Imagine opening the door to a gaggle of police officers in the middle of the night. One hands you a “temporary emergency gun violence restraining order” and recites these words: “You are required to surrender all firearms and ammunition that you own or possess in accordance with Section 18120 of the Penal Code and you may not have in your custody or control, own, purchase, possess, or receive, or attempt to purchase or receive a firearm or ammunition, while this order is in effect. However, a more permanent gun violence restraining order may be obtained from the court. You may seek the advice of an attorney as to any matter connected with the order. The attorney should be consulted promptly so that the attorney may assist you in any matter connected with the order.” And then . . .
the police officer and his colleagues enter your house to confiscate all your firearms and your ammunition. If you don’t willingly ID the location of your firearms and ammunition – and even if you do – the police conduct a thorough search of your house, upending everything, lest you be hiding guns and ammo in anticipation of their visit.
Did I say guns and ammo? That’s not the end of it . . .
The cops also confiscate “documentary evidence” of your potential ballistic threat to yourself or others. That list includes (but is not limited to) “writings, documents, blueprints, drawings, photographs, computer printouts, microfilms, X-rays, files, diagrams, ledgers, books, tapes, audio and video recordings, films, and papers of any type or description.”
It is, indeed, time for you to hire a lawyer. A good lawyer. An expensive lawyer. Because going to court is the only way you’re going to get your guns, ammo and stuff back from the police. You’ve got to prove that you’re not a danger to yourself or society. The state has 21 days in which to hold this hearing, during which time you cannot control, own, purchase, possess, or receive a firearm. You are disarmed.
In this hearing, you finally get to see the evidence against you. Evidence you didn’t know existed until that midnight knock on your door. Evidence that was submitted to the police by disgruntled family members and viewed by a judge, who decided that you posed a “significant” risk to yourself or others – a term he or she felt free to define according to their own parameters.
The judge hears your lawyer’s arguments. A disaffected spouse made the complaint to the police that triggered the temporary gun violence restraining order. She twisted innocent comments and common firearms practices into ominous remarks and suspicious behavior suggesting imminent violence. And why not? The penalty for bearing false witness against you is a slap on the wrist: a misdemeanor.
The judge isn’t buying your lawyer’s explanations. Well, not entirely. Besides, revoking the gun violence restraining order would put her career in jeopardy and pit her decision against the decision of the judge who issued the order. For her sake, for safety’s sake, she renews the gun ban for one year. See you then.
How, exactly, did this happen?
First of all, you live in California, a state that is to gun rights what McDonald’s is to haute cuisine. Second, Governor Jerry Brown signed AB 1014, Gun Violence Restraining Orders, one of the worst assaults on Americans’ natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms in the long, sad history of this country’s civilian disarmament. Which Brown hasn’t done . . . yet. The above description is fantasy. Well, more like a nightmare.
But not according to the LA Times. They consider it A reasonable gun measure prompted by Isla Vista rampage. Huh?
Among the many tragedies that intersected during Elliot Rodger’s violent rampage near Santa Barbara in May — killing six people and wounding more than a dozen others before he killed himself — was that Rodger’s parents had sought police help as their son’s life spiraled out of control. Unfortunately, until he started killing people, Rodger violated no law that would have justified police action.
In fact, no less than four policemen showed-up at Elliot’s door to interview the killer before his rampage. They could have taken him into protective custody. Under existing law, the cops could have confiscated Rodger’s firearms and prohibited him from possessing or purchasing guns. Of course, he also used a knife and a car to murder innocent victims. A fact the LA Times is quick to dismiss.
The legislation arose after it was discovered that Rodger, despite a history of mental illness, legally bought all three of the guns he used. Notably, they were only part of his arsenal: Rodger killed his first three victims with knives, and he injured several others by striking them with his car.
That has prompted some critics of this legislation to argue that it would not have prevented the rampage that inspired it. That may be true — or at least partly true — but it misses the larger point that mentally ill people with violent tendencies should not possess firearms.
The last paragraph speaks to the “reasoning” behind AB 1014 – and every other piece of gun control legislation inflicted on American citizens. There’s no evidence that AB 1014 will increase public safety. Or that it’s needed. (Not to mention the expense involved.) But who cares if it works or not? It might! And you can’t argue with the law’s intent.
Which is all that matters, really. Check out the”shareline” sitting above the story: “Mentally ill people with violent tendencies should not possess firearms.” According to the LA Times’ editors, that’s all you need to know. How about “mentally ill people with violent tendencies should be given due process and removed from society until such time as they may safely rejoin it.”
