It has come to my attention that the RCMP may or may not be phoning people who have firearms licenses expiring within the next 12 months. I’ve heard of at least one individual who says they have been contacted on the telephone by someone claiming to be from the RCMP and that person demanded all kinds of personal information from them.
NOTE You are under NO OBLIGATION to answer personal questions from an unidentified voice on the telephone!
See: http://www.canadiangunnutz.com/forum/showthread.php?t=699862
I have no way of confirming whether or not this story is true, but here are the steps that every firearm owner should follow if they receive a telephone call from anyone claiming to be from the RCMP or any other branch of law enforcement.
While this all sounds a bit absurd and far-fetched, the RCMP does seem intent upon getting firearms out of the hands of legitimate, law-abiding firearm owners when they should be far more concerned about getting them out of the hands of violent criminals. Anyone willing to jump through all the hoops and background checks to get a firearms license is not likely to be a threat to anyone.
However…
A voice on the telephone is simply that: a voice on the telephone. You have no way of confirming they are who they claim to be.
That being said, here are some simple rules that everyone should follow if they receive a phone call from anyone claiming to be from any branch of law enforcement.
Step 1. Understand that just because someone claims to be from the police, that doesn’t make it so. Do not answer personal questions about firearm ownership or anything else to an unidentified voice on the telephone.
Step 2. You are under no obligation to answer personal questions from an unidentified voice on the telephone, regardless of who they claim to be. Do not answer personal questions about firearm ownership or anything else from an unidentified voice on the telephone.
Step 3. Never EVER answer personal questions about firearm ownership or any other personal issue from an unidentified voice on a telephone.
Now that the first three steps are fully understood, it’s time to get to the good stuff.
:)
Step 4. Tell the voice on the phone the following:
“I have no way of confirming that you are who you claim to be. I will only respond to your questions IN WRITING and only upon receipt of a letter from you on OFFICIAL LETTERHEAD that fully identifies you by NAME, RANK or position and BADGE NUMBER or employee number.
If that is not satisfactory, please contact my local RCMP (or other police force) detachment and request that a local constable contact me to schedule a face-to-face interview where your questions may be addressed. This interview will ONLY be conducted in the presence of my legal counsel and will be recorded using the audio and/or video recording device(s) of my choosing.”
Step 5. Repeat Steps 1 thru 4 until they either hang up or begin threatening you.
Step 6. If they interrupt you or begin to threaten you in any way, demand their full name, badge number, rank and commanding officer’s name. Repeat that demand until they hang up or allow you to complete the statement above.
I cannot state strongly enough that you should never EVER answer questions about your personal life or choice in personal property ownership to an unknown voice on the telephone. There are far too many documented cases where firearm owners have been duped by criminals and have then suffered home invasions or thefts of their firearms for anyone to be that trusting of a voice on the telephone.
If the inquiries are legitimate, then the police force will be quite willing to conduct an interview in person, in the presence of your legal counsel and have that interview recorded for the record.
If those conditions are unacceptable to the voice on the phone, you can draw your own conclusion about the legitimacy of the caller…
If you have photographs and/or videos of yourself and firearms posted on Facebook, YouTube, etc, then you may want to re-think those postings, and either remove them or make them private so only the people you know personally have access to them. This would appear to be where the voice on the phone is obtaining their information about firearm ownership.
Social Media is a wonderful thing, but it can also tell the world information you would prefer to remain private.
KNOW YOUR RIGHTS and KNOW THE LAW.
Some years back I experienced a similar scenario with a caller who identified himself as a contractor with the Bank of Montreal, now known as BMO.
The caller wanted to close out my small savings account.
I was stunned by his impertinence and told him I didn’t discuss banking affairs on the phone. “Write me on Bank of Montreal letterhead,” I instructed in a less than civil tone.
His voice went up three octaves with frustration, insisting repeatedly he was legit. I didn’t care. My response was to hang up.
The next time I was in the Whitehorse branch, I told a service rep about the incident. She shook her head. No, she didn’t know about such tactics ever used to contact customers and certainly had no knowledge of this latest shenanigan.
She pulled the card. My small account was still intact. It hadn’t been touched except for the pound of flesh the bank withdrew monthly.
The Bank of Montreal is a sizable corporation that is expected to act responsibly and professionally. Customer banking business is supposed to be kept confidential, not indiscriminately shared with part-time contractors like Stats Canada does with your personal information.
However, some hotshot public relations moron could have devised what he considered to be a “clever” plan for purging nuisance accounts. Since staffers were too busy to do the deed, the whiz kid may have decided to outsource the job…that is until the stupid scheme backfired with customer complaints.
It seemed to me that if the bank wanted to close out customer accounts, a form letter would have been inserted with monthly bank statements; or a letter would have been sent direct to customers’ mailing addresses; or the computers would have been flagged so the tellers could query customers the next time they attended the bank.
I never heard from any more callers claiming to be contractors.
But it did occur to me that the caller could have been a former bank employee or had an accomplice currently employed at the bank. Regardless, they would have access to customer records. The telecaller, paid by the bank employee, could legitimately say, “I’m a contractor with the Bank of Montreal.”
It would be easy to find the small inactive accounts, obtain customers’ permission to close them, deposit a few bucks into customers’ checking accounts, give the bank a few dollars for “service fees”, and, while the transactions looked proper, the thieves were realizing a goodly sum by pocketing the remainder of the accounts.
Christopher’s advice should be carefully heeded, regardless of who the unidentified caller says he represents: police, Stats Canada, credit card company, bank, veterans, Google, God. Whoever.
They should be shunned like the phone fraudsters they are. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be harassing you by nosing into your intimate affairs.
And, I highly recommend what was not available at the time of my BMO incident: Blog the bejeezus out of the culprits until they squeal like pigs!
Shamelessly pilfered for use at http://www.gunownersresource.com/articles/talking-to-cops-or-not ;)
Thanks for letting me know, and for including a link to the original article at the end of your repost. Much appreciated.