Legal Gun Possession Motivates No-Knock Police Raid, Breaking Down Door

[From article]
“John Quinn lawfully kept firearms in his home for self-defense, exercising a freedom which this court has recognized to be a ‘core’ and ‘fundamental’ right protected by the 2nd Amendment. Yet based on the presence of firearms alone, the police conducted a no-knock raid, smashing down Quinn’s front door in the middle of the night, leading to his being shot. The police knew that Quinn’s son, Brian, the target of the raid, was not at home, and they knew that Quinn was a law abiding man. Indeed, the state of Texas had certified him as such by licensing him to carry a concealed weapon. Yet the Texas court embraced the prosecution’s theory that the police were in such grave danger from a sleeping man and an inanimate object that they were permitted to dispense with 4th Amendment requirement to knock on the door and announce themselves.”
If such a precedent stands, the brief argues, the Fourth Amendment essentially has been discontinued.
“At common law, a person was presumed a trespasser if he was present on the property of another without permission, as the police were in this case. Thus, the police needed to justify their presence in Quinn’s home. Although they had a warrant to search the home, they did not have any valid legal justification for using a battering ram to get through the door, making them nothing more than trespassers,” the brief argues.
“If the police are now permitted to justify no-knock raids any time there is a firearm in a residence, no American home is safe from a terrifying, middle of the night, home invasion.”
The Rutherford attorneys said the exercise of one constitutional right “may not permissibly be conditioned on the forfeiture of another constitutional right.”
[. . .]
the Constitution establishes a far different scenario in which government officials, including the police, are accountable to ‘we the people,’” he said. ‘For it to be otherwise, for government concerns to trump individual freedoms, with government officials routinely sidestepping the Constitution and reinterpreting the law to their own purposes, makes a mockery of everything this nation is supposed to stand for – self-government, justice, and the rule of law.

http://www.wnd.com/2014/02/mere-presence-of-gun-prompts-no-knock-raid/

Bob Unruh
February 2, 2014
MERE PRESENCE OF GUN PROMPTS NO-KNOCK RAID
'As if firearm could load itself, disengage safety, open door and fire'