Upper Egyptians have a long tradition of hoarding weapons, but in the past they tended to be discreet, and periodically the police conducted searches and confiscated firearms.
Some law enforcement officials said they already had department policies against selling confiscated firearms and worried about putting more weapons back on the street.
On Thursday, Rio police said they arrested two people and confiscated firearms after a shootout in Cantagalo, a favela, or slum, that overlooks the popular, upscale beach neighborhood of Ipanema.
In the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, police and National Guard units in New Orleans confiscated firearms from private citizens in an attempt to prevent violence.
"He was referencing the fact that when Hitler confiscated firearms from Jewish Germans, those communities were less able to defend themselves.
But earlier in the week, on Monday night and into Tuesday morning, police arrested more than 70 people and confiscated firearms and Molotov cocktails.
At the end of the day, they drove away with 51 confiscated firearms and Wright's Ford F-150 pickup truck.
The state's "red flag" law allows concerned family members and law enforcement to ask a judge to temporarily confiscate firearms from gun owners who pose a risk to themselves or others.
The Appleseed report's recommendations include eliminating provisions in the code that call for law enforcement to obtain a warrant to detain someone in a mental health crisis and adding explicit laws that allow officers to confiscate firearms from people who become dangerous as a result of their mental condition.
In a letter to Robert Popovich, a former neighbor of Terry L. Nichols's, Mr. McVeigh wrote: "It was at this time, after waiting for nonviolent checks and balances to correct ongoing federal abuses and seeing no such results, that the assault-weapons ban passed, and rumors subsequently surfaced of nationwide Waco-style raids scheduled for the spring of 1995 to confiscate firearms.
At the time, the president appeared to support raising the age limit of purchasing rifles, closing background check loopholes and confiscating firearms from mentally ill individuals.
