Retired LAPD Sgt. Cheryl Dorsey describes herself as a “TV police expert,” but that expertise (such as it is) apparently doesn’t extend to guns or the laws regulating their purchase and possession.

The 20-year police veteran appeared on a Los Angeles local news station earlier this week in the wake of the El Paso and Dayton massacres, and she revealed startling ignorance about firearm function, background check laws, and police authority.

“Who can ultimately get a gun is not the problem,” she said. “The problem is high-powered weapons. It’s weapons that go through walls in some instances, armory that officers wear. It’s the availability of a double-barreled magazine extended clips. Why would a regular person need all of that?”

Why, indeed.

Dorsey’s gaffes weren’t relegated to the “fully-semi-automatic” variety. She also demonstrated ignorance about the very laws she supposedly enforced during her time in the field.

When asked about the current background check requirements to own a firearm, she seemed to suggest that prospective gun owners must provide names and addresses for character references.

“If I’m completing that background application, am I going to give you the name of my neighbor that I don’t get along with or somebody who really knows me really well?” she said. “I’m going to give you the names of the people who say I’m amazing and say I should really have a gun, when someone two doors down knows I should not. That’s why I think it’s so important to do an in-depth background investigation and look not at the places people send you, but at the places they don’t send you.”

Her solution would make Eric Swalwell proud. She argues that the same extensive background checks police officers must pass before joining the LAPD should apply to “average civilians” who want to own a gun, suggesting that being a “bully” would likely disqualify a prospective owner.

“With regards to background checks, what I think would be helpful, is if we were to put a civilian through what we put police officers through, now that we’re hearing from classmates and people who worked with these [mass murderers], saying, ‘He was a bully, or he was involved in domestic violence,’” she said.

“As a police officer, when I wanted to come on the LAPD, they talked to my neighbors, they talked to folks I went to school with. Why can’t they do that for an average civilian before you allow them to have a gun?”

But wait, there’s more!

Unaware that the waiting period to purchase a firearm in California is a minimum of ten days, she describes the purchase process like this: “They do a database search, and three days later, you get a gun. It’s just that simple.”

She also seems unaware that, in California, firearm dealers at gun shows are required to follow the exact same transfer laws as anywhere else: “It’s very easy to purchase a gun at a gun show,” she claims. “Much easier than it is if you go to a brick and mortar establishment.”

At one point she says, apropos of nothing, “There are parts that you can buy after the fact that will make a gun untraceable.” ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

When asked to explain both universal background checks and red flag laws, she repeats the idea that police officers have the authority to decide whether or not to confiscate someone’s firearms.

While she does believe gun owners should be subjected to more extensive background checks, she doesn’t think we should be focusing on mental illness in our discussions of mass murder.

“I don’t think we want to criminalize mentally ill people,” she says. “To just go around and involuntarily confine people because they have mental illness is not the way to go.”

The only redeeming part of Dorsey’s segment is the parody videos it’s spawned.