More to the point, the law’s enormous potential for abuse – by mentally ill, greedy or angry family members and the government aided and abetted by understandably risk aversive police and timid judges – isn’t important. Like the legislators who crafted this ticking time bomb, the LA Times completely, willfully, obstinately, happily ignores concerns that AB 1014 will trample on gun rights and open the door to unconstitutional confiscation.
This is a reasonable approach that the gun lobby should join in supporting, and that Brown should sign into law.
Hopefully, the Times Editorial Board’s invitation for “gun lobby” support is ironic; giving gun rights advocates the metaphorical middle finger. Otherwise, I’d have to conclude that they’re insane. And have their access to computers and the Internet removed so they no longer pose a danger to themselves or society.
Cry havoc and let loose the dogs of anti-tyranny.
MOLON LABE (or keep pretending like you didn’t see it coming)
I would simply move out of California.
It’s a lot healthier to do that, and will lead to a longer life-span, than to engage in violent civil disobedience.
John
Right, right, sorry, you’re absolutely right, I meant that ^.
Move to the next place it’s going to happen (without your guns).
Whatever your neighbors say (without you asking) goes. Right.
Right, I get it, I’m the bad-guy for telling someone to stand up for their unalienable rights.
Boil it down though, flip the river-card, play it to the last move in your head now. (Through such legislation)They are effectively saying give-up your guns, we are going to get them in a more littered eventuality (or at least that’s the safest assumption as long as your making one). Which eventuality are you waiting around for?
The OP was hypothetical, but if such a person suffered that fate, they’d more than likely be asking you and I for help/support on the back-side. Do you want to fight your battles when you are old and broken and tired, and they have enslaved you and yours, and taken all that you have? Don’t pretend for a second that the game has already been played before (how do you think we got here?). Franklin wrote/said it, you have Washington, Thomas Paine, (more eloquently for certain, but to no less of an audience and with no less worry at heart).
Thanks CA, but you’re screwed-up-ness isn’t going to become the new “normal”. Only an idiot/liar would say that that CA conforms to the Constitution in that regard (and several others). And only a narcissistic loser would think highly enough of themselves to believe we’d let them re-write the definition for us.
You first.
What? me first? Fix CA? I have a hard enough time keeping such things from happening in my state. But it speaks to my point, yes you want someone to push-back for you? I don’t live there. If CA gets overrun buy a foreign nation (I mean more than normal) I’ll send in blankets and MRE’s but I’ll be saving my full support for not letting its borders breach on my side.
Agree. Its sad when you have people on this board posting that running from problems will solve them. Not very practical or even possible for most working people. When did alleged gun rights supporters become so comfortable with letting democracy void them of their constitutional rights?
Right, it sounds incredibly inflammatory, but where are you finally going to run-to? We’re all just stuck on a planet. We’ve already decided how best to get-along, we don’t need anyone with higher-minds or better-vision to ‘tweak’ it for us.
You know, if we could somehow get all the Fudds, fence sitters, and “I don’t give a sh1tters” down to vote, I think that would send a message that would be heard from sea to sea.
How about it? November is not far away.
For the 1938 Jewish resident of Berlin. Bury head and stay, “fight them in the courts and stay”, or leave by any means possible.
Which plan had potential?
Or perhaps you know a modern Dietrich Bonhoeffer that can save you AFTER the ship has sailed.
@neiowa, historical propaganda makes nice stories for TeeVee and Hollywood. Has little bearing on reality.
Which position was right? The Jew’s who stayed or the ones who fled? Maybe not all of them could leave, so they stayed and fought in the courts and registered their religious beliefs in the meantime with the administration that called them a pustule on the greatness that was their state. Which side had the higher survival rate again?
I’m sorry, I’m always just really bad on determining the proper time to be appalled, and I always forget who’s the last person appointed who gets to say when.
My bad.
The main issue is, since you won’t see it coming by the very nature of the law, you would have to either be on full high alert at all times, or actually go on the offensive before the cops show up at your door. If they even bothered to knock.
Worse, you’d have to spring from the womb fully formed and armed to the teeth and waste every waking moment beating-back the idiotic pile o’ poo that others have settled-for as “precedent” .
Precedent is just the stupid stuff that you let fall from your face before you asked me. Now that sounds absolutely crazy, right? But try to understand how precedent sounds to me if you’ve ignored the basic duty to protect what “precedent” should protect.
I agree. Move out of CA. I DID.
I lived there for over 30 years. It is lost. Compare it to England of the 1600’s. Everyone that wanted to live free MOVED AWAY. When they were collected on this side of the Atlantic, they had strength enough to resist tyranny. NOT SO IN ENGLAND. The English just continued on, living under a thinly veiled despotism that shook hands with a crooked parliament. See, they had a corrupt government and a crazy king… reminds us of California, doesn’t it?
