Sound The Trumpet : Gun Seizures Trigger Fear of Massive Police Power

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“Gun Seizures Trigger Fear of Massive Police Power”
by WND
July 9th, 2013

A flurry of recent stories about police knocking on – and sometimes knocking in – people’s front doors have raised alarms in both the U.S. and Canada about whether the home is still constitutionally protected from increasing police power.

As WND reported, High River, Alberta, has become a recent focal point of the controversy, when it was revealed Royal Canadian Mounted Police entered the flooded town after a mandatory evacuation, broke down doors and began confiscating “several hundred” firearms.

The details are eerily reminiscent of New Orleans during hurricane Katrina, when officers similarly invaded homes and confiscated thousands of weapons they uncovered.

In High River, RCMP and province officials assured citizens the only guns taken were those “improperly secured” and “in plain view” – to be stored for safekeeping and returned to residents after the evacuation ended.

But Michael Coren of Canada’s Sun News says the authorities are “lying, because we know the police actually broke locks to get into cupboards to find out if there were guns there.”

High River resident Cam Fleury believes his house, which sits at a high point free of floodwater, was targeted by the RCMP. The following video shows his front door was broken down, and police made a bee-line for his gun cabinet:

“This whole area is the highest point in town, so there was no flood damage,” Fleury told Sun News, “so there was no reason for them to enter any of these houses.”

The RCMP’s actions drew a rebuke from Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper, whose office issued a statement: “If any firearms were taken, we expect they will be returned to their owners as soon as possible. … We believe the RCMP should focus on more important tasks such as protecting lives and private property.”

Yet civil rights and gun advocates in the country warn that’s not good enough.

Faith Goldy, who has been following the story for Sun News, is concerned about the information authorities were able to gather by invading people’s homes: “Now they’ve got [firearm] serial numbers, they’ve got addresses and there is no mechanism put in place for us now to force them to abolish what has basically become an emergency, back-door [gun] registry.”

“There’s absolutely no way, no how you can justify going into people’s homes and taking their property without a warrant,” asserted Tony Bernardo of the Canadian Sport Shooting Association. “This is Canada! We have laws here!”

“People are protected from having an unwarranted search and seizure,” Goldy added, “[yet] that’s exactly what happened here.”

Gun grabbing nothing new in the U.S.

Americans are similarly protected by the U.S. Constitution’s Fourth Amendment, which states, “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

Yet the Fourth Amendment was sorely tried – or outright ignored, depending on your perspective – when the residents of New Orleans faced similar floodwaters.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, thousands of weapons – legally obtained and owned – were simply grabbed from citizens after New Orleans Police Superintendent P. Edwin Compass III announced, “Only law enforcement are allowed to have weapons.”

Just to make sure the message was loud and clear, the city’s Deputy Police Chief Warren Riley told ABC News: “No one will be able to be armed. We are going to take all the weapons.”

Then they did exactly that.

Looking for His glorious appearing! Titus 2:13