Ten Thousand Rounds

At first this sounds like a very alarming story.

[H]e went by the name “ArmyOfChrist,” and praised the Oklahoma City bombing, mass shootings and attacks on Planned Parenthood, the FBI says. When the deadly siege in Waco, Tex., came up, he allegedly offered one lesson: “Shoot every federal agent on sight.” “Don’t comply with gun laws, stock up on stuff they could ban,” he allegedly wrote...

And when agents raided a home where the 18-year-old lived earlier this month, they found about 10,000 rounds of ammunition and a vault full of assault-type weapons and shotguns.

Wow! Except, where did an 18 year old get enough money to buy all that stuff?

Oh, actually, he didn't own them. His father owned them, and kept them responsibly locked in a safe.

On Aug. 7, agents swarmed Olsen’s mother’s house, but learned that he’d recently moved to live with his father. Later that day, they found Olsen and arrested him. He soon admitted to making the posts, the FBI says, but claimed the comments were all in jest.

“That’s a hyperbolic conclusion based on the results of the Waco siege,” he said of his instruction to shoot federal agents. He added that the “ATF slaughtered families” in the incident, in which 76 people died as federal agencies raided a religious sect’s compound.

Agents found plenty of firepower in Olsen’s father’s home, though it’s unclear how much of it the 18-year-old could access. There were about 300 rounds of ammunition on a stairway, the FBI says, and thousands of rounds of ammo, camouflage clothing and a gun vault in another bedroom in the house. Agents eventually seized about 15 rifles and shotguns and 10 semiautomatic pistols.

So what we have here is a father who was a responsible gun owner, and a teenager who liked to run his mouth on the internet. Apparently that's enough to justify seizing the father's firearms and ammunition -- permanently? If the boy is jailed for making threats, it's not likely the father is going to shoot anything up if he's reached middle age without doing so.

This is somewhat like the red flag laws under discussion, only it turns out you wouldn't actually have to be the red flag yourself. What's the procedure for recovering your property from FBI seizure if it turns out you didn't do anything wrong, nor even contemplate anything wrong?