Confiscation

In reading many gun blogs, you often run across individuals who feel as if police are overreaching and out only for themselves. The seem to feel cops are out to deprive them of liberty.

I have seen a cop stop someone with a gun in their car, for a traffic violation. The gun owner notified the cop that there was a gun in the car, the cop shrugged, ran the driver's license, wrote the guy a warning, and said "have a good day".

I have also seen convicted felons with drugs and guns on their person get arrested. The cop issued property receipts to the felon for both the "leafy green, vegetal substance, packaged in 9 quarter-ounce baggies" and for the "Ruger, 40 caliber, handgun, obliterated serial number".

I have seen these things go to court. The cop testifies that the firearm (the one in question had an intact serial number) belonged to a relative of the individual who committed the crime, and the judge ordered that the firearm be turned back over to the relative.

I have also seen fine guns destroyed, because they belonged to someone who committed a crime with said gun.

I have heard cops lament that such a beautiful gun (a Belgian-made Browning A5) had to be destroyed.

But you know what I haven't heard? Of a cop taking a firearm from someone and not turning it over as evidence, or not logging it in properly, or "losing" it.

Oh, it used to be legal for a judge to order a gun be turned over to a police department or cop for "the furtherance of law enforcement" if a legitimate owner could not be located. I'm not talking about that. It has fallen out of practice most everywhere. I'm talking about theft of property.

I've seen many cops lament that a nice Colt, or Remington,  or Smith & Wesson had to be destroyed. But I've never caught wind that one was "saving" a nice gun from the cutting torch.

And that makes me happy. We cops are no better than criminals, if we stoop to criminal acts... even though I have lamented myself over a seeing a few guns getting torched.