Hugh Hewitt drew my attention to this article on the WNBC (flagship NBC TV station in New York City) website:

"Ridgefield [NJ] police had to call in the National Guard to haul away 100,000 rounds of ammunition after finding nearly 500 guns in an elderly couple's home.

"The weapons range from pistols to machine guns.

"The home belongs to Sherwin and Elizabeth Raymond. Both are 82 years old.

"She suffers from Alzheimer's disease. He was a physician and gun enthusiast who was arrested in 1974 and charged with selling submachine guns, grenades and other weapons to two undercover federal agents.

"He's now charged with creating a hazardous situation and could face other charges.

"Federal officials plan to begin tracing the weapons to determine whether they were legally obtained and ever used in a crime."

From what little is said above there is good reason to suspect this is a gross violation of the civil rights of this couple. There is nothing in this article that indicates why the police invaded their home other than that they knew they owned guns.

There are many well to do firearms collectors with large collections like this. All this tells me is that he had more money to spend on his collection than I do. What possibly is criminal about this?

The fact that they apparently owned machine guns explains the large amounts of ammunition. If you have ever been to a machine gun shoot you would know that some shooters need large trucks to bring their ammo to the shoot. When you are feeding just one gun which shoots 600 rounds per minute, you can go through 100,000 rounds of ammo in less than 3 hours at the range. The machine gun shoots I have attended were 4 day events with hundreds of shooters. Do the math!

Another issue is that in order to own machine guns you need a special Federal permit that is not easy to get. This may explain why there has never been a case of a legally owned civilian machine gun being used in the commission of a crime.

This leads to the issue of Dr. Raymond having been charged with firearms crimes in 1974. Note it does not say he was convicted, only charged. If he was convicted of any such felony he would have lost his rights to own firearms. Therefore the mention of this is merely the anti civil rights police trying to score cheap points with the anti civil rights media in NJ. I lived across the river in NYC much of my life and know first hand the bias against the 2nd Amendment in that part of our country.

This sounds like a typical case of anti civil rights police trying to "make an example" of an elderly man who they clearly must hope no longer has the financial resources to effectively fight them in court. I hope he gets the backing in court from those who value freedom in our country.