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Bob and Eve are work colleagues. Eve owns an unlicensed firearm, which could be illegal, be that a pistol, rifle or a shotgun. Eve mentions that she owns such a weapon to Bob. Bob is concerned for his safety and wants to do some sort of action.

Can the police take action against Eve based on Bob’s knowledge alone?

Would Eve be prosecuted or only have her firearm seized?

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  • Im voting to close this because I fear it cannot be answered in any authoritive manner. Police are a law upon themselves.
    – Neil Meyer
    Commented Jun 22, 2022 at 12:21
  • @NeilMeyer: Personal, my tendency is to interpret questions of the form, "Can [X] do [Y]?" as, "Can [X] do [Y] legally?"
    – Brian
    Commented Jun 24, 2022 at 13:03

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Yes

Most police investigations start with a report of suspicion of illegal activity from the public.

Whether a particular report gets acted on and what action the police will take is up to them.

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    This doesn't answer the question which boils down to whether the specific kind of report would normally trigger the police to act. It is not so much about what the law requires the police to do but rather what their usual practices are in regards to handling reports like this.
    – Greendrake
    Commented Jun 21, 2022 at 8:16
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    @Greendrake in that case, the question would be out of scope of Law.SE
    – Trish
    Commented Jun 21, 2022 at 8:29
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    @Trish Practices of law enforcement out of scope here? Come on.
    – Greendrake
    Commented Jun 21, 2022 at 14:09
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    @Greendrake the police generally do whatever they like. It is not really easy to determine what police are likely to do.
    – Neil Meyer
    Commented Jun 21, 2022 at 15:41
  • @NeilMeyer More importantly, there are very few legal boundaries governing what police do. There is no authoritative answer. The law answers what the government could do (it could prosecute, it could seize the weapon, it could question the suspect, it could get a warrant to search for it).
    – ohwilleke
    Commented Jun 22, 2022 at 0:48

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