Police in Beloit, WI planned to fight gun-violence by asking citizens to let them come into their houses and search for guns, but not many people were interested in this offer.
The police thought that there might be people who didn’t know if there were guns in the house and that they could let the police in to help them figure out whether there were any forgotten firearms kicking around.
Setting aside the health-care analogy, what exactly did police hope to find if people volunteered? Well, “[Chief] Jacobs says he hopes some searches will result in the discovery of guns [that residents] didn’t know were in their own homes,” the report states. That’s a category of people I guess I didn’t anticipate above: people who have guns they don’t know about. Well, mercy me, how’d that get there? Grandpa must have brought that back from France! Take it away, officer, before somebody gets the Ebola!
The report continues: “He said there’s also a chance they’ll find guns linked to crimes.” Might that possibly be the main motive, in fact? Yes. “That’s really what we’re looking for,” Chief Jacobs admitted, although he quickly recovered, sort of, and claimed the motive was child protection. “Maybe we’ll find a toy gun that’s been altered by a youngster in the house—and we know the tragedies that can occur there on occasion.” The tragedies that have occurred due to youngsters altering toy guns to shoot real bullets? Or the ones where police shoot youngsters with toy guns because … oh, &$^# it, again.
Police Department Ends Its “Voluntary Search” Program [Lowering the Bar]
(Image: Chief Norm Jacobs)