fowl smells is just one example. Piles of trash encourage rats and other critters to inhabit the area. Why should I put up with rats because I’m living next door to someone who is living in a trash dump? Disease can fester in piles of trash. Some airborn. Why should I put my health at rist because the fool next door won’t throw stuff away? I don’t want to live next door to a colony of roaches. They may want to expand their territory into my house.
Don’t wrap your brain too hard. I’m sure you can add other reasons why living next to a trash dump would be undesired.