Compare CA t to 1930’s Poland. Those that moved out in time SURVIVED. My Great Grandmother-in-law was one of those that barely made it out alive. She escaped genocidal Fascism. California is the New Fascism. I know this because I experienced it. I was a small business owner in California that paid over 60%of my business income in taxes… California owned my business more than I did… Which is fascism.
Compare it to Nazi Germany… The “Registration” jpg at the top of Farago’s post should be enough explanation.
California is just like that. It is the New Fascist Tyranny. Add to that list New York, New Jersey, etc. You cannot fight it because no one there knows they are re-living the birth of the U.S.S.R. If they did, Californians might have a chance. But they don’t, and they won’t until its too late. That is how it has always gone down historically. It will do so in the Golden State, too.
So move out. If you can see what is happening there, MOVE OUT. Move to a state where constitutional rights are being strengthened rather than stripped. When the war comes (and it will if history has taught us any pattern of social behavior at all), you will at least have a few moments to gather up your testicular fortitude and make a stand… with all your new neighbors.
Or, good luck in the Golden State of New Fascism. You will need it.
You’re in la-la land, ‘ move to a state where constitutional rights are being strengthened’… You’re asleep at the wheel if you think any US state fits that description regardless of more favorable gun laws. Where are you going to run to when you realize fascism is the name of the day in every state? Another country? Good luck with that.
There are better choices than CA. Perhaps I just moved away from la-la land… the freedom I IMMEDIATELY experienced after moving to KS sure does make it feel like a better place, with much stronger support for constitutional freedoms.
To my great-great-grandmother-in-law, New York looked a lot better than her homeland, Poland, when she escaped the pogroms. I would never move to NY, but it was like walking away from death row for her.
Don’t miss the forest for the trees, Paco. I read your posts. You sound like a fighter, and a fighter for good principles, but choosing battles you can win is important. Too much to explain, but there is no win in CA. Having lived in California for so long, I feel I am qualified to say it cannot be won peacefully. It will take a fight, and there aren’t enough people there to put up that fight; It is too fragmented and without unity. Much will need to change before it can be won. I would rather raise my family outside that hopeless mess. I have chosen my battles.
There are places all over this country where people can move to be more free, and where freedom can still be defended. That’s what I am talking about. If you live in CA, find those places and move to one of them.
Here’s a core problem: in general, the “problem” states have no recognition of the right to bear arms, and to support this they exert states rights. Those States need to ammend their Constitutions to assert the individual right to bear arms whereever the individual might be (location independence).
Dark days are coming. All anyone needs to do is connect a few dots to my postings on this board and I’ll get the midnight knock.
When this passes, and it will…its over, all the evidence one needs to understand our state cares not a bit about due process and only engaged in disrupting the lives of legal law abiding citizens.
If you live in California and you get faced with this situation, you read to the police officers the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendments. If they use force or violence then you have grounds for a massive civil suit.
that’s a sad point. Get a few bucks but accept tyranny.
Let’s see … Scenario one, each person screams resistance, draws and dies. Let’s say 100 of them. Costs the government tens of thousands a year in lost taxes. Government says “Oh well” and carries on. Scenario 2 … Each person screams resistance and is overpowered and arrested. Let’s say 100 of them. They get together and sue the government for everything from JBTism to conspiracy to defy the constitution of the US, win 50 million each, cost the government 5 billion, which currently would bankrupt CA. Then we see if the government wishes to repeat! Make your own choices, I’ve heard a lot of big noise in the past 30 years, when the time came to show up no one was there. I’d prefer to be alive to see the end of the game. And most sane people do not see fighting it out in court as “submitting”.
First off as long as the Fed reserve banking system exists, money can printed and “loaned” forever. no state that obeys Washington’s wishes, or more importantly the bankers wishes, will go bankrupt under this system. Secondly, you still the believe the courts don’t act on behalf of the state? And you think possibly being beaten to an inch of your life, property seized, life ruined is somehow made right with a few extra bucks?? Good luck with that strategy.
Scenario 3.5? California gets overrun at slightly higher than current rates (like, say… S. Africa late ’80’s “One Settlor [meaning the indigenous (once Dutch) peoples] one Bullet” marches and “hey I have to kill you for your farm because you let me in because the world was anti-apartheid” crowd kinda-thingy) goes-off, there’s going to be a lot of tragedy waiting around for the gun-grabbing (anti-gun-appointed) cops to show up.
Like I said, all this cr_p has been played-out before in one form or another. We can all hope for better, but the 2nd Amendment says your last best hope lives in your skin. A felon with a gun meets your expectations more than your gun-grabbing kumbya neighbor.
Two problems:
1) Sovereign Immunity
2) You have to be heard in a court that is willing to find against the government. I doubt that is going to happen in the People’s Republic of California.
