*That* Video...

You know the one I mean. The one from MO with the cops kicking the door in to bust someone for pot distribution. The one where they shoot his dogs, terrorize his family, and drag him from his home in the middle of the night for... misdemeanor levels of marijuana.

This one.

I've refrained from comment thus far as this story kicks around the blogosphere. This is one of those stories where raw emotion takes over and the first thing that comes to mind is something I don't want committed to print with my IP address attached to it, suffice to say. Leaving aside the incredible idiocy of the "War" on Drugs (can we surrender yet?) and the mystifying span of time between the issuing of the warrant and the raid itself - if they were so concerned about the disposal of marijuana before the arrest, why did days elapse between the warrant and the raid; there's a larger issue at play here, and one that comes up from time to time in the gun blogosphere.

What if it were your house?

There's enough instances of wrong addresses and improper information out there to have this at least in the back of your mind. I think that a pounding on the door in the dead of night would at least have us reaching for our firearms; what if they're yelling "POLICE" or "WARRANT" or some other possible LE code word? The general consensus is that the average person commits three felonies a day on average without even meaning to - it's entirely possible they could be coming for you for any reason, especially if you're a gun owner. Even if you are 100% squeaky clean, odds are good that if you engage the SWAT team you will lose, and even if you do manage to survive the engagement, you'll end up on death row if you kill one of the officers.

Now, that said, if someone's kicking in my door in the middle of the night there's a good chance I'm not even going to have a chance to reach for my sidearm. I'm a pretty heavy sleeper, and although the Mrs. is a light sleeper, chances are she wouldn't get me up until the door was actually broken. I might have a chance to grab the katana near the bed or the 5 cell maglite, but not get the P226 out of the safe or the Mossberg out of the lock. Even assuming I could reach a firearm in time, I'll have my personal weapon ready while a team that trains specifically for this sort of thing invades my house.

Odds are pretty good I'm going to die.

This isn't something we can train for, not realistically. The average person does not have at their disposal the means to replicate a multiple hostile invasion; nor do even the most advanced IDPA stages have a "from the bed in your tidy whiteys" stage, at least that I'm aware of. This ventures into the realm of the purely theoretical, mainly - whereas those that would kick in our doors have no such limitations. We're at multiple disadvantages here - we don't have the tools, we don't have the training, and we don't have the law on our side. So what can we do?

Well, first of all we need to keep the heat on the heat when they screw up - and this raid was screwed up six ways to Sunday. If the judge who approved the warrant is an elected official, throw him out. If he's appointed, throw out whoever appointed him. Make sure the police officers are held responsible - they need to account for every single bullet that leaves their guns just like we do. Secondly, work to repeal the idiotic laws that give the police these incredible powers. There's simply no reason to kick down a homeowner's door because you suspect they're selling marijuana. End the "Always Think Forfeiture" mindset. Prosecute.

And keep the pressure on cases like this one where the police should have handled things differently.

That is all.