Police Gun Searches?
by Bob Barr
Issue 103 - March 12, 2008

Most police officers with whom I have worked over the years —- whether as a United States attorney, a lawyer in private practice, or a member of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee —- are men and women of integrity and commitment to the communities they serve. The vast majority of those officers have a sincere respect for the constitutional rights of the citizenry. But then again, I've not worked with the Boston Police Department.

The police department in that Massachusetts city has just launched an initiative that exhibits a cynical disregard for the rights of the citizenry, even as it cleverly cloaks the program in language pretending to protect the people toward whom it is directed. I refer to the "Safe Homes Initiative," with its slick brochures and smooth rhetoric.

On the surface —- as with virtually all government actions diminishing liberty —- the initiative appears benign. The program is "designed" to help parents who have so little control over their children that they cannot —- or do not want to —- search their rooms to discover if their young charges are hiding firearms in their homes. Boston's police chief, Edward Davis, graciously has agreed to fill this parental void by sending teams of officers to the homes of parents with children the police or other "community members" believe might be harboring hidden firearms. The "search teams" would then ask the parent or "other responsible adult" (whomever that might be) at the home for consent to search for guns.

The program is problematic on several levels. First, of course, is the fact that three police officers showing up on your doorstep makes it very difficult for a parent or "other responsible adult" to say no when asked to consent to a search. This works a serious injustice to the notion that a person's home is and should remain free from government searches absent a warrant based on probable cause that a crime has been committed. While true, voluntary "consent" can validate an otherwise unlawful, warrantless search, consent born of the sort of police presence contemplated in this Boston initiative would not appear to constitute such grounds.

Former congressman and U.S. Attorney Bob Barr practices law in Atlanta. Website: www.bobbarr.org.