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http://www.nationalreview.com/artic...s-concealed-carry-permit-firearms-civil-right
Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals: you can have either 2nd amendment rights or 4th amendment rights. Pick one
PDF of the Opinion
http://www.ca4.uscourts.gov/Opinions/Published/144902A.P.pdf
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff - Appellee,
v. SHAQUILLE MONTEL ROBINSON, Defendant - Appellant
Non PDF format here:
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Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals: you can have either 2nd amendment rights or 4th amendment rights. Pick one
In an en banc opinion, the court ruled that after a lawful traffic stop, the police may frisk any person who they believe may possess a firearm, regardless of whether that person possesses a concealed-carry permit. The court actually typed this sentence: "The danger justifying a protective frisk arises from the combination of a forced police encounter and the presence of a weapon, not from any illegality of the weapon's possession"
Indeed, Judge James Wynn, writing in concurrence, made the majority's reasoning terrifyingly clear: In sum, individuals who carry firearms — lawfully or unlawfully — pose a risk of danger to themselves, law enforcement officers, and the public at large. Accordingly, law enforcement officers may frisk lawfully stopped individuals whom the officers reasonably suspect are carrying a firearm because a detainee's possession of a firearm poses a categorical "danger" to the officers.
So, if concealed-carry permit holders are presumptively dangerous, does this mean that they forfeit other constitutional rights? Wynn explained (approvingly) that under the majority's reasoning they certainly do: I see no basis — nor does the majority opinion provide any — for limiting our conclusion that individuals who choose to carry firearms are categorically dangerous to the Terry frisk inquiry. Accordingly, the majority decision today necessarily leads to the conclusion that individuals who elect to carry firearms forego other constitutional rights, like the Fourth Amendment right to have law enforcement officers "knock-and-announce" before forcibly entering homes. . . . Likewise, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that individuals who choose to carry firearms necessarily face greater restriction on their concurrent exercise of other constitutional rights, like those protected by the First Amendment.
In essence, the Fourth Circuit is declaring that gun owners lawfully exercising their constitutional rights are to be viewed with particular suspicion by law enforcement, regardless of any empirical evidence of danger. The court is relegating lawful gun owners to second-class-citizen status.
PDF of the Opinion
http://www.ca4.uscourts.gov/Opinions/Published/144902A.P.pdf
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff - Appellee,
v. SHAQUILLE MONTEL ROBINSON, Defendant - Appellant
Non PDF format here:
Google Scholar
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