I don’t want to be right about what Mounties appear to have done in High River this summer after southern Alberta’s historic June floods forced the evacuation of all 13,000 townspeople.

I don’t want to believe our much-admired national police force used the cover of the worst natural disaster in Canadian history to conduct a mass seizure of guns from the town’s law-abiding firearms owners. But having covered the High River Gun Grab for the past six months — and especially after having worked three months for the Sun News Network on a documentary about the confiscation (which will premiere Tuesday at 7 p.m. Eastern, 5 p.m. Mountain) — there is no escaping the conclusion that Mounties did indeed break down the doors in more than a third of High River’s 5,300 homes in a deliberate attempt to disarm the civilian population.

It is one of the most massive violations of civil and property rights in modern Canadian history.

The RCMP may believe they were acting with the best of intentions, to keep the guns safe from looters or maintain public order as evacuees began returning to their homes two or three or even more weeks after the rising Highwood River overflowed its banks.

But the very fact that Mounties thought it was better for High Riverites’ safety to leave 1,900 of their homes with doors smashed off the hinges — wide open to thieves and the elements — rather than leave homes locked with guns locked away safely inside, shows just how distorted police thinking has become regarding private ownership of guns.

More than 15 years of enforcing the Liberals’ ridiculous gun control law — Bill C-68 — has turned police logic on its head. Now, far too many officers see a duck hunter with a pump-action shotgun locked in a closet in the basement as as much of a threat as a meth dealer with a Glock tucked in his waistband.

Mounties have developed such an Us vs. Them mentality when it comes to civilians with firearms that it probably made sense to them to batter down doors to hundreds of private homes and snatch all the guns they could find. That quickly became Job

No. 1 — not rescuing survivors, but disarming the town’s population.

In Tuesday’s documentary, you’ll see photos of the damage Mounties did and hear stories of the havoc they rained down on hundreds of ordinary homes. If you’re tempted to think the RCMP’s actions were justified, imagine if they were loose in your town — in your house. Imagine that instead of taking guns they were seizing your laptop, your smartphone and your banking records after some natural disaster had forced you and your neighbours to seek refuge in arenas and school gyms.

The Mounties had no warrants for what they did in High River. Nor did they seek judicial permission after the fact, as required by law. Alberta’s emergency management law may have authorized their actions, but only if the RCMP had received specific orders from the provincial government to do what they were doing. Yet both the RCMP and Premier Alison Redford’s Tories insist no such orders exist.

And remember this: The whole time the door-busting orgy was going on, High River was under complete lockdown. No one could get into town without Mounties’ permission. They had every entrance barricaded. They even had a helicopter in the air with body-sensing equipment onboard ensuring not a soul could sneak back into town.

In other words, the town was already safe when Mounties decided they had to — absolutely had to — kick in High River’s front doors. That means their goal must have been something other than public safety or safeguarding valuable private property, the two excuses they are still giving to this day.

As Assistant Commissioner Marianne Ryan (who has since been promoted to commanding officer of all Mounties in Alberta) wrote in an e-mail (obtained by access-to-information request) at 10:44 a.m. on June 21 (the day after the flood), “so far we’ve managed to effect the rescue and evacuation of 95% of the town of High River.” So if Mounties knew 95% of the town’s inhabitants were accounted for a little more than 24 hours after the flood struck, why did they break into more than a third of High River homes? Why did they break into homes unaffected by the flood? Why did they break down doors that were unlocked? Why did they return to many homes two and three times until they found the guns they seemed to know in advance were stored there?

And this is the most important question: If most survivors where accounted for less than 48 hours after the flood began, why did the Mounties’ door-kicking spree go on for seven or eight days?

While preparing our documentary, the Sun News production team spoke with several High Riverites whose homes were broken into despite the fact they had registered with the provincial government and with relief agencies to say no one was left inside. It is standard procedure following floods, hurricanes, earthquakes and twisters for residents to put a large ‘X’ on their doors or sign in at shelters to reassure authorities that no one has been left behind.

But in High River, Mounties ignored such signs. They broke in anyway, which again leads me to believe that finding survivors had nothing to do with their destructive actions. They were targeting gun owners, pure and simple.

Please tune in Tuesday to watch Broken Trust to make up your minds for yourselves.

lorne.gunter@sunmedia.ca