So, exactly how many constitutional rights can one law trample? Due process, unreasonable search and seizure absent probable cause, presumption of innocence, facing one’s accuser – all in order to trample the right to keep and bear arms.
(And what of the other law-abiding citizens living with the poor schmuck who gets served? They lose their second-amendment rights, too.)
This bill is nothing more than a gun confiscation effort, period. If someone is that much of a threat to self or others, the correct course of action is to institutionalize that person, which removes the person from any means or opportunity to carry out a threat.
But let me get this straight: the police were called to check on the psychopath, and found nothing wrong with him. So, we’re supposed to trust that the same agents of the state who couldn’t identify the psychopath as a threat to himself and others to be able to identify us as such a threat?
They don’t have to determine if your a threat, it’s not relevent. One of my neighbors is a mence to our neighborhood, speedng throughout the area, riding minibikes (49 cc skirts registration), people come over and do drugs on side of the home, steals stuff from neighbors. I don’t speak to him, nor he to me. Once he learns of this law, he’ll file and my right to lawful self protection ends.
File on him first.
Or better yet, file on every single politician who signed the damn thing.
Only family members can file, iirc.
Isn’t prior restraint a no-no as well?
I think that’s a First Amendment thing, gov’t can’t tell publishers what not to publish in advance.
You’re presuming the lawmakers are concerned about what is lawful They just make laws, they do not enforce them, prosecute violators, or determine Constitutionality. Those are other people’s problems.
Making an initial Determination of Constitutionality IS PART OF their jobs.
Our lawmakers take an oath which, among other things, says they will “protect the Constitution”. That means they will not make laws which they know violate the Constitution. If the Constitution would prevent you from writing a law that you consider essential, you must amend the Constitution first, then write said law.
Several of our lawmakers (at the federal and state levels) have forgotten this part of their oath of office. Those lawmakers should be recalled by their constituents.
Play the long game folks. Gun rights have advanced due in part to McDonald and Heller. As these and other unconstitutional laws continue to get passed, in due time, if we keep up the fight, when we WIN at the Supreme Court level (like the aformentioned cases), Gun rights will further advance. And as more and more Americans begin to realize a right they may have not expressed (like those here in IL), public opinion will further come to our side. Even in liberal bastions like the Ninth produced the Peruta decision. Long game folks.
F the long game. The long game doesn’t protect me nor my family.
It does a whole lot better than the short game…
That and we are only winning the long game 5-4. Won’t take much to lose it, too.
I think the SCOTUS has already turned against us (4-5).
Reference the SCOTUS case just a few months ago in which the majority (which included Sotomayer and Kagan) used the silliest of arguments to chip away a little at our gun rights. If they had used “Strictest Scrutiny” as Heller said they should, then that SCOTUS verdict would have been completely different.
Justice Scalia (one of the conservative justices) has been preventing any more gun-control/rights cases from being heard by the court. He allowed that one a few months ago, because it would have a minor effect and it seemed like an obvious, easy victory for us. You can bet that Justice Scalia will not permit any more gun control cases before the Court, because he knows how they will end (not in our favor).
You’re not going to get your day in Court (the SCOTUS), and if you do, you won’t like their verdict.
California is the ” midnight knock on the door state”
Anybody that’s read hallbrooks Gun control in the third reich knows how this story goes already.
I was trying to find that passage from The Gulag Archipelago describing the disbelief of that midnight knock — that it can’t be happening to you, that they will realize their “mistake” if you just cooperate. I couldn’t come up with that section, but I did find this:
“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?”
This is the voice of experience here.
I don’t mean to compare the democrat super majority in California to nazis in their intention but the Weimar government that passed most of the gun laws the nazis utilized was supposedly benevolent as well. The language between a California gun law and an SS police memo from 1940 is almost indistinguishable..
You left off perhaps the most damning bit just after that quote…
[what you wrote]+
“The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If…if…We didn’t love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation…. We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.”
Aww, c’mon, we all know that little twit couldn’t have stabbed or run down those people if he didn’t have access to guns…
The five-fold model of threat adaptation:
1) Pay the cost of avoidance while while the cost is bearable;
2) Fight the fight while the fight is bearable, and you are able diminish their capacity without impairing your own;
3) Leave before leaving is not feasible — so the fighting does not become existential on their terms;
4) If they follow — harass them from cover on the road, burn their stores by night, burn the food and poison the water behind you until they give up chase;
5) If they persist in pursuit — use every resource you have to wipe them out — root and branch — because they are a committed enemy whose threat to your safety will not end until they do.
