Wisconsin Police Chief Norm Jacobs is drawing ire from gun rights advocates over his encouraging residents of Beloit, Wisconsin, to invite officers into their private homes to search for guns they might not know are there.
"Gun violence is as serious as the Ebola virus is being represented in the media, and we should fight it using the tools that we've learned from our health providers," Jacobs told Fox News, likening the preventative nature of the gun inspection process to a vaccine.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Jacobs emphasized that the voluntary gun inspections aren't meant as crackdowns on legal gun owners. "We're not interested in taking lawfully owned guns," Jacobs said. "But safety starts at the home."
Still, gun rights groups are concerned about legal gray areas: Who in the household, for instance, has the authority to contact police for the search? What if a pair of feuding spouses calls the cops on each other?
Jacobs clarified that police would perform an "inspection," not a search, and would only do so once it is "absolutely clear" that consent comes from the person with authority.
-
Quiz of The Week: 9 – 15 AugustQuiz Have you been paying attention to The Week's news?
-
Britain's giant rat problemRising infestation reports and increased sightings of oversized rats have caused concerns about waste management in some areas
-
The Week Unwrapped: Has Donald Trump secured his Nobel Peace Prize?Podcast Plus, what does the use of North Korean and Indian labour tell us about the Russian war economy? And why have we all gone crazy for pickles?
-
ABC News to pay $15M in Trump defamation suitSpeed Read The lawsuit stemmed from George Stephanopoulos' on-air assertion that Trump was found liable for raping writer E. Jean Carroll
-
Judge blocks Louisiana 10 Commandments lawSpeed Read U.S. District Judge John deGravelles ruled that a law ordering schools to display the Ten Commandments in classrooms was unconstitutional
-
ATF finalizes rule to close 'gun show loophole'Speed Read Biden moves to expand background checks for gun buyers
-
Hong Kong passes tough new security lawSpeed Read It will allow the government to further suppress all forms of dissent
-
France enshrines abortion rights in constitutionspeed read It became the first country to make abortion a constitutional right
-
Texas executes man despite contested evidenceSpeed Read Texas rejected calls for a rehearing of Ivan Cantu's case amid recanted testimony and allegations of suppressed exculpatory evidence
-
Supreme Court wary of state social media regulationsSpeed Read A majority of justices appeared skeptical that Texas and Florida were lawfully protecting the free speech rights of users
-
Greece legalizes same-sex marriageSpeed Read Greece becomes the first Orthodox Christian country to enshrine marriage equality in law
