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SWATting: It Could Be You!

Robert Farago - comments No comments

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQCGPVMgJ-M

In today’s Question of the Day, I asked to what depths the civilian disarmament industry could sink to deny Americans their Constitutionally-protected right to keep and bear arms. Here’s a cautionary tale fromĀ arstechnica.com about an incident that went down last Thursday: “It was around 5pm. [security blogger Brian] Krebs, 40, had just finished preparing his home for a small dinner party he had planned for later that evening. While vacuuming his home, his phone rang a few times, but he decided not to answer since he didn’t want to get held up. When he finished, he realized there was still some tape at the entrance of his house where Christmas lights had been. He thought it made sense to remove it before his guests arrived . . .

“As soon as I open the front door, I hear this guy yelling at me, behind a squad car, pointing a pistol at me saying: ‘Don’t move. Put your hands up,'” Krebs, who is a long-time friend and colleague, told me. “The first thing I said was: ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.'”

In all, there were at least a dozen officers with pistols, shotguns, and assault rifles pointed at him. They had police dogs circling his house and cruisers had sealed off a nearby street. Krebs, who was dressed in just gym shorts and a T-shirt, complied. Wisely.

“Two different guys were barking orders at me,” he continued. “I finally said: ‘Which way should I go?'” One officer told Krebs to lie on the ground, but before he could comply the other cop ordered Krebs to walk backwards. Eventually, “they put the cuffs on me and took me up the street. I was freezing the whole time.”

Krebs said an officer of the department told him that police received a 911 call that appeared to come from Krebs’ phone. The caller posed as Krebs and said he was hiding in a closet after Russian thieves had broken into his home and shot his wife. They were now stealing jewelry, the caller reported. Fairfax County Police officials didn’t respond to calls seeking comment for this article.

As well they might not. It’s bad enough when citizens fear crime. When they’re afraid of a police SWAT team converging on their home, well, they might start to question the whole SWAT team thing. In other words, it starts being police militarization when it starts being you.

More than that, this is the kind of danger I’ve warned against since New York’s [not-so] SAFE Act.

A gun control advocate decides that a gun nut (that’s you) is a bad, bad thing. The gun grabber calls the cops to report that they’ve seen you wielding an illegal “assault rifle.” They might do so breathlessly, accusing you of brandishing. Or take the above approach and make-up a “crime in progress.”

Do you think Officer Krupke is going to phone you to check out the story? Arrive on his own and politely knock on your door to make enquiries? Spend some time with a judge getting a warrant? Or do you think a SWAT team flash bang could be the first you hear of it?

I have no idea how to defend against SWATTING, save making friends with your local po-po. That way they know you’re not the bad guy. In theory. ‘Cause in practice, what? Not to mention the possibility that a federal SWAT or SRT team could be steaming into your digs.

I guess the only thing that needs saying here is that if you see ninjas swarming towards you, remember it could be a false alarm. How reassuring is that?

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Robert Farago

Robert Farago is the former publisher of The Truth About Guns (TTAG). He started the site to explore the ethics, morality, business, politics, culture, technology, practice, strategy, dangers and fun of guns.

0 thoughts on “SWATting: It Could Be You!”

  1. Kudos for standing up for your rights and thanks for standing up for ours.

    If the family services there are anything like the family services here, you probably haven’t seen the last of them. These are people who spend 4 years in college to land a $26,000/year job. They’re on a mission and they’re convinced that EVERYBODY is abusing their kids.

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  2. “Swatting” of a well-armed family of the gun will probably lead to the next RR or Waco. It would be a perfect way for government to say “this is what happens when you resist, even if the police are misled.”

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  3. > to what depths the civilian disarmament industry could
    > sink to deny Americans their Constitutionally-protected
    > right to keep and bear arms. Hereā€™s a cautionary tale

    So hackers retaliate against an infosec journalist, and you use the incident to slander the gun grabbers?