Free Californians will shortly find themselves between stages 2 and 3…
In your progression, one must beholden to one stage while picking up the next. Free Californians (who have their eyes open) are already at stages 3 and 4…
That would be mighty nice of them to knock before coming inside to violate the rights of a citizen. Seriously though, this is one of the more egregious bills, even by CA/NY/NJ standards. What is the point besides gun confiscation? Are they going to confiscate all of the sharp things in your kitchen drawers? Your knife block? What about the impact driver in your garage? Your kid’s aluminum bat? The list goes on. If the point is to deescalate a potentially dangerous situation with an individual in your home, don’t you suppose dropping the dime on them could set them off? If they’re apparently that crazy to begin with, the firearms are immaterial. The troubled individual themselves are the problem that needs to go. Which if I remember correctly is what RF argued to those mealy mouthed weasels on NPR in the first place.
Dark days indeed.
Wow Godwin’s law for the win. Kinda’ makes you want to hide your stuff in the mountains.
I have had the experience of being falsely accused by an ex-wife. For all I know she’s still saying evil about me 30 years later. I can pull up her Facebook page and see she is insane. This California crap will spread if not fought against tooth & nail. And it makes me want to be a prepper.
Come on, if you’re pulling up the FB page of an ex 30 years gone, you have some issues of your own! Just sayin.
Scenario:
• Ex-to-be-husband is a jealous, abusive, controlling prick and now he’s gone into the deep end now that she has been able to get a separation.
• He is stalking her, but knows she has a gun.
• He calls police to tell them due to the separation, she is distraught and owns guns.
• The police sweep in and take away her guns for 21 days.
• That abusive jerk now knows that she is disarmed.
• The police seized her “writings, documents, blueprints, drawings, photographs, computer printouts, microfilms, X-rays, files, diagrams, ledgers, books, tapes, audio and video recordings, films, and papers of any type or description.” which included evidence of his abusive behavior and paperwork from her lawyers.
• She’s powerless.
• She ends up dead.
Now, look at this law again and tell me how it’s going to help women?
I don’t know why it only matters how it affects women. It affects everybody…
This has nothing to do with people. If it did, there’d be more protection against abuse, repercussions for malicious use, and other safeguards.
If he is stalking or threatening her, she gets a DV TRO and has his guns taken away. This bill is not about protecting women against DV–there is already a law for that.
Lay off the lifetime movie network and get a grip on reality.
I can’t imagine how this kind of crap would survive the first “due process” challenge in a real court. But then I couldn’t imagine state governments telling bakers who they had to bake cakes for and photographers whose pictures they had to take either. I’m wondering if Rousseau was just plain wrong with that “man was born to be free” thing…
The beauty is that Californians now have the ability to have anyone’s house illegally searched simply by claiming that they:
A. May have a firearm
B. May be Crazy
Lord knows what all those illegal searches will turn up.
What your dog shit on my lawn? Calling in a FRO on you.
You violated the subdivision rules? FRO for you.
Got too loud at the school board meeting? FRO for you.
Democracy is a beautiful thing!!! 51% of the population can vote away your rights.
Two out of two wolves can’t be wrong, right?
You have a point. I’d be afraid of reprisal, but if it happened to me, I’d see to it that it happened to everyone I ever knew, followed by everyone on my street, followed by every state legislator, followed by the governor at the governor’s mansion, and so on and so forth, everybody does that and I’m thinking the law would fold up pretty quick. About the tenth time the governor’s mansion was tossed, I’m thinkin it would be over.
False. The law allows only the police or close family relatives to obtain such orders, not just “anyone.” Second, allegations are not enough–the judge must be satisfied upon examination of the petitioner or any witness that there is clear and convincing evidence that the respondent presents a serious risk of harm to himself or others. “Clear and convincing” is more than “more likely than not,” but not quite as high as “beyond a reasonable doubt.” Third, there is no language in the actual bill itself that allows the police to seize anything other than arms and ammunition. I have no idea where Robert got that idea. The only other search authorized by the bill is a search of various databases for convictions and evidence of violent conduct. Specifically, “Prior to a hearing on the issuance or denial of an order under this part, the court shall ensure that a search is or has been conducted to determine if the subject of the proposed order has any prior criminal conviction for a violent felony specified in Section 667.5 of the Penal Code or a serious felony specified in Section 1192.7 of the Penal Code; has any misdemeanor conviction involving domestic violence, weapons, or other violence; has any outstanding warrant; is currently on parole or probation; has a registered firearm; or has any prior restraining order or any violation of a prior restraining order.”
Thanks for playing. Try your luck again later.
Not hard to meet a “clear and convincing” standard in an ex-parte hearing. And what is the mechanism of appeal to assure that the standard is actually being met?
Oh well, golly gee, if the law provides for only such things, then I feel better about it and its prospects for never being abused. I only wish the Framers had had the foresight to write a law that would forefend firearms freedoms infringements in the first place. Then none of this nonsense would ever come to pass.
