Anti-gunners’ “arguments” for civilian disarmament fly in the face of logic, reason and factual evidence. The most infuriating of all: the government isn’t coming for your guns. Tell that to New York residents, who can’t sell their modern sporting rifles inside the Empire State or pass them on to a relative. Ask the residents of New Orleans who had their guns confiscated by the police and National Guard troops after Hurricane Katrina. There is no question that the government can and will “come for your guns” as and when the anti-gunners control the levers of power. Here’s how that went down for our neighbors to the north . . .

In a report released Thursday, the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission for the RCMP said that officers who conducted the “warrantless” seizures were undersupervised. The subsequent anger in the population was badly handled by the RCMP communications teams, the report also found, as citizens complained that “their homes were forcibly entered, and in some cases windows were broken, doors were kicked in and firearms were taken.”

The RCMP members acted “with insufficient supervision and guidance by senior RCMP members or any judicial oversight,” the report concluded.

“In addition, the lack of a public communication strategy resulted in the public’s mistrust of the words and the actions of the RCMP and set in motion a domino effect of challenges for the RCMP,” the report said.

The Commission did find that many RCMP officers reacted admirably during the crisis, but made a series of recommendations to ensure that the same scenario would not be repeated in future emergencies.

Overall, RCMP members entered 4,666 homes after the floods, including 754 cases in which they forced their entries into the residences. Police officers had received clear instructions: use as “much force as necessary” to enter every building.

They found 38 people in need of rescue, as well as 700 pets, but also removed 609 firearms from 105 homes (as well as marijuana plants from five homes).

The report found that RCMP members entered some residences by force even in areas that were not affected by the flood. In addition, RCMP members “seized firearms that were properly secured or that were not in plain view,” meaning that they “were not removed with lawful authority,” the report found.

Once the population learned of the seizures and some citizens reacted angrily, “RCMP ineffectiveness in external communications …. allowed speculation to develop.”

Speculation, eh? Speculation that law-abiding Canadians had somehow suddenly woken-up in something not entirely unlike a police state, where gun and property rights went bye-bye? [Click here for more details about the High River confiscations.]

The High River confiscations [chronicled by theglobeandmail.com] are, for now, a low-water mark in Canada’s political history. But there’s a wider point. Once again, a government antagonistic to its citizens’ natural and civil right to keep and bear arms confiscated guns in the name of public safety during an emergency.

Would California cops confiscate firearms in the aftermath of an earthquake? Would their job be easier thanks to gun registration? Yes and yes. What if an incident of domestic terrorism convinced a state or even the federal government that a certain class of gun owners were terrorists? Would they hesitate to confiscate their firearms?

Gun confiscation is a thing. Anyone who denies that is telling people to pay no attention to history, or the gun grabber behind the curtain. It behooves gun rights advocates to show fence straddlers the folly of their ignorance. Before it’s too late. [h/t SK]

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

34 COMMENTS

    • Laws, laws, laws, I have about as much faith in execution of law as nothing unless it fits their desire. They have laws on top of laws that undo the laws that make it legal to do illegal. And if they don’t they’ll tie it up in the Supreme Court with the druken judges.

    • In a large scale event, natural disaster or the like, rule of law can be boiled down to thus, the side with the most weapons and fighters is right.

      example like the man who was transporting his firearms via boat, and the sheriff pulls up in a boat and searches and takes his arms at machine gun point. Google it, happened in new Orleans during Katrina.

      I suspect that if the sheriff pulled up on 5 boats with armed men, that they would have decided that they are only seeking to defend themselves, and should be allowed to pass along with a warning to be careful.

      of course, being a hypothetical situation, i could be wrong/right/who knows about the entire thing.

  4. Ah yes. The governments “Monopoly of Force” and the designated agents of the state that enforce that monopoly. That has worked out so well. For those in power.

    As that “great visionary” (Mass Murderer) Mao once said. “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun”. As the main instigator of over seventy million Chinese murdered, he should know.

    • You nailed it! Most governments form as a monopoly on violence. If ISIS quit brutally executing people, it wouldn’t take long for the rest of the world to back off and let them have the turf they’ve taken and have a new government. Display a willingness and ability to have more violence than the other powers, and you get your way. The display and act of violence is easier on a disarmed populace.

      • A government – any government – is basically a group of people that claim the authority to set rules for all who exist in a given geographical area, and as necessary use collusion, intimidation, and violence to enforce those rules. The members of the group may change over time, and there may be theoretical safeguards in place to limit the authority, but the bottom line is that nearly all government actions have violence – or the threat of violence – backing them up.

    • Mao was quoting or paraphrasing Joeseph Stalin who orchestrated the murder of 25 million of his own citizens. I’m always amused when Hitler is held up as the ultimate form of political evil. Not that the “paper hanging son of a bitch” wasn’t a monster. He was. But he was an also ran when compared to Stalin and Mao.

      • You got that right. But like like Castro and Guevara, Mao and Stalin had (and still has)
        a band of useful idiots to shill for them. The US liberal elite press corp never met a commie they couldn’t love.