    If your left-wing counterpart had written

    “In todayā€™s Question of the Day, I asked to what depths gun nuts could sink to deny Americans their Constitutionally-protected right to speak out in favor of reasonable gun control. Hereā€™s a cautionary tale”

    you’d be trotting it out as an example of how mean-spirited and paranoid the gun grabbers are.

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    • Slandering gun grabbers is like slandering Stalin. Kind of hard to do when you stop to think who we’re discussing here. In fact, I’ll bet it’s never been done. Do you have examples of this remarkable activity that you’ve just invented? I’m guessing you’re playing devil’s advocate here.

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  4. Why do tiny ass towns in Conneticut need swat?

    Even some Lanza type could be put down by a single officer with a vest and a rifle.

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    • lanza types are untrained cowards. all the recent shooters have surrendered or committed suicide at the first signs of opposition. i don’t think it would even require a officer with a vest and an ar in most cases. i think a teacher or any citizen with a LCP would get the job done. (in most cases.) the december shooter in the mall confronted by a guy with a CCW is the best example.

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  5. What a waste of time! I’m sure the police could have been doing something more useful even if it is writing tickets. There is probably a child in real danger and in need of the social worker’s time.

    This is harassment at best. What in the picture makes you think the child is being put in any danger? What in the picture makes the police think his guns are “not registered”?

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  6. I could see anti-gunners doing this to spotlight how “crazy” us gun people are. Probably gonna get someone killed as well. Maybe multiples. How many people here would draw their gun if they were watching TV in their living room when their door was kicked in? If you were the victim of a SWATting attack, bets on the cops NOT shooting you when you have a gun in your hand?

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  7. This is a real problem, and I have been trying to figure out if there is any kind of effective solution. So far all I can think of is this- if I responded to a call of this type, and the first person to come out had their ID with them, showing the correct address, and they were in a relatively calm, rational state, then on their word that everything was fine inside I would personally be comfortable without entering the house.

    There are many clever people who post here, does anyone have ideas how to deal with the problem? I don’t think the problem is SWAT, either. Regular patrol officers will go to the same call if there’s no SWAT team available. And while there is no legal requirement for police to protect your life, we’re certainly going to try.

    Standard procedure here is to start with loudspeaker announcements to come outside. This is where I think the most potential exists to defuse everything.

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  8. This is what President BO refers to as “positive rights”. I’ve heard him speak about how the US Bill of Rights is a list of “negative liberties” – it tells us what the government CANNOT do, and he believes in constitutions that include what the government MUST do – positive rights. These constitutions are popular in Africa. He’s not alone, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg praised the South African constitution for it’s positive rights. The problem is that in his mind it is the government that is entitled to rights, not the citizens. The citizens exist at the will of the government. And the government will provide for it’s loyal subjects.

    Forget that it’s really the taxpayer, the fellow citizens that pay for your TANF benefits, the government is quick to take the credit. It’s not other cell phone customers who pay the Universal Service Fund so that others can have free service, it’s the government that provides that phone – they even affectionately call it an Obamaphone. Enshrining such “positive rights” in the constitution constitutes a requirement for government to take from some and give to others – i.e. socialism.

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  9. Smith and Wesson M&P .22 lr. It is truly a weapon of mass destruction. The camo pattern alone probably set off the fashion police who then called in the CPS to let them know of major violations to proper child rearing.

    We seriously need to find a way to get our government some logic based training in effective interaction, situational awareness and assessment.

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  10. I have an Archangel as well and it is a fine holster. I would suggest getting the 19/23 size for both the compact and sub-compact Glocks. Keeps it more solid IMHO. I have a little bit of a gut left which I’ve been successfully loosing for the last year and a half. Waist started out at 40ā€ and is now approaching 36ā€. IWBA carry can be a challenge for those whose guts are shall we say are ā€œcalorie enhancedā€.

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  11. The easiest way to stop SWATing is to find out who the anti-gunners in your area are… And SWAT them as many times as you can.

    Once they are on the receiving end of such actions, they’ll cease.

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  12. What the h3ll have they done with respect to protecting school children RIGHT now. Still not a damn thing, the two-faced ba5tard5.