I’ve been trying to fight this piece of shit law every step of the way. It’s now on the Governor’s desk. I hope he vetoes it, but time will be the tell.
Thanks, A81. I sent my letter to Gov Brown, pointing out how LEOs time will be wasted on this, as will the Family and Probate Courts.
This could become elder abuse, on the part of those by filing false claims that leads to involuntary appointment of conservator, by reason of incapacity finding from mental health concern, ie the restraining order. This is already a big problem in families where greedy relatives cant wait for crazy old dad or grampa or uncle to be put in a home, to get at assets, and now it will be easy, because “guns”.
Unfortunately, CA laws are proving to be porous and private trusts and estate assets are being targeted by greedy attorneys, and this becomes just another tool, to breach confidentiality.
Wait until Veterans start losing guns, because someone “in the family” decides their PTSD is a problem…
I can’t imagine too many LEAs refusing to respond, nor judges refusing to honor the order. The downside for a mistake, ie another Eliot Rodgers, and the liability cost to the city/county, would be too great.
What that means is the individual has to finance the cost of defense, and recovery of the firearms, for any abuses, and then try to persuade already overburdened DAs to take the false filing charge after. We already know how that works, in terms of visibility of cases, win percentage and importance of stats to politically ambitious DAs…so the addition of the figleaf, for abuse, is literally that, useless except to cover legislators A$$.
Another huge set of unintended consequences are going to arise from this, taking more time and money from already financially pressed municipalities, for doing the basic job of law enforcement.
Let’s not forget that these psychopaths/sociopaths are typically very intelligent and good actors. They’ll get around this law by acting sane. (To wit: Ted Bundy.)
To wit, Eliot Rogers, whose parents DID NOT KNOW that he owned guns, and therefore could not have taken advantage of this law.
With this law in place, I’m pretty sure they’d just raid first and maybe ask questions later. Judges who evaluated the calls would effectively be rubber stamps. I agree with RF on that.
It’s probably just a fart in the wind, but I did send the following email:
Dear Governor Brown,
I’m writing to you with much concern about AB 1014 (Gun Violence Restraining Orders) that is currently on your desk for signature.
There’s absolutely no evidence that AB 1014 will increase public safety or reduce “gun violence”, despite its sponsors claims. Instead, this bill manages the amazing feat of simultaneously trampling on California residents’ Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights.
If signed into law, this legislation will allow unreasonable (and unconstitutional) search and seizure absent probable cause, violate our rights to due process, remove the presumption of a person’s innocence as well as their ability to face their accuser – all based on a questionable (and unsupported) claim that someone poses “an immediate and present danger of causing personal injury to himself, herself, or another”.
As you are no doubt well aware, California already has numerous existing laws to prohibit specified persons (including those subject to a domestic violence protective order) from owning or possessing a firearm. Before creating new laws that infringe multiple constitutional rights of California residents, might I suggest that the state first consider ways to better enforce existing laws?
As an extremely concerned and angry California resident, taxpayer and voter, I respectfully ask you to veto AB 1014.
The best way to get rid of a bad law is to inflict it on everyone, especially those who voted for it or have the most clout towards getting it wiped off the books. Every gun owner in CA should be making a list starting with their own local city council members, county commissioners, state representatives and senators (and their staff), past and present judges at every level and of course Democrat party apparatchiks. File an FRO against every single one of them. Don’t forget to file against other public officials like cops and firefighters who have made the papers due to excessive force or domestic violence charges, DUIs, etc. File an FRO on them, too. Find a judge to present it to who is so anti-gun that they will sign an FRO against absolutely anyone, even fellow Democrats. A rabidly anti-gun judge shouldn’t be hard to find in California–they’re the ones wearing black robes.
Once the party in power gets to experience the un-fun side of totalitarianism, that law will be history.
Unless you are a cop or a close family member of those elected officials, you have no right to request an order authorized by this bill. So no, this won’t work, but may get you charged with a misdemeanor.
The version I read had this in it:
18101.(a) Any person may submit an application to the court, on a form designed by the Judicial Council, setting forth the facts and circumstances necessitating that a gun violence restraining order be issued.
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/13-14/bill/asm/ab_1001-1050/ab_1014_bill_20140528_amended_sen_v94.pdf
This leaves the door wide open for abuse (and a misdemeanor for knowingly submitting false claims as per Sec 18200). The link that RF included doesn’t show that section. It limits as ex parte petitioners the cops and immediate household family members only, which is certainly different than the version of the bill taken apart here: http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/06/ab_1014_california_democrats_wage_war_on_the_constitution.html
Ummm, Robert? This bill is on Brown’s desk, BUT HE HAS NOT SIGNED IT. Also, as I and others have noted, Texas has a similar law–one that I think was a model for the California bill. Tell us, how is that working out for you Texans? I don’t know of any lawsuits challenging it there, or the other state where a similar law exists….
