torontosun.com: RCMP at High River Lawless Mass Gun Confiscation

 Great investigative journalism by Lorne Gunter:

I don’t want to be right about what Mounties appear to have done in High River this summer after southern Alberta’s historic June floods forced the evacuation of all 13,000 townspeople.

I don’t want to believe our much-admired national police force used the cover of the worst natural disaster in Canadian history to conduct a mass seizure of guns from the town’s law-abiding firearms owners. But having covered the High River Gun Grab for the past six months — and especially after having worked three months for the Sun News Network on a documentary about the confiscation (which will premiere Tuesday at 7 p.m. Eastern, 5 p.m. Mountain) — there is no escaping the conclusion that Mounties did indeed break down the doors in more than a third of High River’s 5,300 homes in a deliberate attempt to disarm the civilian population.

It is one of the most massive violations of civil and property rights in modern Canadian history.

The RCMP may believe they were acting with the best of intentions, to keep the guns safe from looters or maintain public order as evacuees began returning to their homes two or three or even more weeks after the rising Highwood River overflowed its banks.

But the very fact that Mounties thought it was better for High Riverites’ safety to leave 1,900 of their homes with doors smashed off the hinges — wide open to thieves and the elements — rather than leave homes locked with guns locked away safely inside, shows just how distorted police thinking has become regarding private ownership of guns.

More here at torontosun.com