[California]: do you lknow any CA cops having (likely) illegal assault weapons?

[billwiese]

[California]: do you know any CA cops having (likely) illegal assault weapons?

(I'd appreciate if non-Californians would refrain from posting in this thread unless they have directly relevant info, which should be emailed to me as per below.)

• 
  [*] PLEASE DON'T REPLY TO THIS (nor PM me about this) EXCEPT FOR ANY CLARIFYING QUESTIONS.
  
  
  [*] PLEASE DIRECT ALL RESPONSES VIA EMAIL TO ME AT '[email protected]'
  
  
  [*] PLEASE ENTER "[PROJECT-58]" IN YOUR EMAIL 'SUBJECT'

It appears there are quite a few cops spread throughout California who own
what are most likely unregistered/unpermitted CA-defined "assault weapons".

Surprisingly, these situations are not necessarily clustered in 'rural' or 'Northern'
or 'Central Valley' cities/counties. It appears quite a few cops & sheriff's deputies
have thought they were immune from Roberti-Roos/ SB23 registration requirements,
and/or are confusing the parameters of the now-sunset Federal 1994 AW ban with
those of the two CA bans.

For a variety of reasons, knowing the number of such miscreants within given cities
and counties will be very, very helpful to our cause.

AT THIS POINT I DO NOT WISH TO GET INTO ANY FINGER-POINTING GAMES,
"Officer X in Dept Y has unreg'd guns 1,2,3...". This is NOT about the *individual*
cop in question (unless he were to bust a legit 'off-list' rifle guy on a bogus AW
charge, etc.)


NOTE ALSO: THIS REGARDS LAW ENFORCEMENT PERSONNEL ONLY (primarily
Police & sheriff's deputies - but info about CHP or other state agency LE groups'
officers could be useful too.)

[Right now, I don't care if a noted politician or notable or other non-LEO owns illegal AWs in
CA; that is not relevant to this particular situation/strategy.]

What I need:

• no name, just knowing cop vs. sheriff and which department/county;
  
  
• overall type/style of gun (AR, AK, HK, FAL, Uzi, SKS w/detach mag, etc.)
  including configured features suite. Make/model is important. If you are
  unsure about a specific aspect/feature, do please say so: for example,
  flash hiders vs. brakes can be difficult to differentiate. Please try to be as
  accurate (specifics) as possible. Be aware of NFA issues (shorty SBRs and
  SBSes) as well.
  
  
• grounds for belief the gun is an AW (known banned make/model, saw
  it up close during use at range, handled it yourself, etc.) - as opposed to a
  non-AW (say, a manually cycled off-list rifle or fixed-mag OLL, etc.). Please
  ensure that you're properly differentiating between OLL and a true AW. Please
  describe any element/aspect of which you're uncertain.
  
  
• anything the cop said to you directly (or within earshot) about 'being special',
  not having to register AWs due to LE status, lack of chance of being arrested or
  prosecuted, etc.

Remember, the purpose of this is to get a hand on the scale of the issue by
region in CA -- and not to get an individual cop in trouble.

I do not forsee any issues coming back at you as an individual for sending me emails
about such matters. This is being dealt with on a 'bulk' scale for now. [Ultimately we
could (already) make an example of various officers if folks who reported these issues
to me were hassled, but I simply don't expect this chain of events to occur.]

AGAIN, THIS IS NOT ABOUT GOING AFTER COPS. THIS IS ABOUT GOING AFTER A BAD
STATEWIDE SITUATION REGARDING "Assault Weapons".

I THANK THE FOLKS THAT HAVE REPLIED TO ME PRIVATELY ALREADY. YOUR KNOWLEDGE
AND LEVEL OF DETAIL IN REPORTING OF ITEMS & BEHAVIORS IS GREATLY APPRECIATED AND
GIVES ME GREAT CONFIDENCE IN CALIFORNIA GUNNIES.



Bill Wiese
San Jose CA

 

[pbearperry]

Joe Friday has a bunch of them.They are in his closet next to his cigarettes.

 

[billwiese]

bumpity

 

[DontBurnMyFlag]

 

[ridata]

Seeing as you are a long standing member here I do not want to insult you or call you a troll.

But ... why would anyone on this board want to 'tattle-tale' on their 'neighbors' illegal activities regarding guns that we all think should be legal? It is quite possible this information is going to be used for a 'good' purpose, but it doesn't have to be. Some departments are bigger than others, but for some departments it wouldn't be terribly hard to track down the person with the weapon. Just sayin'...

 

[Sinixstar]

Seeing as you are a long standing member here I do not want to insult you or call you a troll.

