CA Cops Take Guns From More Citizens
Russ Chastain 11.19.14
Long Beach, CA – The Long Beach Police Department (LBPA) released a statement earlier this month boasting that they’d taken 55 guns and arrested 30 citizens in a “Prohibited Possessor Operation.”
Citing the erroneous belief that such confiscation helps “in keeping Long Beach safe,” LBPD described the operation as “time-consuming,” and said they’d served 10 search warrants and 86 “probation searches” and “assisted with 42 DOJ searches.” (These latter are apparently warrant-less searches, which violate the Fourth Amendment.)
Of the 30 arrests, 26 were for felonies and four were for misdemeanors. The arrests “were made on charges related to firearms, narcotics, parole, and probation violations.”
They claim “55 Firearms Recovered,” which is an interesting choice of words. For something to be recovered by police, it would first have to belong to someone other than the person from whom it was taken. But “recovered” sounds better than more accurate terms such as “confiscated” or “stolen.”
The guns taken were itemized as follows: “42 Handguns, 6 Assault Rifles, 4 Shotguns, 3 Rifles.” Again, the terms used were chosen politically, because there is no such thing as an “assault rifle.”
The people from whom these guns are being taken are in part determined by the state’s database of gun owners, which is to be expected. Gun confiscation always follows gun registration. At this time, many citizens who were known to legally own guns are being told by the state that they may no longer own firearms.
The guns are being taken forcibly, and citizens are being arrested, often not because of some action of theirs but by an action of the government. As stated in the press release, “The [California] DOJ maintains the Armed Prohibited Persons System (APPS), an on-line database that cross-references persons who possess a gun and who, subsequent to possession of that gun, are legally prohibited from possession.”
In other words, they keep dibs on who has guns, then when more restrictive laws are passed, they steal some of those guns. As more laws are passed, more and more guns will be taken. Historically, this is a trend that cannot be reversed and will continue until the citizenry are disarmed and thus helpless to repel criminals both private (thieves, rapists, murderers, etc) and public (government).
For those targeted, there is little that can be done, although some see minor relief after a lot of hassle and headaches. One man had his guns and ammunition confiscated by police because his wife had voluntarily checked herself into a hospital for three days after some medication had altered her mental state. The guns were later returned after much red tape and waiting, but the government never returned the stolen ammunition.
The simple act of checking herself into a hospital and associating that with mental illness had placed the wife on a list of prohibited persons, triggering the government intrusion.
In my opinion, this operation and others like it are very bad for America. Some of these guns may have been taken from known miscreants who would have used them in crimes, but that in no way justifies the forcible removal of guns from the hands of citizens when no crime has been committed against anyone.