RF acknowledged it was still a bill.
… So you think its no big deal? Just roll over and show your belly to the sun?
The question still stands: what has this, or a similar law, done in the two states, Texas being one (I think the other is Connecticut but I don’t remember) since being enacted? And what’s this ad hominem about rolling over? Only one person right now can stop this law from being enacted, and it isn’t me, it is Jerry Brown. After that it is up to the courts.
Not familiar with the Texas law. Got a cite? Maybe it’s never been challenged because no one has been dumb enough to issue one? Lord knows there are already enough flavors of “restaining orders” out there, but for the most part, they are telling folks not to do things that are already illegal.
A-Rob, it’s a two-parter. Title 7 subtitle C chapter 573 subchapter A. Then see Article 18.191 of Code of Criminal Procedure.
It’s not at all like CA’s abomination. Cops can seize firearms without a warrant, if the person is in possession of them, but only in cases where they’re taking the person to a mental facility. (Yes, it could be to jail in “extreme emergenicies”, but come on, there aren’t exactly psych wards within immediate travelling distance of most of Texas. There must be some practicality there.) Cops must detail and substantiate the sources for their suspicions prompting this action.
It requires courts to notify police whether someone’s been committed or adjudicated a mental defective. No more loopholes in NICS like Cho at Va. Tech expoited.
It offers families the opportunity to hold on to the firearms if the person is committed. It mandates return of them to the owner himself if he’s not committed.
What’s the problem? I hear in here nearly every day that if someone cannot be trusted with a firearm, then they cannot be trusted without a custodian. Well, this law provides that if you’re committed and indeed now have a custodian, then your firearms will be withheld during that period.
So, POTG, was that whole custodian bit just a too-cute-by-half toss off line and a case of not being careful what we wished for, or are we honest and serious about separating psychos from firearms and getting them the residential treatment they require?
P.S. I don’t want to hear anyone’s Orwellian hysteria unless you can articulate a legitimately superior solution.
@J from H: Thanks for the info, I knew Texas had an “emergency commitment/evaluation” type statute, has had for a long time. And no, that ain’t the same as Cali’s confiscation-by-another-name law. Most significantly in that the firearms removal is tied directly to the commitment in Texas, whereas Cali is apparently happy to let the “dangerous nut” run loose, as long as they can grab a few guns.
OK, I’m going to go off on something of a tangent here, but I promise it ties in with RF’s article here and the central point of this issue:
Feminists have been peddling these “domestic violence” tropes (ie, that all men are brutes, domestic violence peaks during the Superbowl, etc) for decades. They’re the ones pushing for these laws of pre-emptive gun seizures and a complete trampling of due process. Under what other section of the law can you have your Constitutional rights removed for a mere misdemeanor than domestic violence? None.
The feminists have been upping the ante’ on this game since the Clinton administration. If the laws passed in the latter term of the Clinton administration had been in force when I proposed to my wife, I would have skipped the whole trip. Yes, I consider the laws that onerous.
So here’s the deal:
You young men who aren’t married: Don’t get married.
You young men who are thinking about moving in with a woman? Don’t. And don’t let her move in with you. Hey, women have been peddling that whole “a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle” thing for decades. So all you guys – roll your wheels off in your own direction.
If you think moving out of California is going to limit your exposure to this, you’re wrong. This is one issue where the feminists will jump from California to DC, bypassing all other states. That’s what they did with the Lautenberg Amendment.
The males in Congress, eager to appear “sensitive” to “women’s issues,” will roll over on this issue if it is introduced into legislation. Conservative Republicans as well as left-wing Democrats will vote for it. No one has the testicular fortitude to tell women “No, we’re sorry, but we have something called ‘due process’ in this country. You don’t get a special carve-out for your agenda.” This is yet another reason why the 19th Amendment was a big mistake.
This is another example of how feminists have worked very hard to destroy marriage in the US, and as a result, I tell young men to never, ever, ever, ever, ever get married. Chase all the skirts you want, get as much action as you want, but do not ever get married. And now, with laws like this on the horizon, my advice expands: Don’t co-habitate. Don’t allow her to move in, you don’t move in with her. If you don’t have a “domestic arrangement,” then anything she starts is mere assault and battery, not “domestic” violence. If she balks about your “lack of commitment,” well there’s plenty of fish in the sea, fellas. And unlike when I was your age, when we were told that we couldn’t get “free milk without buying the cow,” today they’re giving away everything from heavy cream to frozen yogurt – for free, no strings attached.
