• Home
  • About Off The Grid
  • Advertise
  • Contact Us
Tuesday, May 20, 2025
  • How-To
  • Grid Threats
  • Survival
  • Gardening
  • Food
  • Worldview
  • Health
  • Privacy
  • Hunting
  • Defense
  • Financial
  • News
  • Misc
No Result
View All Result
  • How-To
  • Grid Threats
  • Survival
  • Gardening
  • Food
  • Worldview
  • Health
  • Privacy
  • Hunting
  • Defense
  • Financial
  • News
  • Misc
No Result
View All Result
Off The Grid News
Home Current Events

He Believes In Conspiracies, So Police Confiscated All Of His Guns

by Off The Grid News Staff
in Current Events
Print Print
He Believes In Conspiracies, So Police Confiscated All Of His Guns

Image source: Tumblr

Share on FacebookShare on XShare on TruthEmail Article
He Believes In Conspiracies, So Police Confiscated All Of His Guns
Image source: Tumblr

 

Ralph Gilbertsen has no criminal record and he owns a state gun permit, yet police came to his home without a warrant and confiscated his three pistols.

Officers apparently took Gilbertsen’s weapons because he believes in UFOs, Bigfoot and conspiracy theories.

“I’m confident our officers seized the weapons with the best intention,” Lieutenant Mike Flaherty of the Richfield, Minnesota, police told The Minneapolis Star Tribune. “It was a mental health issue, and I think the cops responded appropriately. The process is being followed. If the court rules that we have to return his weapons, then we will return them.”

Police took Gilbertsen’s three handguns at the request of the Hennepin Community Outreach for Psychiatric Emergencies (COPE). The managers of Gilbertsen’s apartment building called COPE after he sent them a letter saying CIA agents were watching him.

Learn New Fool-Proof Ways To Hide Your Guns?

Significantly, no psychologist or medical professional examined Gilbertsen prior to the weapons being taken last year. Gilbertsen, 74, has been forced to retain an attorney and go to court to get his own guns back. His plight was detailed in a Star Tribune feature story this month. Police took a .40-caliber pistol, a Smith & Wesson .357 magnum and an RG .22 revolver. Gilbertsen’s psychiatrist wrote a letter saying the man poses no threat.

Gilbertsen calls himself a patriot and Christian who has handled guns his entire life, the Star Tribune reported.

“He’s what some people would say is a conspiracy theorist,” Paul Baertschi, Gilbertsen’s attorney, told the newspaper. “But really, the police acted unilaterally in deciding that a person who has these beliefs can’t be trusted with a gun. And so they just took them, without a warrant.”

Flaherty defended the police department’s actions.

He Believes In Conspiracies, So Police Confiscated All Of His Guns
Smith and Wesson .357

“The street cops nowadays have to be a psychologist,” Flaherty said. “People don’t wear nameplates saying ‘paranoid schizophrenic.’ So the police have to go in there and make judgment calls.”

Gilbertsen said he deserves his guns back.

“A lot of people believe these things, but they don’t want to talk about it,” Gilbertsen said. “I could see people being skeptical if I was saying something really outlandish, like space aliens with big heads were visiting me every night. But nobody can believe the CIA is squeaky clean.”

Vicious New Hand-Held Self-Defense Tool Turns Lethal In Seconds!

Gilbertsen “is an able-bodied senior citizen who lacks the physical strength to defend himself from an attack and has the constitutional right under the Second Amendment to have a weapon for personal protection,” Baertschi wrote in a court document. “The police have no right to confiscate his weapons based on the speculative worries of anyone.”

Gun Confiscation on the Rise

The use of suspicion of mental illness as a pretext for gun confiscation is on the rise. A typical example is a new California law that allows judges to order confiscation of weapons without giving gun owners a chance to appeal, as Off The Grid News previously reported.

“With as little as a misunderstood Facebook post, your gun rights could be STRIPPED AWAY and your LIFE TURNED UPSIDE DOWN,” a petition on the website of the Firearms Policy Coalition, a gun rights group, states.

“In other words, a judge could issue the order without ever hearing from the person in question, if there are reasonable grounds to believe the person is a threat based on accounts from the family and police,” a Firearms Policy Coalition press release states.

Do you believe this man deserves his guns back? Share your thoughts in the section below:

Pump Shotguns Have One BIG Advantage Over Other Shotguns. Read More Here.

ShareTweetShareSend

Related Posts

How U.S. Tariffs Reshape China’s Top 20 Raw Supplement Imports

How U.S. Tariffs Reshape China’s Top 20 Raw Supplement Imports

by Bill Heid

The U.S.-China trade war has escalated to a critical phase in 2025, with tariffs on Chinese imports reaching unprecedented levels,...

Doomsday Dominoes: What Happens When Nukes Are Launched In India Or Pakistan

Doomsday Dominoes: What Happens When Nukes Are Launched In India Or Pakistan

by Bill Heid

Health, Environmental, and Economic Impacts of a Nuclear War Between India and Pakistan The specter of nuclear conflict remains one...

The Long…  Bloody History of India and Pakistan’s Endless Conflict

The Long… Bloody History of India and Pakistan’s Endless Conflict

by Bill Heid

A Nation Born in Bloodshed The roots of the ongoing hostility between India and Pakistan officially stretch back to 1947,...

Next Post
Do Home-Canned Foods Last as Long as Commercially Canned Foods?

Do Home-Canned Foods Last As Long As Commercially Canned Foods?

Please login to join discussion

YOU MAY ALSO LIKE

The Best Places To Go Off Grid: Pikeville, Tennessee

The Best Places To Go Off Grid: Pikeville, Tennessee

5 Steps To Reviving Your Livestock’s Damaged Pasture

5 Steps To Reviving Your Livestock’s Damaged Pasture

Scrapping a Refrigerator for copper

Scrapping a Refrigerator for copper

TRENDING STORIES

  • bubonic plague

    Is Another Bubonic Plague Pandemic On The Horizon?

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Waco Fertilizer Plant Explosion & A Look Back On The “Waco Massacre”

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Make Yourself 3 Times More Likely To Survive A Heart Attack

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • AI Surveillance Of Shoppers: Walmart’s Newest Tool To Grab Your Data

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • ‘Apocalyptic’ Microchip Implants Are Here – And Being Inserted Into People’s Hands

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0

Subscribe to our Insider Newsletter

Huge discounts on off-the-grid gear and life saving supplements.






‘Off The Grid News’ is an independent, weekly email newsletter and website that is crammed full of practical information on living and surviving off the grid. Advice you’ll never hear from the mainstream media.

  • How-To
  • Grid Threats
  • Extreme Survival
  • Survival Gardening
  • Off-Grid Foods
  • Worldview
  • Natural Health
  • Survival Hunting
  • Privacy
  • Financial
  • Current Events
  • Self Defense
  • Home Defense
  • Pain-Free Living
  • Miscellaneous
  • Off Grid Videos

© Copyright 2025 Off The Grid News.  All Rights Reserved.

No Result
View All Result
  • How-To
  • Grid Threats
  • Survival
  • Gardening
  • Food
  • Worldview
  • Health
  • Privacy
  • Hunting
  • Defense
  • Financial
  • News
  • Misc
  • Videos

© Copyright 2025 Off The Grid News.  All Rights Reserved.