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  13. FYI.
    If child protective services ever comes to your door. Let them know you will not answer any questions and that they are not allowed in your home without a warrant. They will go to your child’s school, if they haven’t done so already, to interview your kid. You can take it up with the school later about why they allowed an unauthorized person to question your child without your consent. The ramblings of a child (without any injuries) and an anonymous (to you) reporter to the call center, generally doesn’t establish probable cause. LEO’s will likely obey the law, though the protective services worker will intimidate you with the stuff that’s mentioned in the article. The only leverage they will have at that point is what you give them. I’m all for keeping kids safe. I just don’t want to sacrifice or infringe on anybody’s constitutionally protected liberties to get the job done. Let the state figure out how to balance that issue.

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  14. SWATing has becoming a nearly commonplace “prank” of hacker types. When they get tired of harassing a target with DDOS attacks and attempts to break into their networks and computers, they pull this one. Woody (Woodysgamertag) of Youtube quasi-fame has had this stunt pulled on him multiple times, to the point where his local police all know him and usually just call and ask him if everything is OK before they disregard it. I would not jump to the “antis are SWATing people!” step just yet, though I can see something like that happening to grim results.

    I agree with the above poster that is looking for a protocol in place to avoid this kind of thing. SWAT is designed to stop bad guys with overwhelming force and tactics when all else fails, having them misused and abused by miscreants its not good for anyone, especially the poor innocent that has them sicked on him.

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  15. Not sure why people are blaming the cops for this.

    Only in very small municipalities is an average Joe going to be known to all the cops, and if he had no identificajution on him, well…

    They received a call for help. They came, as far as they knew risking it all, and went by the book.

    Blame lm the hackers, not the hacked OR the cops who were made the goat.

    Shall we mandate a 30 minute wait and background checks before permitting calls to go through? No? Then let’s press on, shall we?

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  16. BS. If the bill allows the records from “universal background checks” to be kept by anyone, then it creates the means for future registration. Schumer can’t bind a future congress from suddenly passing a law forcing all FFLs to turn over all their 4473s. I say no way.

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  17. I graduated high school with his daughter. I hope my hometown (haven’t lived there since college) doesn’t vote this man back into office. This is not good.

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  18. I live in Omaha, and will be voting against this D-bag once again. The problem is that there are 4 or 5 people running against him. That’s a lot of votes against him being spread out. And the fact that there are a lot of idiots in this city that still support him. I hope to God he is not re-elected. As it is we have to register all our handguns here, unless we have a cc permit. You don’t have to register handguns anywhere else in the state.

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  19. Couldn’t use 9mm brass to neck down as it’s not long enough to make the 22 TCM overall case length. Thy might of tried to neck down a 9mm Largo case which is longer than a 9MM Luger case, but still it may not of been long enough either. I read today that Armscor/RIA has stopped making the 9mm/22TCM packages and just making the 22TCM only pistol from now on. Maybe they’ll sell you a 9mm barrel and extractor? 22 TCM is about $34+/50 rds. if you can find any!

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  20. I know NASA is using a 3D printer to built rocket engine parts out of metal. The 3D printer is in its infancy. I’m sure we will see major improvements over time. Prices will go down, speed of printing will increase etc. I know my all in one printer is an amazing machine compared to my first printer in the 1990s and that printer was many tines faster than my cousins dot matrix from the 1980s. I am sure we will see a lot of innovation in this realm.

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  21. Is the same religion where celibate men (supposedly) offer marriage advice?
    Is this the same religion that refuses to allow followers to practice birth control?

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  22. Does the ATFE know about this? But more than that does the moron in the Peoples House know about this? One of those projectiles might be a relation.

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  23. Unfortunately, the stated magazine capacity of 14, is illegal in several states. It does however, just squeak into Colorado legality…………..

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  24. That thing walking thru the woods is friggin creepy. I’d probably soil myself if I randomly came across that while walking thru the woods.

