The pretense of “looking for guns” gives the officers an excuse to look for anything illegal. Only a fool would take them up on the offer.
“..gives the officers an excuse to look for anything illegal.”
Back in the day when my kids were real little, I had the rule that no cops were allowed in the house. It even came up a few times when I would call them about an abandonded car, strange guy walking around, etc. The last thing I needed was seeing a house with toys scattered around, a pile of dirty laundry, and my 3-year old daughter walking around with the front of her shirt up and around her neck (what a goof-ball!) and have them call CPS on us!
The whole of human history is littered with the corpses of those who did nothing wrong.