      • He’s probably talking about the sks’a with the detachable magazine modification. They were allowed to register late but the next AG didn’t like that so he said sell them out of state or turn them in for $200.

  7. Gun confiscation should be the impetus for armed resistance.

    “When they kick at your front door
    How you gonna come?
    With your hands on your head
    Or on the trigger of your gun

    When the law break in
    How you gonna go?
    Shot down on the pavement
    Or waiting on death row

    You can crush us
    You can bruise us
    But you’ll have to answer to
    Oh, the guns of Brixton.”

    -The Clash, “Guns of Brixton”

    • If “they” are kicking in your door it’s too late to put up a good fight.

      You should’ve been fighting when “they” were kicking in the people down the street’s door.

      Waiting to be picked off one by one, house by house, isn’t much of a plan.

      • And it is happening right now as we speak beneath our noses under the guises of “domestic violence”, “restraining orders”, “mental health”, “non-violent felonies (felony can be whatever the state makes up), “misdemeanors that can land someone in jail for more than a year”, and of course my favorite happening right now in a few states like New York and Connecticut “failing to register your guns to the state” which is an automatic confiscation order and loss of gun rights permanently.

  8. Mistakes were made. Sorry. And now that the state has explained away the problem without actually addressing it’s structural causes, it continues on its merry way, unimpeded by either law or consequence, its minions praised for work well done, the public reassured that the minor excesses while a bit extreme and unsettling to the few were so greatly outweighed by the wonderful things done for the many. Nothing to see here, now please move along. . . Wonder if they kept a tally of the number of dogs they shot.

    • All I heard in that was “Sorry we didn’t communicate better that we were ransacking your houses and taking all your guns. We should have had a social media campaign to let you know.”

      Which isn’t an apology.

      • No one Tom, As a old Marine with years of service to my country, this government has weapons to protect its interests whatever that may be and you might die for that interest using those weapons, against what “they” see as a threat. But as a civilian you have little or no right to protect your interests, being you, your family or home. I’m turning into a cynic because I do not like what I see, especially for my grandchildren, and I fear because I cannot do a damn thing about it.
        Semper Fidelis,

  10. Laws are only guidelines, intended for the lawful person. Laws are otherwise ineffective and ignored. Hopefully our wise Canadian neighbors are hiding an arsenal.

    • Plenty of those on TTAG as well posting comments in many other articles sucking up to anti-gunners hoping to get a scrap from the table turning on their fellow gun owners letting the anti’s define the parameters of our 2nd Amendment willfully ignorant of the fact they will never stop until we are disarmed and/or dead.

      Then they will pull a UK and move on to knives.

  12. 1) Rain is the first hint that, if precipitated in large enough quantities, it can lead to possible flooding. The irony must have been washed away with the flood…..they live, where…? They live in a place called High River. Duh.
    2) who among these “responsible” gun owners didn’t envision that scenario in the first place, and made plans to a) not leave their firearms behind, b) not leave them behind in an unsecured condition.
    3) They got the firearms back. Curious, that factoid didn’t make the jump? Hmm, aside from some incidents of excessive and unnecessary destruction of private property, the firearms that were “secured” by the RMCP, were returned to their rightful owners. So, that’s not exactly the same as “confiscation” is it?

    • Yes. Yes it is. So if the government is collecting guns to save them for the house owners, why did they not collect other valuable house hold items?

    • Sorry O_F_T,

      ” the firearms that were “secured” by the RMCP, were returned to their rightful owners.”

      And so, when the officer helped the old lady across the street, he handcuffed her first for her own safety, walked her across the street, threw her to the ground, and removed the cuffs. See? She got across the street.

      The fact that storage cabinets were broken open and there was a big post-event stink tells me that the RCMP agents were not just looking after the gun owners’ property.

  13. Police officers had received clear instructions: use as “much force as necessary” to enter every building. That was a free pass! The report found that RCMP members entered some residences by force even in areas that were not affected by the flood. Really? But there was mud puddle in front of the door! In addition, RCMP members “seized firearms that were properly secured or that were not in plain view,” meaning that they “were not removed with lawful authority,” the report found.
    Surprise, Surprise! Oh heck, why worry about that!

  14. Depending on who wins the next election, we’ll see if meaningful reforms will follow this report. Having said that, there’s a low level war going on in Canada between the bureaucracy and current Conservative government, so even if reforms are mandated, it may be difficult for them to be carried out. The RCMP is siding firmly with the bureaucrats, if you were wondering. The Conservative government is more pro-rights (but still has a way to go).

    While most of the guns were returned, there are still some outstanding issues regarding ammunition seized. As in, it wasn’t returned.

    A reminder to all the Canadians on this board- if you haven’t joined the CSSA or NFA yet, consider doing so, or at least make a donation.

  15. IIRC, the officers knew which houses had guns because of copies of the long arm registry that was [cough] supposed to have been destroyed. [Harumph] Funny how a registry works in practice (as opposed to in theory).

    • I would bet that not only has no registry ever been destroyed, but there are a bunch which exist which were never authorized or even legal. Worldwide.

Comments are closed.