Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.
Every now and then we read about some ‘survivalist’ who gets arrested on some unrelated offense and when the cops search his vehicle or search his home they find food, fuel, ammo, guns, etc. and the next thing you know theres a picture in the paper of a bunch of guns laid out neatly on a table at police headquarters and the word ‘arsenal’ is splayed across the headlines.
Many times the poor bastard in question brought it on himself. But, sometimes, it’s completely the opposite. Neighbor kid comes into your yard to get his baseball, looks in the basement window and sees all those ‘machineguns’ sitting on your reloading bench. Or an ex-girlfriend decides to ‘get even’ and reports you as holding illegal weapons and espousing ‘anti government’ rhetoric. Next thing you know, you get that knock on the door. Back in ’99 I recall reading about a family that got a visit from the feds because the neighbors saw someone wheeling several blue barrels into the house. Turns out the family was ramping up their water storage in advance of Y2K…but they had to explain that to the armed feds. And I’d bet that the feds demanded and got a warrant to search the place. Recently a fella in trouble at his work got ‘volunteered’ to a psychiatric exam and his guns ‘held’ because it was reported he had bought an AK and a few handguns. Mind you no crime had been committed. Folks notice things they think are odd and, lets not mince words, sometimes the stuff we do in the name of preparedness can seem pretty odd to those on the outside.
Someday, in some way, someone (likely multiple someones) with a badge will show up on your doorstep or call you. Now comes the interesting part. You might be asked to answer a few questions and that’s the end of it. Or they may say that your behavior has ‘people concerned’ and would you please come down to the station so we can ‘talk about this’ and while youre gone they’ll just ‘secure’ those guns for you. Or, and don’t think it doesn’t happen, you get a rather loud knock on the door and a guy with a bullhorn tells you to pick up the phone and talk to the negotiator.
Dealing with the cops when youre into a lifestyle of preparedness is not the same as dealing with the cops as ‘a civillian’. It just isn’t. Normally we have certain priorities and imperatives – we want to remain low profile, keep all our stuff out of other peoples hands, not be exposed to unwanted publicity and not wind up in jail. The cops are certainly going to be tense about that guy they never heard of having a dozen rifles, ten thousand rounds of ammo, body armour, communications gear and ‘hate literature’…theyre probably going to be quite curious.
I’m sure some folks are going to disagree with me but the most important thing to remember when dealing with the cops is how to politely say no. “May we search your vehicle?” “I’m sorry, but no.”. “May we come in ?” “Sorry, no.” “May we ask you a few questions?” “ I’d rather not. Sorry.” Why not just say ‘no’ and leave it at that? To avoid being confrontational. You don’t want your response to seem like a challenge to invite more aggressive questioning. That’s really not the time to try to explain to the cops why you don’t need a drivers license, why the flag in the courtroom isn’t correct, how theyre being controlled by the UN or anything else like that. You sound contrite, but firm, in your response that, no, I’d rather not [give a statement/be searched/let you in].
I’ve gone for a ride in the back of a police car, and I’ve talked to more than a few cops. Once the handcuffs go on there really is virtually nothing you can say..nothing…that’s going to make those handcuffs come off. There is nothing you can say that’s going to make the cop say “What? Why didn’t you say so! Let me get those off you. Sorry about that. Simple mistake. You have a nice day.”
Being innocent does not mean you have nothing to fear. You have Claire Wolf and Ragnar Benson books on the shelf? That’s ‘anti-government hate literature’, buddy. The Mini-14 and AR in the safe? ‘Semi automatic assault weapons’..unless you have three or more, in which case you’ve got ‘an arsenal’. The food storage? Youre the ‘survivalist neighbor’. Got a fence on your property? Youre in ‘a compound’. Couple bricks of .22 ammo? ‘Thousands of rounds of ammo’. And all those guns are ‘high power firearms’..except for the varmint gun which is a ‘sniper rifle’.
Any solution? Try to keep as low a profile as possible. Case your guns when you transport them in and out of the house. Be careful about what you throw away. (I don’t throw away empty Mountain House cases in my residential garbage.) Try not to have all your eggs in one basket. Sure your stuff isn’t illegal, the guns aren’t full auto, and theres no law against all that ammo…so what? You still have to wait for them to return it and that can take forever. Heck, in some places when the cops take guns the policy is to not return them even if the charges are unfounded/dropped. And then theres that whole thing about a dozen armed strangers going through your house inspecting all your stuff….
An ounce of prevention is really worth a pound of cure. The less exposure you and your stuff has to other people the less risk you have. It kind of sucks having to be concerned about how other people perceive what youre doing lest they send men with guns after you, but I suppose it beats the alternative.