But ... why would anyone on this board want to 'tattle-tale' on their 'neighbors' illegal activities regarding guns that we all think should be legal? It is quite possible this information is going to be used for a 'good' purpose, but it doesn't have to be. Some departments are bigger than others, but for some departments it wouldn't be terribly hard to track down the person with the weapon. Just sayin'...

I don't think the point is to track down individuals or make an example out of any one person(s). I gather this is more an exercise in aggregate statistics for the purpose of making a broader point as to the futility of AWBs.

Although certainly i'm in no position to be an authority on the purpose.

 

[billwiese]

... why would anyone on this board want to 'tattle-tale' on their 'neighbors' illegal activities regarding guns that we all think should be legal? It is quite possible this information is going to be used for a 'good' purpose, but it doesn't have to be. Some departments are bigger than others, but for some departments it wouldn't be terribly hard to track down the person with the weapon.

The results rolling in reveal several things...

• a large fraction have frequently and repeated bragged to many folks over
  a long period of time they have a 'brass pass' (i.e., they think they'd never
  be arrested/prosecuted);
  
  
• some of the cops are just plain unaware of the law and think they're
  legally exempt from it (like they are from the approved handgun Roster);
  
  
• some cops are confusing CA's laws vs. the expired 1994 Fed AW ban;
  
  
• some of these AWs may be seizure guns wandering out of the dept.
  locker to fall into an unpapered personal/patrol gun category;
  
  
• some of these appear to be 'drug cops', which raises spectre of blackmail
  vs. drug locker theft or turn-your-head enforcement worries;

The problem appears to be at a larger scale than I first thought.

I am impressed with the quality of reports I have been getting as to the type of gun, its possible origins, duration of ownership, etc. So far the reporters have been ones not bearing a grudge (i.e, not ratting a cop out 'cuz they got a traffic ticket from him, etc.) and who understand why this is a systemic problem.

My work here is about gross stats and not popping an individual cop. But if a cop has bragged repeatedly for the past 8 or 18 years about illegal AW possession and that gets him in trouble, well, that's his problem - he failed the Big IQ Test. Also, we have at least one cop that seems to have been in illegal possession of AWs but has popped someone else (a relative) for AW. (Unsure how the relative's charges were disposed of or how far it went.) If I knew such a cop were to have popped someone for a legal off-list rifle (i.e., non-AW) obviously we'd have to take his situation further.

Part of the problem is due to our DOJ Firearms Bureau (demoted from Firearms Division in 2007) past conduct, hiding from issues involved in complexity of laws, not promulgating things properly, and some of their own incompetence.

At this point it seems it's large enough to require a politico-legal solution, and cops won't go to jail or lose their jobs.

Unless fixed (and perhaps even afterward) it raises questions about credibility of cop testimony in prior cases during course of cops' felonious AW possession during his career. When PDs/defense lawyers start asking questions of every cop known to be gun-oriented, "Do you own an illlegal assault weapon?", etc. things will come to a crux.



Bill Wiese
San Jose CA

 

[M14/11B]

I always thought that it was unfair that cops could buy restricted guns but we civilians could not. Talk about equal protection under the law. Also sets the stage for civilians to not have the same weapons as cops, military, para-military, etc. Gets people used to the idea that those are military or cop weapons only. Bunch of BS.

M14

 

[Zoogster]

Why would we benefit from reporting that?

Wouldn't possession of such private weapons by many officers help to show they are "in common use" within the state?

Insuring they are not in common use by the most populous state in the nation is not the best way to insure such firearms are protected in future rulings.

I do understand your angle, that if police realized they are not exempt, LEO are less likely to back the stupid state laws.
The state could then of course make an exemption. That exemption could then be declared discriminatory and illegal, as police especialy when off duty are citizens and civilians, no different under the Constitution.

However currently what is in "common use" is still left to be decided by the courts. I would not be taking actions to remove firearms from use at this time, because the more in use they are, the more common they are. That means they are more likely to be deemed "in common use" by citizens of the United States of America, and prohibitions on them illegal.

Now if you could make them legal for all Californians, it would help that cause. However if your only aim is to reduce thier possession by police, whether for thier benefit or to hold them accountable, then it could have a negative impact in the battle against "Assault weapons" restrictions.

 

[Kino74]

The way I see it is this: The constitution should apply to everyone. I don't believe in certain classes of people having certain rights. The law is the law and no one is above it. Taxpayers have a right to ensure that their public servants are upholding the law AND obeying the law themselves.

While most LEOs are highly supportive of our 2A rights, there are some, particularly from states witih restrictive gun rights, that need to learn a lesson about equality under the law. If those LEOs don't like the law, then they have the choice of living with a absurd law or helping us get rid of it.

