The Supreme Court dealt a massive blow to the radical left and mainstream media on Monday by ruling that warrantless gun confiscation from Americans’ homes is unconstitutional. The 9-0 vote by the court was a thunderous blow to those in politics looking to tighten their grasp over the American populace.
A Rhode Island man whose firearms were taken by law enforcement when his wife expressed concerns he might hurt himself triggered the courts ruling, and they had seen enough.
According to Caniglia v Strom, a lower court had previously determined that police confiscating the guns without a warrant fell under the Fourth Amendment’s “community caretaking” exception, but a 9-0 vote from the nation’s top court struck down that ruling.
Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the unanimous opinion for the Supreme Court, stating that law enforcement can execute “many civic tasks in modern society,” but there is “not an open-ended license to perform them anywhere.”
“The very core of the Fourth Amendment,” Thomas wrote, is the “right of a man to retreat into his own home and there be free from unreasonable search and seizure.”
Some exceptions to the 4th Amendment do exist, including “exigent circumstances,” Forbes reported. For instance, if an officer sees an individual about to shoot another person through the window of a home, that officer has the right to enter the home to prevent the attack.
Another exception – the one on which this case was based – is called “community caretaking.” The Supreme Court previously determined that police can bypass the warrant requirement to perform “community caretaking functions, totally divorced from the detection, investigation, or acquisition of evidence relating to the violation of a criminal statute,” noting a situation when police took a gun from the trunk of an impounded vehicle without a warrant.
“In reaching this conclusion, the Court noted that the officers who patrol the ‘public highways’ are often called to discharge noncriminal ‘community caretaking functions,’ such as responding to disabled vehicles or investigating accidents. But searches of vehicles and homes are constitutionally different, as the Cady opinion repeatedly stressed,” Thomas wrote in the court’s opinion.
Justice Samuel Alito wrote a concurring opinion for the ruling in which he addressed existing “red flag” laws that also call into question Fourth Amendment rights.
“This case also implicates another body of law that petitioner glossed over: the so-called “red flag” laws that some States are now enacting. These laws enable the police to seize guns pursuant to a court order to prevent their use for suicide or the infliction of harm on innocent persons,” Alito wrote.
“They typically specify the standard that must be met and the procedures that must be followed before firearms may be seized,” he continued. “Provisions of red flag laws may be challenged under the Fourth Amendment, and those cases may come before us. Our decision today does not address those issues.”
Monday was one of the biggest wins in American history for its people. The Court got this decision 100% right!
Thanks to our friends at American Military News for contributing to this article.
While I am 100% in agreement with this Supreme Court decision today, because we have pedophiles on that court, I am highly suspicious of today’s decision
The Supreme Court is upholding constitutional law which is their responsibility. I applaud their decision. The founding fathers knew what they were doing when they wrote the constitution and the constitution has served our country well.