“With the democrats and gun control groups upping their rhetoric about gun control, many gun owners are worried about gun confiscation. Their concerns are valid and they are steeped in a history of gun confiscation. There are tales of guns being confiscated by the New Orleans Police Department during Hurricane Katrina. Few guns were actually seized, however in a 2006 interview with local radio station WWL, New Orleans Superintendent Warren Riley said, “During a circumstance like that, we cannot allow people to walk the street carrying guns…as law enforcement officers we will confiscate the weapon if a person is walking down the street and they may be arrested.” There are law enforcement officials in power, like Warren Riley, that have no concept of constitutional rights.
But, as street cops, we believe that these are isolated incidents and to do it on a wide scale would be impossible. To prove our point, we will look at likely and unlikely scenarios for nationwide gun confiscation in the United States.
Understanding Police Culture
Before we get into the nitty gritty of gun confiscation, you have to understand police culture. 2A Cops has done two polls on what cops think about gun rights. The first one can be read here and the second here. Cops are very pro 2A. Most cops own multiple guns. Some, like me, used their own guns for work because the department’s issued gun was, in their view, substandard.
Most cops are also very conservative. To be blunt, they are somewhere between conservative and libertarian. It’s funny to think that a cop would be borderline libertarian, but every time a politician passes some inane law, they follow it up with something along the lines of, “Comply or be arrested/cited.” Cops hate this. Most will ignore the inane law, even if they are told by a higher up that they need to enforce the inane law. A perfect example is the mask mandate for COVID in the United States. Sure there are a few cops out there ticketing people for not wearing a mask while sitting in a car in a church parking lot. But I have no doubt that the officer that did that got his ass reamed by his co workers and he won’t do it again.
Just because a politician passes a law doesn’t mean that the cops are eager to go enforce said law. I was a cop in the San Francisco Bay Area. That area is the land of stupid law making. Some examples of our out of control legislators include Dianne Feinstein, Nancy Pelosi, Eric Swalwell and Kamala Harris. Our legal update every January consisted of 4 hours of the latest laws. Most of the time we literally laughed out loud about how stupid the law was and the frequent outburst of a salty vet proclaiming they “won’t be doing shit.” It’s not that the salty vet is being lazy. He knows that the law is dumb and that the public shouldn’t be punished for it.
So, we have established in prior articles how cops do not like gun control and don’t want any more laws passed. Simply put, to do mass gun confiscation you’ll need every cop in the street participating. That just won’t happen. We have show in those polls listed above that the cops have proclaimed they won’t participate. But, let’s say they did participate. What would it take to do mass gun confiscation. Let’s look at the likely – and unlikely – scenarios.
by Keith Graves
Be sure to follow us on Facebook and Instagram, buttons are on the right side of the page.
If you like what you see here please share the site with a friend and also sign up for our free email Newsletter at the bottom of the page!
