So we can save the 4th Amendment. Tactics like this, or stop and frisk, became far less attractive when a lot of ordinary citizens are legally carrying firearms. It overwhelms law enforcement with false-positives. But you can bet even if we force carry on them, they will use this anyway to harass the law-abiding, as long as the courts let them get away with it.
15 thoughts on “Why New York City Must Accept the Second Amendment”
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What happens when people start wearing clothing that can fool the sensors?
Does anyone make this yet? :-)
“You’ve obviously got something to hide.”
(Since it could work only by blocking the view underneath it.)
I see a burgeoning market in mylar or metal coated plastic cutouts that can be worn under clothing to make the police think you have a gun. No crime against wearing a cardboard or plastic shape under your clothes.
Certainly would raise some very interesting 4th Amendment arguments.
From the original article…
The NYPD will soon deploy new technology allowing police to detect guns carried by criminals without using the typical pat-down procedure, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Wednesday.
Guess what, Rocco – it will also detect guns, and other objects, carried by non-criminals. Do the leftists really want the police to know at a glance what inanimate objects they’re carrying on their persons?
Based on the 2 year old dump of all types of handgun permits, not just carry licenses, published by Gawker, there were only a few more than 21,100 outstanding.
According to the NYPD anyone who wants to carry a gun IS a criminal……
Why bother with special clothing? It works by reading the natural radiation emitted by a living body and looking for “gaps”, where something is blocking it (specifically, a gun-shaped something).
Here’s what I’d try to do. Walk in a crowd (the ambient group-emission would cover up any “gaps”). Walk with my gun-side facing AWAY from the sensor. Carry my daughter on my gun side (assuming weak-side carry; her body would cover up the “gap” in mine).
And all that assumes that simply covering your gun with your arm (think: shoulder holster) doesn’t sufficiently “fool” the sensor.
It seems to me, this “latest, greatest” technology is so easily overcome by such simple means, it’s practically useless even before it gets implemented. Not that it isn’t still a gross 4th Amendment violation, but….
Uhm, since terrahertz radiation is between radio signals and visible light in the EM spectrum I doubt we “naturally emit” it.
Everything I could find quickly online sounds like it uses an emitter.
They are gonna be exposing people to a radiation source that according to some research can damage DNA, altho from what I found it is not conclusive. Sort of like cell phone radiation, some say it’s safe, others say not safe.
Microwaves are between visible light and infrared. Microwaves are non-ionizing radiation, so ought to be pretty harmless. It’s basically RADAR, only they are scanning your body for metal objects.
RADAR is very dangerous. For years the military has had precautions in place for any work around this equipment. I don’t know why there is any question in anyone’s mind about EM radiation. It has been known for decades to be dangerous. Now there are supposed arguments for and against the danger presented by cell phones with their antenna next to your skull for long periods. Low power + long time = High power + short time.
THz is far infrared, between IR and microwaves. Anything with a temperature (e.g. everything) emits electromagnetic radiation. The cooler the object, the lower the wavelength (peak intensity, it’s actually a spectrum) and objects of temperatures typically encountered have peak blackbody emissions in the THz range.
Long story short-we’re all THz emitters.
What is this forf amend mant you speak of?
NYC: where the MTA is “public” when they need money and “Private” when they want to look in your bag.
From a NYPD grunt: They see an end to stop and frisk coming like a freight train and want to use this new tech to “justify” stops. They will set up passive sweeps by parking vans in the right place and use the tech to walk teams on to individuals of ill backscatter. They would prefer to just cordon and search everyone but that wouldn’t pass. He also told me that the brass is scared witless by the thought of citizen carry but a good 2/3 of the patrol guys WANT it.
BTW, a (bad) joke among some officers goes: “A stop is justified if the person in question is not clearly wearing an NYPD uniform.”
Aluminized Mylar cutouts, supply them to everyone in the area (probably cost on the order of 10 – 15 cents each), and begin the silent protest. Barely cooperate, argue quietly, a friend nearby to film everything, and see if we can get the bastards up to 100 stop and frisks per hour apiece, with nothing to show for their effort but exhaustion.
Go back to the end of the line, and make them do all of us several times.
Waste thousands of hours of non-productive overtime for the NYPD, hundreds of lawsuits, bad publicity from every corner.
Maybe force Doomburg and RayKelly to resign.
Oh, the possibilities . . .
I dislike stop-and-frisk too. On the other hand, NY doesn’t have anything near the body-count of Chicago these days.
Call me torn.
Poor friends from NYC, who happen to be minorities, say that more than half of the males in the ethnic sections of NYC carry concealed. They claim that it is a big open secret, and part of what drives Bloomberg crazy. People with guns usually aren’t doing stuff that the police care about (especially illegal immigrants carrying guns bought on the street).
I speculate that technology might be aimed at forcing police to enforce laws when they would otherwise use commonsense and discretion.