I'll add my letter in a moment.
Dear Congressman X:
It has come to my attention that leaders of many municipalities throughout our United States of America, such as Shreveport, Louisiana's Mayor Cedric Glover, wrongly believe they have the right, if not the duty, to deprive (infringe upon) the Second Amendment rights of lawfully-armed citizens based solely on the fact those citizens are armed, or worse, suspected of being armed.
These outrages, Sir, must stop.
Not only does our Second Amendment specifically prohibit any infringement on our right to keep and bear arms, but both the Heller and McDonald Supreme Court Cases have affirmed the right to keep and bear arms is an individual right.
Furthermore, in St. John vs Alamagordo, Federal Judge Bruce D. Black ruled that "Mr. St. John's lawful possession of a loaded firearm in a crowded place could not, by itself, create a reasonable suspicion sufficient to justify an investigatory detention." In support of his decision, he cited United States v. Ubiles, 224 F.3d 213 (3rd Cir. 2000), which "found that an individual's lawful possession of a firearm in a crowded place did not justify a search or seizure" and that "the situation was no different than if the informant had told officers "that Ubiles possessed a wallet . . . and the authorities had stopped him for that reason."
Judge Black also cited United States v. King, 990 F.2d 1552 (10th Cir. 1993), where "the Tenth Circuit found that an investigatory detention initiated by an officer after he discovered that the defendant lawfully possessed a loaded firearm lacked sufficient basis because the firearm alone did not create a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity."
The bottom line, Sir, is that the mere possession of a lawfully-owned firearm does NOT create a reasonable suspicion of prior, current, or future criminal activity, as is therefore insufficient basis to violate a citizen's 4th amendment rights by means of either a stop, detention, seizure, or arrest.
Yet these activities are being promulgated on U.S. citizens by characters such as Mayor Glover and law enforcement officers each and every day.
This gross and flagrant violation of our Constitutional rights must be stopped!
Since these rights are Constitutional, I respectfully request you enact federal legislation making it a crime for any law enforcement officer at at level -- local, county, state, or federal -- to stop, detain, or arrest a lawfully-armed citizen, or to seize the firearm of such a citizen, without reasonable articulable suspicion of criminal activity connected with the reason for the stop, or of reasonable articulable suspicion that the individual in question poses a clear and present (immediate) danger or harm to the individual himself or to others; and that the mere presence of a firearm does not create such suspicion in either the case of criminal activity, impending danger or harm, or alarm, disturbing the peace, or brandishing.
Congressman, we law-abiding citizens are not the criminals! For decades power has shifted to the police state at the expense of our rights and freedoms, and it's long overdue to shift some of that power back into the hands of the people. This legislation will
not shift the Constitutional balance of power. Instead, it
corrects the un-Constitutional usurpation of our rights by aberrant individuals acting beyond the Constitutional limits of their authority.
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Feel free to cross-discuss this on RYOC,
here.
