pax,
Your point is -- as always -- that ordinary people don't have snowball's chance in Hades of successfully fighting back against a SWAT team on a no-knock.
People don't stand the proverbial snowball's chance in Hades of successfully fighting back against a knock and announce either. This isn't some hypothetical situation to me. I have done this. I have taught other officers how to do this.
Let me explain how you will have to exist (yes I mean exist not live) in order to have a fighting chance. Every evening your family comes home. The first person to arrive home stops in a covered a concealed position away from the house and observes the house for 15 - 30 minutes to make sure no one has entered the house and is waiting in ambush. After the first person to arrive observes the neighborhood and is sure that there is nothing amiss, no vehicles or people who seem out of place, that person moves to the house and checks the perimeter, he/she checks the telltale devices left in all the doors and windows to be sure none of them have been breached. Then he/she enters the house. Once in the door secures it and moves to a covered and concealed position where he/she listens to the background noise in the house, if there are no unexplainable noises, he/she makes a quick sweep through the house making sure no one is there. Now he/she moves back to a covered and concealed position where he/she can over watch the rest of the family returning from their daily activities. The family member securing the house signals the rest of the family that it's safe to approach. As the next family member approaches home, he/she stops in a covered and concealed position before they get to the house and gives the family member in the house the prearranged far recognition signal. Once the far recognition signal is acknowledged, the family member approaches the house and stops at the door. The daily password and countersign is exchanged and if the family member requesting entry doesn't give the prearranged duress signal he/she is permitted to enter. Once the family member enters, he/she moves to his/her assigned defensive position and waits. The process is repeated until the entire family is home. Once everyone is home, armed and in their assigned defensive position, the family conducts stand to for an hour, in case someone was waiting for them all to arrive before they attacked. After an hour if activity in the neighborhood remains normal, security is dropped to one person watching and the rest of the family goes about their normal evening routine, preparing dinner, homework, reading, TV......When dinner is prepared, the family moves to their defensive positions taking their dinner with them and eat while watching. You have a couple choices when it comes to bed time. Everyone but the person on watch can sleep in one room, with the clothes they intend to fight in on and their weapons and ammunition by their side, touching, so that shaking one person awake will wake the rest, or at their defensive positions maybe tied together with a pull cord so that the person on watch can rouse everyone and have them ready. One hour before EENT (Earliest Evening Nautical Twilight) until one hour after all family members need to be in their defensive positions looking over the sights of their weapons because the enemy may assume that you are vulnerable then getting ready for bed. At bed time you have to divide the number of hours until 90 minutes before BMNT (Before Morning Nautical Twilight) by the number of family members old enough to stand watch. make your sleep plan, put the first watch on duty and everyone else sleeps. Of course you'll be awakened for things like a squad car showing up at the neighbors house to take a report, or an unidentified car parking down the street. Everyone will have to be alert and ready to fight in case it's the start of the raid. 90 minutes before BMNT everyone awakened, one at a time they use the bathroom, wipe the sleep from their eyes and get into their defensive position. By one hour before BMNT the entire family is awake, in their defensive position and ready to fight. They stay there until one hour after BMNT, the sun will be well up and you'll be able to get a good view of your surroundings. If everything appears normal, you can drop to minimal security as everyone prepares for their day. Breakfast is taken in your defensive positions (don't want to be caught unprepared while eating) the day's password and countersign and near and far recognition signals are passed out, the entire family covers the first person to leave the house and he/she conducts a quick recon of the neighborhood. Once the all clear is given the family departs for work, school, shopping... one at a time.
Following that plan or a similar one pretty much insures you won't be taken by surprise when the local boys in blue misread the address on the warrant and who knows, you may even kill more then one of the jack booted thugs before you die in a hail of gunfire. But just think, a thrilling existence until that day comes ( I say existence, because those of us who have existed that way for real sure didn't consider it living) and you'll undoubted be heroes and lauded all over the internet, from Stormfront to THR.....Of course, you'll be dead and probably other members of your family will be too, but hey, it's a small price to pay to make a statement
You add, as always, that mistaken no-knocks are "as rare as a meteor strike" in the first place. (A tiny bit of hyperbole! Exactly one person in known history has ever been struck by a meteorite, and that wasn't even a serious injury.)
If ONE member of THR can prove they were the victim of a mistaken address no knock, I'll take back the part about the meteorite. I contend that it's never happened to a member here, which makes it rarer then the meteorite strike.
So why in the world would it bother you that some people hate the idea of these things so very much that they would fight back if they could, and vow that if a mistaken-address no-knock ever happens to them, they want to take somebody to Hades with them? Why even worry about it, if it's such a fantasy?
Because this fantasy, posted on a forum that calls itself The High Road, and has as it's mission to promote the
responsible use of firearms makes law abiding gun owners look like Walter Mitty at best and anti government revolutionaries at worst. This is kind of drivel I would expect to read at Stormfront. The posters in these threads who hide behind screen names and vent their frustrations with the system have no freaking idea what kind of damage they do to RKBA. Someone point out one instance where an armed citizen drove the SWAT team off and won the fight.
I'll tell you why: it's because mistaken no-knocks are not rare enough.
How many no knock warrants are served in this country? Do you have any idea? Let me tell you the majority of search warrants served in this country are served by uniformed officers and detectives knocking on a door, presenting the warrant and doing their job without ever drawing a weapon. Those warrants that are served by tactical units are served that way because that is the safest way to do it. Safest for everyone. When you can come up with some numbers to compare your examples with against the total numbers of warrants served then we can discuss if they are rare enough. Like it or not, the police departments are staffed by human beings and human beings are fallible. Why don't we compare the number of mistaken no knocks against another thing that human beings participate in that can have serious consequences and get some real numbers. Or are you afraid to. The ball is in your court.
And are you really naive enough to think that encouraging people to think starting a gunfight in that situation is good idea is going to make the police stop serving search warrants? What do you hope to accomplish by giving advice on the internet that will get people killed. I'd like to remind you that this isn't some hypothetical exercise. People actually die in gunfights. And unlike the movies, you don't get up when the scene is over. You are dead, never to see your children or grandchildren again. And for what? To have them say what a patriot you were on the internet? Is it worth that? If you start shooting in a police raid, wrong address or not, someone WILL shoot you. It's just that freaking simple. So the question is, is it better to get a lawyer and file a 1983 action in federal court or is the proper response to go out in a hail of gunfire? That is exactly what you are advocating when you allow these threads to run.
That's why it bothers you. You're afraid someone -- an otherwise law-abiding person, who therefore really has no reason to expect the SWAT team to visit -- will fight back, and kill a good man when he does.
No it bothers me because two good men will die, the officer and the innocent citizen who decided to fight back. If you think I want to kill an innocent person you're very wrong.
THAT should give you something to think about. If you have to suffer the indignity of a mistaken police raid, you will have recourse in the courts. Damages will be paid, you will probably be a very wealthy person because federal law allows you to recover attorney fees. Is death preferable to indignity?
Jeff