 

[Frog48]

as police especialy when off duty are citizens and civilians, no different under the Constitution.

Cops ARE civilians, regardless whether on-duty or off-duty.

A civilian is anybody not currently serving on active duty with the Armed Forces of the United States.

 

[BHP FAN]

In the next town up,the [now ex-]police chief just got busted for a machine gun and a silencer.He traded evidence for it.

 

[Zoogster]

Cops ARE civilians, regardless whether on-duty or off-duty.

A civilian is anybody not currently serving on active duty with the Armed Forces of the United States.

Yes, but the distinction of equality for all has been greatly blurred in the latest generation.

Take the Coast Guard, both a branch of the armed forces, and part of Homeland Security, and a "police" agency.

Numerous exemptions and precedents have been created to make police seperate.
Many state laws do exempt officers, both while on duty, and some statutes while they are off duty.

H.R. 218 the National Concealed Carry for Cops law was signed into law and Amended the Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act of 2004, essentialy making them unique citizens, entitled to different privelidges than the serfs.

Military hardware can be used by LEO any time they declare drugs are involved, drasticly blurring the lines between Law Enforcement and the Armed Forces. Just planting a little drugs after the fact can make any use of military hardware or personel legal afterwards.
The National Guard helicopters used in the Waco Siege were allowed because they said drugs were involved even when none were.

Homeland Security links Federal LEO, and previously military Intelligence Agencies together along with some departments with militant responsibilities.
What is the Armed Forces and what are LEO is less clear, and LEO now have much of the tools of the military at thier disposal. They have been reluctant to use them for civilian law enforcement tasks, but they do have the option now.

Posse Comitatus was overwritten by Congress and Bush in recent years. Fortunately some of the things signed into law have been repealed, like the John Warner National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007. That essentialy allowed the Federal Government to use the Military against civilians any time they wished to declare martial law, or a national emergency.
We barely avoided the potential tragedies of that legislation.
So while use of the actual military on civilians has been kept somewhat limited, many former LEO agencies are the same in name only, and are becoming essentialy part of the military themselves, and are much more paramilitary.

Police departments and agencies have been moving towards increased use of select fire weapons for "SWAT" and similar teams by other names, as well as increased use of semi auto "Assault weapons" while the same things have been increasingly restricted or banned for regular citizens.
So just over 20 years ago a person could build, convert, or buy thier own machinegun cheap (prior to Hughes) while most police were using revolvers.
Now police have progressed to current hardware, while other citizens have been increasingly restricted.
Almost a complete reversal.

So there is certainly different classes of citizens entitled to different privelidges now. The lines between police and military are being blurred. Police have both state and national privelidges above and beyond other civilians, even after retiring.
It is not your grandfather's America, and not even your dad's America.

 

[Jeff White]

A civilian is anybody not currently serving on active duty with the Armed Forces of the United States.

I suggest you look the word civilian up in a dictionary and correct your post...We've been down this road before. The antis are the ones who change the meaning of words to reflect their political agenda. We don't. :banghead:

 

[Frog48]

I suggest you look the word civilian up in a dictionary and correct your post...We've been down this road before. The antis are the ones who change the meaning of words to reflect their political agenda. We don't.

Nice try, but the dictionary you're using is wrong.

The Geneva Convention, Hague Convention, International Red Cross, and the US Dept of Defense all define "civilian" the same way as my previous post... Anybody not in the Armed Forces. The term "civilian", colloquially, has not been applied to non law enforcement personnel, but legally law enforcement personnel ARE civilians.

If you still dont get it, try researching the etymology of the word "civilian".

 

[VINTAGE-SLOTCARS]

California]: do you know any CA cops having (likely) illegal assault weapons

You should have asked how many of your friends never registered guns under the weapons ban. There would thousands listed by now.

 

[tnegiet]

Nice try, but the dictionary you're using is wrong.

The term "civilian", colloquially, has not been applied to non law enforcement personnel, but legally law enforcement personnel ARE civilians.

WRONG

Merriam-Webster:

civilian
One entry found.

Main Entry: ci·vil·ian
Pronunciation: \sə-ˈvil-yən also -ˈvi-yən\
Function: noun
Date: 14th century
1: a specialist in Roman or modern civil law
2 a: one not on active duty in the armed services or not on a police or firefighting force b: outsider 1
— civilian adjective

YourDictionary.com:

civilian Definition
ci·vil·ian (sə vil′yən)

noun

any person not an active member of the armed forces or of an official force having police power
Archaic a specialist in civil or Roman law
Etymology: ME < OFr civilien < L civilis, civil
adjective

of or for civilians; nonmilitary

Dictionary.com:

ci⋅vil⋅ian   /sɪˈvɪlyən/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [si-vil-yuhn] Show IPA Pronunciation

–noun 1. a person who is not on active duty with a military, naval, police, or fire fighting organization.
2. Informal. anyone regarded by members of a profession, interest group, society, etc., as not belonging; nonprofessional; outsider: We need a producer to run the movie studio, not some civilian from the business world.
3. a person versed in or studying Roman or civil law.
–adjective 4. of, pertaining to, formed by, or administered by civilians.