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  25. Gotta love Idaho. An idaho “concealed weapons license” covers anything you want to carry – gun, knife, sword cane, sharp metal brim on a baseball cap, “sap gloves”, or a dangerous pair of boots. Idaho doesn’t regulate the object. All we care about here is whether your personal behavior is responsible or not, so our laws don’t get into minutia of what you are carrying concealed.

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  26. That DIY router is badass…

    There’s a big difference between CNC machining and 3D printing. With the CNC tools, you’re removing material from a chunk. Since 3D printing is an additive process, meaning you’re adding material and bonding it together, you can do stuff that can’t be done with CNC machines, like make objects with interior hollows and voids.

    I agree with your sentiment, though – I’d rather have an aluminum lower. Or if I’m going polymer, I’d rather have a cast or injection-molded one using stronger materials than what’s available from these kinds of prototyping machines.

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  27. I don’t know where you got your weight stats from, but the P220 does NOT weigh 39 ounces. It weighs about 31 ounces ā€“ a big difference, and only slightly more than a comparable full size polymer pistol.

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  28. nice, but i don’t think the hi-point comparison to a civic is very nice. my hi point 9mm carbine has been great since i replaced the junk firing pin but that doens’t mean it’s not a piece of crap. lawl.

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  29. I want one of these! jwm no it doesn’t make you that way!! At least I hope not! I love him too. He is a damn genius!! Love his videos and laughed like crazy at this one!!
    Really got to see about what he would charge to make and ship me one of these.
    Imagin this with a packet or pouch of tungsten rods sharpened on both ends!! WOW! Talk about flechette rounds for danger close work!!

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  30. I watched this without sound at work. I really didn’t see anything super dangerous other than the running in single file in slippery conditions. I am ASSUMING that the rifles are empty and cleared prior to the running portion and reloaded at the next stage of the class. Frankly I am not a big fan of shooting targets that close because I have had wood splinters come back at me. If you need a class to hit something at 5 to 7 yards, then maybe shooting isn’t going to be fun for you, but that is just my 2 cent opinion.

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  31. “backup iron sights should be considered ā€˜essentialā€™, because they provide a coarse way to align the pistol when the presentation isnā€™t perfect and speed is crucial.”

    This.

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  32. Has anyone heard how the Henry Rifle Company is doing since the hurricane? I sure hope that they have ben able to come back from the destruction of their factory. I admire the company and their business model. It helps that I also love lever guns, have 5 of ’em an various calibers. Can’t hunt with semi-auto in PA, so a lever action is very common in PA. I have a Winchester in .22MAG that I don’t shoot much because of ammo cost, so a Henry just might be in my future.

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  33. Thanks for this. It is always good to be introduced to another civil libertarian on the correct side of the 2nd. I hate that the conservatives and the anti-capitalist nanny-statists have co-opted a wonderful word, “liberal” to mean anti-capitalist nanny-statist. There is nothing (except for some social policy ideas) liberal about the Diane Feinstein’s of the country. True liberal policies and ideas were what made this country, and can make it great again.

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  34. Free handgun, SCAR and shotgun, along with some “just good enough” ammo to run them all through a range that you can actually shoot and move on without the OFWG’s getting their net-back hats in a knot??

    The violin music – it plays for you.

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  35. Are you that naive? The NYT is no more a legitimate source of news than Pravda or Izvestia were during the Soviet era. The Times is just an arm of the Democratic National Committee. I think Soviet journalists had more integrity than the employees of the NYT. They wrote under compulsion. They stopped believing what they wrote long before the Wall came down.

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  36. I like finding broken pieces of s##t at garage sales that you can pick up for a dollar or two then wait for these buy back programs. Usually it’s for a grocery gift card. I liken them to getting a tax refund….

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  37. Law or not, I think in this case, Colorado LE ain’t gonna do anything.

    So who’s going to be the first to file a legal challenge to the law?

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  38. Context is King: if you are likely to grab a rifle and NOT have a pistol, this doesn’t apply….

    Even if you DO have a pistol, there is (of course) a time for NOT transitioning and doing a reload or Malf-clearing ( longer distances, availability of cover, etc……).

