No due process required
A bill in TN to require someone subject to an order of protection for domestic violence relinquish their firearms has advanced in the senate. That’s right. No conviction, no jury of peers, just an order of protection based on one person’s word over another.
April 30th, 2009 at 9:32 am
How about…if you put in an order of protection against someone, you then are required to obtain a firearm and take training for it.
April 30th, 2009 at 10:10 am
Is there a police exemption? Or is that built in, by not letting people get orders of protection against people who happen to be police?
April 30th, 2009 at 2:12 pm
Don’t you already have to do this? Is not a DV protection order a federal disqualifer?
April 30th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
ParatrooperJJ: A permanent order (which requires you have a hearing) is a disqualifier. This bill would extend this to the Temporary orders which require no proof and no hearing to get. Anyone can file for one of these, they are automatically issued (and they aren’t limited to domestic situations) and they go into effect immediately. Then you get a hearing date set, and you can go and argue your case to prevent them from becoming permanent.
Regards,
Pol
May 1st, 2009 at 8:18 am
I will say this: in the narrow case of a domestic crisis (divorce, pregnancy) the danger can be very great, and there is likely to be very little proof available.
After he threatened to kill me and our infant son, I I took my soon-to-be-ex husband’s gun and bullets, and gave them to my father for safekeeping. And, my father was so stupid as to return them to my ex a few months later, when we were still in very great danger. My own father did not have sense enough to believe me.
I am well aware of the injustice that can come from false accusations, but I most respectfully submit that false accusations do not discharge bullets.
May 1st, 2009 at 8:26 am
My rights do not hinge upon ‘couldas’
May 1st, 2009 at 8:28 am
Valerie:
Maybe the reason for the upswing in domestic violence is due to the amount of damage one party can deal to the other without anything resembling proof, due to what sexual organs the respective parties possesses.
When one party in a dispute has zero protection under the law… and indeed the courts can be conscripted into being the chief tormenter… then is it any surprise that the party that is powerless under the law does not then rely on the law to resolve disputes?
Respect for the law, like all forms of respect is earned not given. And if your response to people not respecting the law is to make it even more one-sided, then you are part of the problem, not part of the solution.
May 1st, 2009 at 9:44 am
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts has done this for a while – Chapter 209A – Guns AND License To cary and Firearms ID Card – judge’s order.
May 1st, 2009 at 9:47 am
In the meantime, we have a Constitutional protection removed.
To see how this works: imagine that a law is passed that a man could apply to have his wife’s car impounded, on the grounds that she’s likely (in his opinion) to drive drunk, endangering his kids. And then she has to prove she won’t.
Think the Women’s Lobby would just shrug and let that pass?
May 1st, 2009 at 12:25 pm
“My own father did not have sense enough to believe me.”
You mean he had the sense not to be in posession of stolen property.
Sounds like someone doing the best they can under difficult circumstances.
Yours, Tom Perkins,
m.l., m.s.l., & p.f.p.p.
May 1st, 2009 at 12:55 pm
A sister of a friend of mine was killed by an ex-boyfriend that she had a restraining order against. Our state (Michigan) allows the restriction of firearms by the recipient of a PPO, but it isn’t required. He used a gun on the woman and then on himself. I’ve not been able to learn whether or not he had been restricted from possessing a firearm, or even if the gun he used actually belonged to him.
A piece of paper won’t protect anyone.
May 1st, 2009 at 2:51 pm
“A sister of a friend of mine was killed by an ex-boyfriend that she had a restraining order against.” Makes me wonder why your friend’s sister did not have a gun to protect herself with, Murdoc. What was she, one of those pinkos? (came back to bite her in the ass, didn’t it?)
Oh, on the topic, the law is completely unconstitutional, as is much of “family law”.
May 1st, 2009 at 3:01 pm
They’re copy catting a law passed in MD this year.
May 1st, 2009 at 4:56 pm
We already have this law here in California. My ex-wife filed a restraining order against me when we separated. She cited “domestic violence” as the reason. What she failed to mention was the violence was her drug using teenage daughter attacking me with a knife (the reason, I poured out a bottle of booze I found in her room). The judge (a woman) didn’t wish to hear my side of the story and left the restraining order in place. So my firearms have been locked up at the local police station for the last two years on the word of a single person without one shred of evidence. In fact, the police reports would show that I was not the violent person (yes, I called the cops on my stepdaughter).
May 2nd, 2009 at 12:44 pm
I have my own FOID, and understand the concern that this provision can be abused.
I will say that had my ex’s 9mm HK been confiscated at the time he received my 2 yr order of protection (after 1 1/2 years of stalking, terrorizing and countless attacks) my fiancee and love of my life might not have been killed in a shootout trying to protect me during my ex’s last home invasion.
On its own,an order of protection is useful only in dealing with a fairly rational person. As protection, it is merely a tool for prosecution, after a crime has been committed. I filed to establish a case for self defense, in the event one of us was brought up on charges. My ex is now serving 80 yrs, but it does not bring back my sweetheart.
May 5th, 2009 at 12:26 pm
Cathy: So, do you believe that your psycho Ex would have been prevented from getting a firearm if his HK was seized?
The man was already prepared to commit murder. Do you think an additional weapons charge would have prevented him from buying a pistol unlawfully?