Elian & guns

[Michael MASINTER]

For further reasons, see:
http://www.miamiherald.com then Opinion then Carl Hiaasen (4/26/00)

http://www.miaminewtimes.com/issues/2000-04-20/mullin.html

Michael R. Masinter                     3305 College Avenue
Nova Southeastern University            Fort Lauderdale, Fl. 33314
Shepard Broad Law Center                (954) 262-6151
masinter at nova.edu                       Chair, ACLU of Florida Legal Panel

On Tue, 25 Apr 2000, Michael Froomkin - U.Miami School of Law wrote:

> It has been asked why the INS carried and/or brandished guns, and whether
> there were grounds to fear guns in the home.
>
> Anyone who enters a home in greater Miami without expecting there to be
> guns present is probabalistically deluded.  Statistics published around
> the time of Hurricane Andrew (when people were afraid of looters),
> suggested that about half of the homes in this area had one or more guns
> even before the hurricane. Thus, even if there had not been various armed
> security people from cuban exile groups present from time to time outside
> the home, no one could reaonsably conclude there was little chance of guns
> in the home.  (We moved here a few days before Andrew; our new neighbors
> attempted to reassure us the day afterwards that they had an arsenal and
> would keep on watch for looters.  This failed to increase our comfort
> level.)
>
> That is not to say, of course, that the presence of a gun had there been
> one would be probative of an intent to use it against a federal agent.
>
> There is some irony in learning, as I did this week, that in
> pre-revolutionary days, perhaps about 1 in 10 colonial households had a
> gun; we are today ever more so that people "numerous and armed" which Gov.
> Hutchinson wrote so despairingly of to his English masters.
>
> --
>
> A. Michael Froomkin   |    Professor of Law    |   froomkin at law.tm
> U. Miami School of Law, P.O. Box 248087, Coral Gables, FL 33124 USA
> +1 (305) 284-4285  |  +1 (305) 284-6506 (fax)  |  http://www.law.tm
>                         -->It's warm here.<--
>
>