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In a case argued before<\/a> the US Supreme Court on Wednesday, the Biden Administration, along with attorneys general from nine states, submitted arguments asking the justices to uphold warrantless home entry and gun confiscation by police.<\/p>\n The case stems<\/a> from a domestic dispute between an elderly married couple, Edward and Kim Caniglia. After an intense argument between the two that led to Edward dramatically telling his wife to shoot him with one of his handguns, Kim left the home to spend the night in a hotel. The next day she was unable to reach her husband and became concerned.<\/p>\n She reached out to police for a wellness check and an escort back to the home. But upon their arrival, police manipulated Edward into a psychiatric evaluation even though officers admitted<\/a> in their incident report that he \u201cseemed normal\u201d and \u201cwas calm for the most part.\u201d The police officers then lied to Mrs. Caniglia and told her Mr. Caniglia agreed to confiscation of his weapons. Even though Edwards was promptly released from the hospital, he was only able to regain his property after filing a civil rights lawsuit.<\/p>\n Police in the case relied upon a narrow exception to the Fourth Amendment called \u201ccommunity caretaking.\u201d This exception is a half-century old Supreme Court-created doctrine designed for cases involving impounded cars and highway safety. Essentially it was meant to give law enforcement a legal way to remove cars from the side of the interstate or clear wrecks.<\/p>\n While the First Circuit US Court of Appeals acknowledged<\/a> the doctrine\u2019s reach outside the context of motor vehicles is \u201cill-defined,\u201d it upheld the arguments in this case and allowed the exception to extend to private homes. In its finding the Court states that this exception is \u201cdesigned to give police elbow room to take appropriate action.\u201d<\/p>\n But attorneys for Caniglia argue that extending the community caretaking exception to private homes would be an assault on the Fourth Amendment and would grant police a blank check to intrude upon the home.<\/p>\n An amicus brief<\/a> filed by the ACLU, the Cato Institute, and the American Conservative Union agreed with the attorneys and pointed to jurisdictions that have extended such provisions leading to warrantless invasions of homes for things like loud music or leaky pipes.<\/p>\n One does not need to have a long memory to understand exactly how such permissions could go awry. For anyone who has paid attention to the news cycle over the past year, it is jarring to see a Democratic administration argue for warrantless home entry and gun seizures merely one year after Breonna Taylor\u2019s death.<\/p>\n Taylor was killed in her home by police after a no-knock entry<\/a> (tied to a falsified warrant<\/a>) led to cops spraying her apartment (and surrounding ones) with bullets. Taylor\u2019s boyfriend, believing the home was being broken into by criminals during the middle of the night, fired in defense and was originally charged in the case (all charges were later dropped and he is suing<\/a> the department).<\/p>\n The case created a national firestorm that elevated conversations around Second Amendment rights and self-defense, no-knock warrants, Fourth Amendment protections, and the need for policing reform and accountability. If such atrocities occurred under our current laws, it is pretty scary to imagine what law enforcement might get away with should the Biden administration get its way in this case.<\/p>\n Such arguments before the Supreme Court show that for many progressives their admirable instinct to restrict police power quickly goes out the window when they see an opportunity to chip away at gun rights.<\/p>\n This is severely misguided. A cursory overlook of the justice system\u2019s operations reveals<\/a> that the expansion of police powers almost always impacts marginalized communities more harshly\u2014 communities the Democrats claim to stand for.<\/p>\n In a 2016 speech<\/a> on the senate floor, Senator Tim Scott (R, SC) spoke about his own experience with racial bias in policing as a black man in this country. \u201cIn the course of one year, I\u2019ve been stopped seven times by law enforcement,\u201d Scott said. \u201cNot four, not five, not six, but seven times in one year as an elected official.\u201d<\/p>\n There is no reason to think that an extension of the community care exception would not have the same effect on communities of color.<\/p>\n To cite<\/a> just one study out of hundreds, the US Sentencing Commission found that when it comes to federal gun crimes, black people are more likely to be arrested, more likely to get longer sentences for similar crimes, and more likely to get sentencing enhancements. If the Supreme Court upholds the administration\u2019s argument, it is not difficult to predict which communities will be impacted the most by this new expansion.<\/p>\n Progressives are not the only ones experiencing a disconnect in principles at the moment either. Many Republicans were surprised in recent months to see police departments readily enforce unconstitutional lockdowns\u2014carting<\/a> business owners off to jail and fining law-abiding people who simply wanted to go to work. Likely, the majority on the right will be aghast at the arguments presented in this case and their clear violation of both our Second and Fourth Amendment rights. But it should not escape them who is arguing for these violations, nor who would ultimately enforce them.<\/p>\nHow Are Warrantless Seizures Okay?<\/h2>\n
Potential Problems<\/h2>\n
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