The Los Angeles Police Department is looking to reunite gun owners with firearms recovered in the wreckage of the Palisades fire, which rocked Southern California this past January, burning for 24 days over 23,448 acres, killing 12 people, and destroying over 6,800 structures. While the devastation caused by the disaster is remarkable, the LAPD looking to return firearms to their rightful owners is the real shocker here, so much so that I have to remind readers that April 1 is in the rearview mirror.
“Since January, LAPD officers have been working through the painstaking process of recovering and rendering approximately 500 firearms safe,” according to LAPD Chief of Detectives Alan Hamilton.
Cleanup crews in the area have recovered over 500 firearms from the ashes, and as one might imagine, those guns have seen better days. Reports state that most of the rifles and handguns found in the debris appear heavily damaged, citing burnt away stocks and other furniture, along with metal receivers and parts cooked to a copper colored finish. LAPD officials have not commented on how many of the recovered firearms, if any, remain functional.
“Despite the condition of these recovered weapons, the Department remains committed to ensuring that these items are properly processed, identified, and, when appropriate, returned to their rightful owners,” says Hamilton.
In some cases, the damage is so bad that the gun is challenging to identify, but the agency is aware that some may have value to their owners beyond their condition, according to police.
“We recognize that these firearms may hold significant sentimental value to their owners, whether as family heirlooms, historical pieces, or personal mementos, and we are doing our best to reunite them with their owners,” according to Hamilton.
The Department is asking anyone who might have lost a firearm during the Palisades fire to contact them to claim their property. While I haven’t lived in Southern California for years and have never lived in the Palisades, they should send me an inventory just in case I forgot something super cool and rare—you know, to refresh my memory.
Authorities have stated they intend to create a record accounting for guns that have been destroyed, returned to their rightful owners, and those reported as missing that remain unrecovered. That data, according to police, will be entered into the state’s Automated Firearms System.
I hate to be the nay-sayer in all this, or wait, no, I don’t, but the Department is returning guns that are mostly destroyed anyway, which is likely entertaining to top brass and politicians in a sick, sort of sadistic way. Let us not forget that this comes as the Department of Justice is investigating the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department for heavy delays in CCW wait times, which has sparked a trend with pro-Second Amendment organizations in other areas requesting DOJ reviews of their state’s firearm infringements. Perhaps the LAPD is just trying to keep itself off Santa’s naughty list, because I don’t see much precedent for their concern regarding reuniting Californians with their firearms. Nonetheless, and despite my skepticism, here’s a pat on the back, LAPD, because my father always told me not to take things that didn’t belong to me.
Gun owners who believe they may have lost a gun in the Palisades Fire are encouraged to contact the LAPD Gun Recovery Unit with their home address and the description of the firearm to initiate the recovery process. Reports can be filed at any LAPD police station, online at LAPDonline.org, or via email at [email protected].
In the three years since the Los Angeles Fire Department began classifying them, fires related to homelessness have nearly tripled. In the first quarter of 2021, they occurred at a rate of 24 a day, making up 54% of all fires the department responded to.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-05-12/surge-in-fires-at-la-homeless-encampments-growing-crisis
Increasing homelessness means more fires. Homelessness keeps increasing in the region. Government response: “We have to fight Climate Change.” It’s the excuse that keeps excusing with the added benefit of never-ending funding and regulations. It’s a grifting tyrant’s dream.
Yeah right🙄. If you didn’t grab yer gat(s)during the blaze I wouldn’t trust the Commiefornia politbureau. 10 day wait & intrusive background checks I assume.
Not only that, it’s an opportunity for the .gov to get you on being a prohibited possessor. Imagine that, you file a claim and 3 weeks later, the state, with the helpful and compliant ATF, come and put the bracelets on you because their computer says you’re a criminal.
What, you don’t remember your participation in that school board meeting back in 2022? The one where you told the school board to leave their kiddie-diddling hands off your kid’s privates?
Or that in-ground water well you had before the fire? It turns out that you’ve been using an illegal device (a pump that uses electricity) to take water out of the California aquifers, and you were watering your avocado orchard and alpaca herd in violation of California law. Didn’t you know you have no right to your own crops and you’re supposed to let your livestock all die of thirst and dehydration? You’re the worst kind of criminal to Cali, and everybody knows that criminals CAN’T own guns.
They’ll invent ways for you to become a criminal, so that they can imprison you just like the FBI imprisoned people for being on street corners MILES AWAY FROM the J6 drama.
We STILL need to consider conquering California and putting all of its children into real schools that teach actual subjects, and don’t teach kids to get s3x changes or to wait for the next fires so they can die of starvation and thirst.
Also a great way to confirm database entries and update any unknown items for naughty citizens.
Cue Admiral Ackbar yelling, “it’s a trap!!”
Makes sense, even if the firearm is operational the vast majority of those people aren’t moving back. If they can afford it they mostly won’t get the building permit(s).
That’s pretty clear by now what with the 30ish permits so far issued after they “fast tracked the response to the disaster”.
You can sorta see why the more conspiratorially minded think it’s a plan.
A skunk’s stink doesn’t change to perfume overnight!
If the perfume department at a place like Macy’s is anything to go by, there’s only one thing that changes such stink to a preferred fragrance.
A marketing campaign.
I’ve recovered firearms from cars that burned after a crash and homes that burned. There’s nothing you can do with them. Water is a different story. Especially fresh water. Some of the weapons I recovered from the debris following a hurricane could be salvaged, but after a few days they’re finished. Salt water ain’t no joke.
And, the ONLY way to determine who they truly belong to is to look up the serial number in their registration database. If they cannot read the serial number, they will use the address. if the address has no firearms registered to it, I am positive that they will locate and arrest the (former) home owner since there is no way (that I know of) to prove a ‘Criminal’ didn’t just chuck their item into a burning house to get rid of evidence.
A s k u n k ‘ s stink d o e s not c h a nge in to p e r f u me ov ern i g h t!
I’m waiting to see the gun safe advertisements touting the fire resistance saving a bunch of guns, family heirlooms, etc.
Or not, as the case may be.
I can’t imagine the safe companies NOT touting the fire resistance success stories after this fire… unless there are no such stories.
Easier to add the firearm to your insurance claim? Or is that just my sunny disposition shining through?
Here yah go. We hero’s and enforcers of California’s gun bans are giving you your non functioning guns back( the ones that may have worked were lost).
Smile for the camera
We deserve it.
“recovering and rendering … safe,”?
What the hell does that mean, finish off the destruction the fire did not do?