Men, here are the three rules for the 21st century:
Rule 1: Be well informed of your rights under the law – and your liabilities under the law.
Rule 2: As a result of Rule 1, don’t get married.
Rule 3: As a result of Rule 1, don’t co-habitate.
Just say no. There’s no longer any upside in marriage for men, and if you value your rights under the law, you’ll avoid marriage the way you’d avoid the plague. All it takes is a woman who is even a little bit conniving, she drops a dime and you’re in the chute headed for the court system, where it will take lots of legal expenses to clear your name and get your rights back. And she might not even start out that conniving, but if she gets into a lawyer’s office, guess who will start convincing her to file the complaints and start stripping you of your rights? The lawyer – whom you’ve never met.
The worst thing I’ve heard about domestic violence cases from lawyers in CA is that they too often come down to a “he-said/she-said” case, and absent physical evidence trying to prove a negative (ie, prove that you didn’t do it with evidence? That’s a tall order), you’ll be defending yourself from a “guilt by preponderance of evidence” type of situation. In some cases, merely owning guns was taken as evidence as a “predisposition towards violence” in California courts issuing temporary restraining orders. Lots of divorce attorneys know how to word complaints to get judges to sign these TRO’s – and get your guns seized. In the 90’s, I knew of a very well-off man who had a collection of guns worth 100’s of thousands of dollars housed in a purpose-built vault in his basement. His wife decided she wanted a divorce, got the TRO, the cops came out to seize the guns and ended up destroying quite a bit of the collection in their brute-force attack on getting into the vault.
If you can’t afford those legal fees, or you’d rather spend that money on your own activities, see the three rules above.
Some really good points on feminism, it has been a hell of population control tool for many of the reasons you noted.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone invoke Godwin’s law *before* their story before. Nice work, Robert. Surely you are not a paranoid crank.
Roy, surely you are familiar with the history of gun confiscation by totalitarian regimes?
Godwins Law, as I am sure you already know, is a reference to where someone says “Nazi” to besmirch their opponent, in a debate.
I’d submit you haven’t been reading here much, or you would already know there is plenty of context in the gun blogosphere for discussion of bad law in reference to the historical precedent of evolution of gun laws elsewhere, and the comparison to the incremental application here, in CA, for this legislation that denies other rights, is an especially relevant example, of incrementalism, just as it occured in Germany before WW2.
Your resort to a casual ad hominem, ie “paranoid crank” slur, pretty much destroys your own credibility, as well.
If I am mistaken, I apologize- here is some more reading you might find helpful:
http://jpfo.org/filegen-a-m/commentary.htm
This bill is not about domestic violence. Under California’s law–and I assume the law inmost if not all other states–all that is required to get a domestic violence TRO is an affidavit, just like here, but the consequences can be as if not more devastating. It will be at least 15 days before the hearing on a preliminary restraining order (and hearings are often continued). Meanwhile, the alleged abusive spouse is required to turn all of his firearms over to the police (non FFL) or sell them within 24 hours. The TRO is entered into CLETS, and violation will lead to an arrest and prosecution. CLETS is available to the police state wide, and is entered into the gun owner’s databases maintained by the Department of Justice. Many judges will pressure respondents to agree to “mutual restraining orders”, which sound ok compared to trying to fight a cynical judge who is going to slam you if at all possible, not realizing that such an agreement will deprive them of their gun rights/hunting rights for as long as the restraining order remains in effect. And if there is a prosecution for DV, then gun rights go away forever. Any abused spouse in their right mind would seek a remedy under these laws as opposed to AB 1014.
True, it isn’t. But the mechanisms, the legal grounds, case law – etc, has all been greased and readied with the DV TRO’s and cases. Those laws, are, IMO, the root problem to AB1014. They set the precedent that it is A-OK to deprive a person of their rights under nothing more than a report to police or the courts that there is a suspicion of violence, which is then “confirmed” by judges and lawyers if the person owns firearms.
If this were appearing now, whole, without the prior 20+ year history of DV law in California, a more legislators and lawyers would have said “Whoa, what about due process?” But because of the DV penal codes and case law, this looks like a mere extension, an amplification of what has already been in place.
And this is why I laugh at the people who pine about how they’ll use the “lost my guns in a lake” excuse. News flash: Do you really think a regime that is going as far as to house to house confiscation guns is going to give you the benefit of the doubt? …Or even due process?
I hope you don’t believe they’ll just take your word for it.
It is now September 30, 2014 and this piece of sh*t Governor has signed this into law. Molon Labe!
Why are you complaining? You got the most important things in California you can do . Homosexual sex , homosexual marriage, lots state money for single mothers to have more children without a husband. Medical pot use for any reason. Why do you need a gun?
Comments are closed.