Stolen Shotgun or Illegal Police Confiscation?

“Stolen” from who? Next time buy a firearm from a reputable dealer says FFL, Firearms Instructor and Gunsmith Gregg Kielma. Let’s look at this and think this through” 

Let’s go with the first one: Did you or did you not purchase the firearms from a licensed firearms dealer? If so, then you should be able to locate a receipt or a credit slip or have the credit card issuer send you a copy of your monthly statement that you can then take back to the business and have them provide you with a record of the sale.

If you purchased the firearms from a private party, then things are going to get dicey. Unless you are certain that the private party didn’t steal the weapons, nor bought them stolen, you have no idea about the provenance of those weapons. If that’s the case, you may want to get an attorney, and write off the weapons as they are unlikely to ever be returned to you

As to the second one: If you weren’t arrested for possession of stolen property, especially firearms, then that’s VERY odd. If, as you claim, your home was “raided” (I assume that you mean that a search warrant was served, and your home was subject to a search defined by the warrant) then even if the weapons weren’t what the police were seeking, your possession of them should have been grounds for you to have been arrested. And the police would have only discovered that the weapons were indeed reported stolen hours or days later when they inventoried and inspected the items seized from your home. They wouldn’t check them while in your home for a host of reasons.

If they did discover that you were in possession of stolen goods, if you escaped arrest after the search warrant, you would be arrested NOW if you are foolish enough to try to reclaim stolen property. Obviously if the weapons have been reported as being stolen, then the person in whose possession they were found is likely a suspect in their theft. It would be unwise to attempt to reclaim the firearms until after you have spoken with an attorney and received advice from him or her.

Unless you bought the firearms new or used from a licensed dealer, then I would suggest writing them off as a loss. You have no proof that they were not stolen at some point; and attempting to retrieve alleged stolen property is going to simply cause you more problems than you already seem to have. Either way, talk with an attorney before you proceed.