Police in New York want the legal ability to seize firearms during a domestic violence call – even if no arrests were made. However, instead of going through normal legal channels and obtaining a search warrant or court order, police just want the legal ability to take the guns on their own.
New York State lawmakers plan to reintroduce a bill during the next legislative session that will go farther than the state’s Safe Homes Act of 2020, which allows officers to seize firearms found during a consensual search when police respond to a domestic dispute.
New York State Senator Peter Harckham, a Democrat from Westchester County, has sponsored a bill that would
“mandate” officers to confiscate all firearms left out in the open during a domestic call.
“This is not gun control, this is gun safety; and this is domestic safety,” the senator told Spectrum News. “This is keeping the victims of domestic violence alive. We had two fatalities through domestic violence and firearms in my district in the last month. This is very real. This is very deadly and this is not a permanent seizure.”
Senator Harckham’s bill would allow police to keep the seized weapons for five days – most likely to seek restraining orders or other legal options – before returning them to their rightful owners. Also, police would likely extend this five-day time limit as needed.
Tom King, president of New York State’s Rifle & Pistol Association, balked loudly about the new bill.
“No person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law,” King told the reporters. “That means a search warrant or an order from a judge to confiscate the firearms, and they’re doing this without that.”
King pointed out the more than 100 New Yorkers who had firearms seized under the state’s newly expanded red-flag law. This group contacted King’s nonprofit seeking help getting their guns back. Some have already paid more than $10,000 in legal expenses, King said.
Takeaways
The main problem with the new bill is that it offers police yet another illegal mechanism to seize someone’s guns.
Our federal law does not allow law enforcement to go traipsing through someone’s home looking for firearms that were never used in a crime, which they will then seize for no evidentiary value.
These types of laws are passed solely for one reason – harassment. They want to harass gun owners. They want gun owners temporarily disarmed and then forced to make several trips to the police station to get their property returned, at great cost, too. Don’t forget that.
Today, gun owners have fewer rights in places like New York than they do in free states. This new bill will only make it worse.
Article courtesy of the Second Amendment Foundation’s Investigative Journalism Project. Click here to support the project.
“Brief seizure”. Kind of like “temporary taxes”?
Parnell,
Exactly!!
How much is it going to cost in legal fees to have those firearms returned?
Less than paying for highways via tolls……… hopefully.
Patently unconstitutional. It will only be law for the next eighty or ninety years until the court process finally does away with it. “A right delayed is… none of your business, citizen,” and all that.
Hey we are at least 10 times faster with the court challenges now we should be able to get rid of it in under a decade……….once we get standing. Yeah even if the 2nd circuit has the next 12 years of Trump and Vance picks the state level judges will still be a mess.
What if it’s a ‘foot in the door’ to access private property to come up with another handful of charges. Bureaucracy at it’s best, it’s a business.
1. The police always know the right thing to do and they always do the right thing.
2. No law enforcement officer would ever enforce an unconstitutional law.
/sarc
Moron NY Gov Kathy Hochul and “Girl Math”
h ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUMgX7-yZZs
Don’t even get me started on the budget, as bad as Coumo was for a lot of things he at least kinda reigned in spending. The current governor has about as good a grasp on budget as another female has on history.
Briefly sieze.
Bwhahahahhaha, yeah right.
RE: “This is not gun control, this is gun safety; and this is domestic safety,” the senator told Spectrum News. “
No matter what the ny democRat says it’s backdoor Gun Control. If it were not about Guns it would includes knives, forks, hammers, vehicles, fists, feet and everything else couples use to hurt each other. What works is one or both parties going to jail or to reside elsewhere until cooler heads prevail.
And the bigger problem are Gun Talking blowbags who sit back and fail to inform pompous wacky idea democRats History Confirms Gun Control in any shape, matter or form is an agenda Rooted in Racism and Genocide.
It should be clear as the word sht in geoff’s moniker the embarrassing Historical Definition of Gun Control is the furthest thing from the minds of pompous unchecked democRats who are allowed to assume they own the moral high ground.
Hey Deb why don’t you contact all the democrat politicians in NY and inform them? Please let us know how many responses you get and what they had to say about it.
So now instead of your friendly local beat cop responding, it will be an up armored SWAT squad. Great.
Take the guns and leave the kitchen knives I’m sure.
If only New York had ‘briefly seized’ Peanut and not ‘murdered’ Peanut.
You wanna get suburban white women/teens interested in firearms and limited government? This is how it happens and of course NY is retarded enough to make it happen.
The police should cease responding to domestic calls…..let the idiots resolve their problem themselves.
Women being abused should put quadruple doses of laxative in goon’s beer or coffee. They will be too busy crapping to cause any trouble. Substitute rat poison for a vicious goon.
Sometimes the one being abused is not a woman. And sometimes the abuser is not a man. And sometimes either or both are not even adults. Now tack on all the new gender identities.
Well, you might be right.
My wife was pummeling me on the back last night while she was sleeping, or was pretending to sleep. Haven’t asked he why yet.
is it domestic violence or gang violence if the perpetrator and victim both identify as they/them?
Does it count as assault or animal abuse when they start identifying as other species/mythical beasts?
Briefly seize firearms for a domestic dispute but stop and frisk isn’t lawful.
I suspect this will be another policy that is NOT carried out regardless of race, creed, or color. In fact, cops in a fight with their own wives get a carve out already.
It’s just more control to harass one segment of society who is contributing the least to crime.
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