Feds Seize Gun from US Collector at Poland's Request.

In 1993, firearms collector Kristopher Gaisor bought what he considered to be a must-have rifle for his collection--a Polish wz.38M Maroszek rifle. This rare semi-automatic rifle was one of only 150 made, and maybe 5-8 of them are known to exist today.

Gaisor was pretty proud of this rifle as a link to his family's Polish WW2 heritage, but recently, when he decided to offer it for sale while liquidating most of his collection, Homeland Security agents knocked on his door and demanded the rifle, threatening him with arrest if he did not surrender it. Apparently the Polish government saw his ad and decided to lay claim to the rifle which was apparently brought back to the U.S. by a returning GI at the end of World War Two.

Va. collector squares off with his home country over rare, World War II rifle

Even Poland does not dispute the fact that the rifle was likely captured and used by German forces at the beginning of the war and then liberated by an American soldier at the war's end roughly seventy-five years ago. They still demanded that the U.S. Government step in and snatch the rifle back from a private citizen who bought it legally in the U.S. five decades later and has owned it openly for twenty years. Gaisor tried to fight the good fight to retain his property but in the end, he was forced into a settlement where he was forced to sell the rifle to the Polish Government.

Settlement in case of rare Polish rifle seized from Virginia gun collector

Gee, thanks for looking out for American property rights, Obama Administration. Walking into a private citizen's home and taking his property by force at the request of a foreign government even though no wrongdoing was alleged by that citizen?

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Amendment IV, United Stated Constitution, (1791).

Especially troubling here is the fact that the Homeland Security agents did not have a warrant to search for or seize the rifle when they showed up at Gaisor's door. They merely asserted a claim that "as far as the U.S. government is concerned, anything brought over the border at any time was within Department of Homeland Security jurisdiction and could be seized."

OK, that should scare the hell out of any American who has any foreign-made firearms, or anything else that came from overseas in his or her house, or who just understands our Constitution and loves his or her liberty. That's a whole new power that the U.S. Government is claiming and they seem to have gotten away with it here even after the NRA graciously hired a lawyer to help defend Gaisor. (And good on the NRA for doing this!) Kristoper Gaisor lost a rifle and the right to sell it for the price that he wanted. What might you or I lose tomorrow should someone in the Obama Administration (or post-2016 Clinton Administration) decide on a whim to just show up and start taking stuff? Our nation's founders wrote and ratified that Fourth Amendment for a reason, and cases like this are undoubtedly exactly what they were thinking about when they wrote it.