BM is an ignorant ass, OC is perfectly legal in NH, and we have yet to have an AD in a mall, nor does one see any one toting AR's.
As for "need" I want to ask , is there something about "Shall NOT be infringed" that you can't comprehend ? It isn't about NEED, it's about Rights and if I want to carry a 45/70 BFR that's between me and my hernia and nobody else.
You and TAB sound just as stupid as the anti's opposing CC in every state by saying "it will turn every fender bender into the OK corral". They've been wrong 48 times so but they still keep saying it.
Bad news David
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_09_06-2009_09_12.shtml#1252620396 The Fourth Amendment requires that searches and seizures be reasonable. A search or seizure is ordinarily unreasonable in the absence of individualized suspicion of wrongdoing. Chandler v. Miller, 520 U.S. 305, 308 (1997). While such suspicion is not an "irreducible" component of reasonableness, we have recognized only limited circumstances in which the usual rule does not apply.
For example, we have upheld certain regimes of suspicionless searches where the program was designed to serve "special needs, beyond the normal need for law enforcement." ... We have also upheld brief, suspicionless seizures of motorists ... at a sobriety checkpoint aimed at removing drunk drivers from the road, Michigan Dept. of State Police v. Sitz, 496 U.S. 444 (1990). In addition, in Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648, 663 (1979), we suggested that a similar type of roadblock with the purpose of verifying drivers' licenses and vehicle registrations would be permissible. In none of these cases, however, did we indicate approval of a checkpoint program whose primary purpose was to detect evidence of ordinary criminal wrongdoing....
In Sitz, we evaluated the constitutionality of a Michigan highway sobriety checkpoint program. The Sitz checkpoint involved brief suspicionless stops of motorists so that police officers could detect signs of intoxication and remove impaired drivers from the road. Motorists who exhibited signs of intoxication were diverted for a license and registration check and, if warranted, further sobriety tests. This checkpoint program was clearly aimed at reducing the immediate hazard posed by the presence of drunk drivers on the highways, and there was an obvious connection between the imperative of highway safety and the law enforcement practice at issue. The gravity of the drunk driving problem and the magnitude of the State's interest in getting drunk drivers off the road weighed heavily in our determination that the program was constitutional....
We further indicated in Prouse that we considered the purposes of ... a hypothetical [license and registration verification] roadblock to be distinct from a general purpose of investigating crime. The State proffered the additional interests of "the apprehension of stolen motor vehicles and of drivers under the influence of alcohol or narcotics" in its effort to justify the discretionary spot check. We attributed the entirety of the latter interest to the State's interest in roadway safety. We also noted that the interest in apprehending stolen vehicles may be partly subsumed by the interest in roadway safety. We observed, however, that "[t]he remaining governmental interest in controlling automobile thefts is not distinguishable from the general interest in crime control." Not only does the common thread of highway safety thus run through Sitz and Prouse, but Prouse itself reveals a difference in the Fourth Amendment significance of highway safety interests and the general interest in crime control....
So highway checkpoints aimed at interdicting threats to highway traffic themselves are generally constitutional (which may also help explain airport searches). But suspicionless highway checkpoints aimed at catching people who commit other crimes, whether drug trafficking or illegal hunting, are generally not constitutional (unless some other exception kicks in, and none of those would apply here).
UPDATE: But while that is still my view of the best reading of Edmond, Orin pointed out to me that other cases have generally upheld hunting checkpoints. Some of these (State v. Sherburne, 571 A.2d 1181 (Me. 1990), and People v. Layton, 552 N.E.2d 1280 (Ill. App. Ct. 1990)) are pre-Edmond, and strike me as inconsistent with Edmond's reasoning. But the Ninth Circuit's decision last month in United States v. Fraire likewise upheld a hunting checkpoint at the entrance to a national park:
MBTV
Forum Index
Help
Calendar
Contact Info
Register as a member
