Meet The California Special Agents Who Are “Coming For Your Guns”

This report was originally published by Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge

An oft-echoed line from the left is “No One Wants To Take Your Guns!” But as Kurt Schlichter notes, this is another classic lie.

In fact, that’s exactly what liberals want to do. How do we know? They tell us when they think we are not looking – and, with more frequency, when we are. It’s fun when they say they don’t want to take your guns, then say you have to give up your ARs. If your opponent is getting wistful about Australia’s gun confiscation, he wants to take your guns.

Let’s get serious. They all want to take your guns. Why? Two reasons. First, it takes power from the citizenry. Liberals love that. Second, gun rights are important to normal Americans because the fact we maintain arms means we are not mere subjects. We are citizens, with the power to defend our freedom. Liberals hate that we have that dignity; taking our guns would humiliate us, and show us who is boss. They want to disarms us not because of the gun crime – name a liberal who wants to really do something about Chicago as opposed to hassling law-abiding normals – but because they hate us and want to see us submit.

Even the Fredocons are getting into the act, which is no surprise since Never Trumpism is always the first step downward to active liberalism. Pseudocon Bret Stephens demanded that America repeal the Second Amendment in the New York Times in October 2017. Fellow puffcon Ross Douthat simpered something similar, and the Captain Stubing of Conservatism, Bill Kristol, tweeted his concurrence.

And, As The Washington Post reports today, there is a group of California cops whose sole job is just that – confiscating your guns.

A broad, bald Tennessean, Special Agent Sam Richardson runs a six-person team of California Justice Department agents who are coming for your guns, but only if you no longer have the legal authority to own one in this state that has tightened firearm laws in increments over the years.

His division is the only law enforcement agency in the country assigned specifically to track down and take guns from felons, the mentally ill and others whose Second Amendment rights have been curtailed in court because of public safety concerns.

Notably, WaPo points out that these are the people who even the National Rifle Association says should not have guns, a statement echoing in the aftermath of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. The program makes California’s gun-control policy perhaps the most aggressive in the nation. A dozen years ago, the state set up a database that flags law enforcement officials when a registered gun owner is convicted of a felony, deemed mentally ill, has received a restraining order or committed one of about 37 qualifying misdemeanors.

The list is known as the Armed Prohibited Persons System, and while it has failed to prevent mass shootings in San Bernardino, Isla Vista and other cities in the state, it has taken tens of thousands of guns out of the hands of people prohibited from having them.

The work of Richardson’s agents is overwhelming, with the number of guns and “prohibiteds” growing faster than the under-resourced teams can take them off the street. So is the ingenuity of those selling guns, and those making guns, and those owning guns, legally or not.

There are 10,226 people on the list statewide. Of those, about 2,000 are in Los Angeles County, a vast urban desert covered by only Richardson’s team and one other.

“All of this takes time and real resources,” said Xavier Becerra (D), California’s attorney general, who said he is requesting more money for the program this year. “As quickly as we get these guns off the street, others are getting guns.”

Not once has a target fired on them, but WaPo reports that they are threatened — some extreme gun rights websites seek to identify them and expose them online — so all except Richardson, who has appeared publicly, spoke to The Washington Post on the condition that only their last names be used .

“We don’t have black helicopters, but we drive black cars and wear black uniforms,” Richardson said. “It plays into the mind-set of some of these people.”

Last year, state Justice Department agents seized 3,999 pistols and long guns, investigating more than 8,500 people in the process. The list has never dipped beneath 10,000 people since its earliest days.

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The timing of this ‘promotional’ piece from WaPo is fascinating, coming just a day after The White House said it is considering the idea of using restraining orders to take firearms away from people considered “dangerous” as part of its response to last week’s massacre at a Florida high school, two people familiar with the matter said.