Oxford Dictionary:

Civilian
• noun a person not in the armed services or the police force.

• adjective relating to a civilian.

— ORIGIN Old French civilien, in the phrase droit civilien ‘civil law’.

 

[Jeff White]

Grant 48 said;

The Geneva Convention, Hague Convention, International Red Cross, and the US Dept of Defense all define "civilian" the same way as my previous post... Anybody not in the Armed Forces. The term "civilian", colloquially, has not been applied to non law enforcement personnel, but legally law enforcement personnel ARE civilians.

Law Enforcement personnel are only legally civilians for the purposes defined in the the references you cited. Have you never read a law where they start it off with definitions? Why do you think they have to do that? They do that because words in common use often have meanings that are different from how the authors of the document want them to be used for the purposes of that law or treaty. They simply narrow the scope of the common meaning, they don't limit the meaning of the word to that.

When the Geneva or Hague Conventions or any of the international Red Cross/Red Crescent agreements are under discussion here, feel free to limit the meaning of the term civilian to military personnel. For all other uses, civilian means what the dictionary says it means. Surely that can't be too hard to comprehend.

In the past I have posted the definition of civilian from the Official US Government Edition of the dictionary. A search of my posts bring it up, but it's essentially the same as tnegiet posted.

That ends the discussion of word use on THR. We will not change the common meaning of words to fit yours or anyone else's political agenda. The antis do that. We are better then that.

 

[Frog48]

For all other uses, civilian means what the dictionary says it means. Surely that can't be too hard to comprehend.

Yall have merely confirmed my point, that "civilian" has been misused colloquially, as Mirriam Webster, et al are not LEGAL definitions, but common-use definitions.

I'm not going to be baited into a pissing contest with you, or anyone else. I have no "political agenda" of any kind, as you say. I simply dont like it when something untrue is perpetuated.

That ends the discussion of word use on THR. We will not change the common meaning of words to fit yours or anyone else's political agenda. The antis do that.

In fact, the broad overencompassing use of a term is very much an "anti" technique, IE the labeling of semiautomatic rifles as "assault weapons". Yall might want to think about that a minute before you accuse others of something.

 

[Jeff White]

In fact, the broad overencompassing use of a term is very much an "anti" technique,

Explain how the use of the commonly accepted definition of a word is broad over encompassing. It would be broad over encompassing if the definition was altered. But it hasn't been. That definition has been used for decades.

I have no "political agenda" of any kind, as you say. I simply dont like it when something untrue is perpetuated.

You are the one who is perpetrating the untruth. If the word civilian excluded everyone but those people with a Geneva Convention Card in their pocket, then there would have been no need for the diplomats who wrote the documents to define the scope of word in the document.

 

[chriso]

Don't worry what's in other peoples safes worry about your own S**T.

 

[billwiese]

The thread has drifted to BS about 'civilian', etc. by out-of-staters.

The only way to take down CA's AW law is by tactics like these.

Some friggin' people can't read between the lines. Cops will not get hurt in this, but it would affect cases they're on. This is turning out to be a larger problem than I thought - and many many cops have freely admitted to others they have a 'brass pass' for felonious conduct. The scary thing is that some of these are drug cops and could be blackmailable.

ChrisO: don't tell me what to worry about I know the gun laws a helluva lot better than you do.
VintageSlotCars: I don't have any friends with illegal guns, it's too much risk to me hanging with felons.



Bill Wiese
San Jose CA

 

[Jeff White]

The only way to take down CA's AW law is by tactics like these.

I don't know about that. You could always participate in the legislative process and elect representatives that would vote it out. That's the traditional way these things are done. Of course I guess the framers of the constitution were just totally off their rockers when they devised it. We all know the real way to get rid of a bad law is to turn people in for violating it...

 

[TAB]

I've always said the easyest way to get rid of the CA gun laws is have them apply to every one equally.

 

[Rifleman 173]

<Cough> Out of stater here. I think that nobody has mentioned the word "exclusion." As in police in most states get exclusions from some laws to allow them to do their jobs more effectively. So the Peoples' Republic of California has a law against ownership of magazines with over 10 rounds. That same law probably has an exclusion in it allowing police officers to have, use and possession magazines that hold more than 10 rounds. That is what is meant as "a brass pass."