Alphecca: No Charges Filed: Cops Keep Guns Anyway

December 21, 2006

No Charges Filed: Cops Keep Guns Anyway

More horrors in Illinois. From WJBC Radio:

A couple from Normal wants its guns back, but Normal town officials say they're not legally allowed to do it. The dispute has resulted in a legal showdown of sorts.

The town has filed legal papers, asking a judge to interpret a state law because it's unclear whether Mary and Mark Lacey have a right to three antique guns they turned over when police responded to a domestic dispute in October of 2004. Their attorney, Scott Kording, says the couple didn't have a state Firearms Owner Identification Card when police took the guns, but they have since obtained one.

The law says property illegally possessed should be returned if owners can prove a right to ownership. The Lacey's say they now have an FOI card, and at the very least, the town should have accepted a compromise to ship the nearly 100-year-old weapons to family members out of state. But, City Manager Mark Peterson says the state's attorney told the town to keep the guns since they were part of a criminal investitgation - even if charges were never filed.

This is all part of what I consider the rising abuse of the 4th and 8th Amendments. It's the same mindset where if a guy is caught cruising for a prostitute, cops seize and keep his car. Or, someone is caught selling pot and they take his house.

Posted by Jeff Soyer at December 21, 2006 07:18 AM

Comments

A great reason to NEVER LIVE IN ILLINOIS, tho. Did you interpret the article the same way I do, where the first two sentences of the second quoted paragraph imply that you don't have a right to even own a gun without your FOID?

Posted by: Rick C at December 21, 2006 09:49 AM

Rick,
You are interpreting that correctly. You cannot even posess ammunition without a FOID card in IL.

Posted by: Mark F at December 21, 2006 10:03 AM

Agree with you, Jeff; this sort of confiscate-it-even-if-no-crime-is-proven act reminds me of the Florida Interstate highway cash confiscations of a few years back. If a dog indicated the cash smelled like dope, it was kept even though there was no crime involved. In several cases, if state police even suspected cash on a motorist might be drug-related, it was confiscated. Scary stuff.

Posted by: Mike McCarville at December 21, 2006 10:21 AM

I've never been to a gun shop here in IL that would let you even handle a firearm without your FOID, our asshole Governor (Blagojevich) tried several times to increase the fee from $5 to $500 (for a 5 year term) when he was in the state Senate. Chicago really should be its own state, they could annex Gary IN, and ban as many things as they want.

Posted by: gudis at December 21, 2006 09:02 PM

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December 21, 2006

No Charges Filed: Cops Keep Guns Anyway

By Golly, you're reading an archived post. Click Here to head to the main page and read current stuff...

Check it out:

My group sci-fi blog novel:

Colony: Alchibah