Bill seeks to protect gun owners from "no-knock" raids

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We’ve seen way too many cases of no-knock raids turning deadly for gun owners, and not because they did anything anyone else wouldn’t have done.

Imagine, if you will, waking up with someone busting through the door. You’ve got your firearm in easy reach, of course, but do you reach for it? Most of us probably would.

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And if you do, you may find yourself shot by police.

With the creation of more and more anti-gun efforts, the risk rises. Because of this risk, two Republican lawmakers wants to provide a bit of protection for gun owners.

Republican lawmakers have introduced a pair of bills aimed at protecting gun owners, particularly by banning “no-knock” raids coordinated between federal and local officials amid gun regulation efforts.

The bills, introduced by Virginia Rep. Bob Good and Pennsylvania Rep. Scott Perry, come after the government put new regulations on pistols equipped with braces, which are now classified as short-barreled rifles and require a license.

A press release from Good’s office said the new pistol brace rule “could open the door” for collaboration between federal officials and local law enforcement targeting gun owners. The full text of his new bill was not available at the time of writing, but the press release said it would prohibit the FBI, ATF, and other federal agencies from “providing support in the execution” of non-federal warrants.

Exceptions are provided if a federal officer “enters due to a risk or threat of risk of a serious, imminent life-threatening injury” to any person present. A written report would be required after any such instance, according to the release.

Overall, I like where their heads are at, but I still have concerns. Namely, I can see the exception in the law being abused. “We thought there was a potential hostage in there, so we went in without knocking.”

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Frankly, I’d like to see an end to no-knock raid entirely. From what we’ve seen, they don’t actually provide real benefits to law enforcement and put everyone at risk. We’ve seen several raids turn deadly simply because someone inside thought they were the victims of a home invasion.

It could be any of us.

So yeah, I’d like to see an end to these kinds of raids, and we’ve seen some movement in that direction at the state level, but there’s still a lot of work to be done.

This particular measure has some benefits when it comes to no-knock raids, but it’s a bandaid on a sucking chest wound.

Gun owners deserve to be able to go to sleep at night without worrying if they will be able to tell if the person who busts through the door in their worst-case scenario is a bad guy or a cop on a no-knock raid, possibly at the wrong address.

What’s more, after what happened to people like Breonna Taylor, Democrats should be on-board with working to end such raids once and for all.

Then again, they’ve had years to do just that and they haven’t budged, so why should we think they would now?

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