    That said, the biggest problem most people have the fashionable “twist & glance” before actually doing anything….

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  39. Any plan trumps no plan, but as they say, no plan ever survives first contact intact. Thus a flexible and layered plan trumps a rigid, one sided plan. Further a simple plan trumps an overly complicated one. Which is the ā€˜right planā€™? That depends on a lot.
    If youā€™ve objectively and accurately analyzed your strengths and weaknesses, have been realistic about the threats you potentially face, have armed and trained accordingly, have a layered home defense strategy . . . well, this is a whole article of its own.
    A plan that makes good use of the basics and creative use of advantages you possess is the plan Iā€™d go with. Given the scenario of a noise in the night Iā€™ll assume the master bedroom as a start point. Given the layout of my modest home, that puts me in a room at the end of a hall that has visibility from its door to the bathroom and office/front bedroom doors which are left open at night and into the kitchen with approximately 1/3 visibility of that room. My wife and I (her somewhat reluctantly) have drilled our reaction to the bump in the night often enough, and implement it as practice even when relatively certain the alarm is false: She up for her flashlight and pistol and to the inside corner of the bedroom giving her cover from a closet and water heater from the rest of the home, I to my pistol belt with flashlight and spare mags and shotgun with attached tac light.
    Out the door goes the dog. . . a vicious mauler of a monster attack dog an excitable Yorkie who is so happy to have company (who surely came to see him) that he immediately runs to the ā€˜visitorsā€™ location and barks incessantly at them, which pretty well pinpoints their location, all the while running back and forth to thwart being picked up (he hates to be picked up by strangers). That is my advantage, in a house so small, itā€™s impossible to fail the location test with the dog baying the target. Since there are no closed doors, and with dusk to dawn night lights in strategic corners (the rear most ones from the door) of every room, and no conceivable way that there is an intruder behind me, itā€™s a matter of peeking to see the now silhouetted intruder and taking him at gun point with the blinding light of the tac light on the shotgun.
    Because of these layers of advantage (small house, only other occupant trained to bunker behind me, location of my sleeping quarters, strategic lighting, and the dogs innate behavior) I feel very confident clearing the house, and the choice for me is pretty simple. If my situation were otherwise, I might choose to bunker in, but as is I feel up to the challenge, having stacked the deck heavily in my advantage. In a different environment. . . well I suspect Iā€™d stay at it with my typical sub-clinical paranoia and creativity until I had stacked the deck again, in ways as yet unimagined in my new surroundings.
    The question to ask yourself is what have you done to stack the odds in your favor, what strengths and advantages do you have, what weaknesses? Once these are honestly answered, your plan should come clearer. As it does, consider how seeming small things might turn disadvantage into neutrals, and neutrals into advantages. If thatā€™s a mirror here, or a reinforced wall there, a remote that allows you to light up a room while still concealed outside it, more training for your housemates or whatever. Just be honest and assess with a critical eye, them make incremental improvements until youā€™re comfortable clearing, or comfortable bunkering.

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  40. It’s interesting how these cases are wending their way through the arcane Court Systems of the land. Like a grand Kabuki Dance unfolding before our eyes.

    First we had the Heller and McDonald decisions establishing a “right” in the home.
    Second we need a “bear” decision which Scalia is anxious to do. The Maryland Case may be the one.
    Third will be something like a shredding of the Safe Act, deciding limits and regulations. This decision may not be to our complete liking since it may find some limits constitutional that we aren’t going to take to. Even so, I can’t imagine a civil right being subject to “capricious, arbitrary and onerous” – love that phrase – restrictions that burden none of the others.

    It’s sad that these matters have to go through these endless delays but having spent over 3 months over 6 cases on jury duty I’m not surprised. The NYSRPA filings seem to cover every screwy aspect of the dopey Safe Act and provide lots of reasons for throwing it out – hope it speeds along.

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  41. I wish I knew how to do a bronx cheer on the computer. Any one that thinks barry and biden and friends is not after all guns, including grandpa’s double barrel is not a fudd. They are at best, deluded.

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