The Down Range Forum
Member Section => Politics & RKBA => Topic started by: ericire12 on October 25, 2008, 10:16:12 AM
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/23/AR2008102303329.html
Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley said yesterday that he probably will sponsor legislation requiring the surrender of all firearms by anyone subject to a final protective order limiting contact with an abused spouse or partner.
Similar bills have been successfully resisted by gun-rights activists, but advocates for domestic violence victims expressed hope that O'Malley's involvement could lead to passage in the upcoming legislative session, which starts in January.
The governor said he is interested in resurrecting two bills that failed by lopsided votes in a House committee during the previous legislative session.
One bill would require judges to include the firearms prohibition when issuing a final protective order. That restriction is now at the judge's discretion.
The other would tighten the state protective order law to include all firearms. Currently, handguns are subject to protective orders, for example, but rifles are not.
Both bills were supported by the Maryland State Police last session but not included in a package of "administration bills" put forward by the governor. Such administration bills typically are given heightened consideration by lawmakers.
The two bills were defeated last session by the House Judiciary Committee, 17 to 2 and 17 to 3.
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That's like making all men get their penis's cut off to prevent rape.
Just had a 2nd person die in NH from a home invasion in one of our largest cities. The weapon ? Baseball bats.
Rochester NY did a study on violent crime, they wanted to address the "Tidal wave of gun violence" come to find out 85% of violent attacks were committed with, fists, feet, clubs and knives.
The Democrats (Obama ) want to restore voting rights to felons, voting is not a Constitutionally guaranteed Civil right ,
gun ownership is but these same dems want to deprive people of their civil rights because they MIGHT commit a crime ?
Typical dem hypocrasy, like abortion vs. capital punishment, Kill the babies but spare the convicted murderers.
How stupid can they be and still remember to breathe ?
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lots of states have some type of law reguarding restraining orders and guns... some states even go so far as to making you turn them in.
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Being that I live in MD and just passed a couple of a co-worker's pistols to the Sherif's Dept recently I'll chime in. The guy I work with is going through a REALLY crappy divorce. Before the Ex dropped the bomb on him he had gone out and purchased a S&W Sigma (don't hold it against him) and a Springfield 1911 to plink and shoot in the local IDPA matches. They seperate and he takes his pistols and moves in with another friend. One day he stops by the house to drop off some things for the kids and finds a casing from a recent range session in the back of his Jeep and tosses it to the youngest. She immediately files for a restraining order using the casing as a threat to her safety as he was a former SEAL support guy. They go to court and he produces a IDPA membership card and a NRA Basic Pistol course completion certificate and the judge says "sorry, the guns must not be in your posession per current law." They write it in the order that I willl hold them and he will only shoot at supervised matches. Fast forward a year and now she files for an extension based on a neighbor that "MIGHT" have seen his car in the neighborhood one evening. He looses the guns to SO until Jan. If the order drops he can get them back. The law is already basically in place but since OMalley wants to look good for Baltimore voters and Nobama he adds this to a package to pass through the local legislature jusy prior to the election. It won't really change crap since most judges make you turn them in anyway.
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Sadly that has been repeated over and over across the country. Don't get me wrong, some people that have restraining orders on them need to have thier guns removed, but I can get a restraining order on just about anyone, for just about anything.
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It's still BS, just because a lot of states do it (Including NH) depriving a citizen of a civil right because they MIGHT commit a crime violates the constitution. They did stuff like that in the USSR and Nazi Germany. Oh, by the way, like all the other gun laws, it doesn't work.
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not every one that gets a restraining order got one becuase they are worried about the party becoming violent. many get them after they have become violent. its a double edged sword. On the one hand you want people like battered wifes getting them with little to know work. On the other you want to keep a vindictive bitch from getting one.
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We are enjoying the fruits of our enlightened society. We put laws in place, like they were going to make a difference when it mattered and provide absolute protection, without regard to the mass who would be innocent. When I was a child, a man who beat his wife up was "warned" by the community. I don't know of a single "warning" that went unheeded....but then there was this "Great Society" which was thrust upon us. Since the "Great Society" we enjoy an increase in murder, rape, robbery, divorce, false witness from wives........
Laws are written to get politicians elected....for some reason the laws on the books are not good enough now when they were back when...so we need a new specific law and everyone gobbles up the Bovine Scatology pressed upon them thinking the politician is a great guy who thinks like they do. For instance, what is wrong with a law that sentences the murder of a police officer to death...nothing...most people are for it...so unfortunately some slug got off on a technicality who was obviously guilty and the public is outraged, then out of the blue by golly some politician says we need to write a law saying to put cop murders to death....HOORAY!!!...problem is 1) there was (at least in most states) a law that allows capital punishment for murder 2) some judge still has latitude to get around the sentence and 3) let's pass a tax to help those guys out...never quite seems to make it to them in more than a COLA adjustment. Bottom line here....nothing changed but some slime ball politician got reelected on the basis he was tough on crime.......and now has a little more bread to spread to his cronies.
We the People fall for it most every time when, perhaps, we should be looking more closely at the judiciary we elect and should demand they make the hard decisions they are elected for. Like interpreting the Constitution and laws for what they are without updating them to the current social morays, that is to say treating them like living documents that change with the times. If laws need to change with the times that is the purview of the Executive and Legislative Branches of government. But then, old Obamanation and his fascist cronies are going to help us....probably help us right out of that Constitution for We the People.
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It is one thing to lose Rights once you are convicted of crimes. However, a lot of restraining orders are issued just like search warrants - without enough proof of guilt. This type of thing leaves the door wide open for abuse of power by gun grabbing zealots! Someday we will ask what ever happened to innocent until proven guilty and due process?
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It is one thing to lose Rights once you are convicted of crimes. However, a lot of restraining orders are issued just like search warrants - without enough proof of guilt. This type of thing leaves the door wide open for abuse of power by gun grabbing zealots! Someday we will ask what ever happened to innocent until proven guilty and due process?
I ask that NOW. ???
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In the US over 400,000 people are injured with approx 60,000 killed due to alcohol involved driving accidents. Most offenders do lose their license but none have to surrender their cars. Many go on to be repeat DUI offenders. Why is this not addressed by the politicians (REP or DEM). If it is about saving lives becasue of demonstrated violence, the use of a 3,000+ lb weapon is a very good example.
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In the US over 400,000 people are injured with approx 60,000 killed due to alcohol involved driving accidents. Most offenders do lose their license but none have to surrender their cars. Many go on to be repeat DUI offenders. Why is this not addressed by the politicians (REP or DEM). If it is about saving lives becasue of demonstrated violence, the use of a 3,000+ lb weapon is a very good example.
Here in NH, (I don't know about other states) you can not get plates for your car if you do not have a drivers license.
While it is not the same as having the Cops come and confiscate the vehicle it is a step in that direction.
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In the US over 400,000 people are injured with approx 60,000 killed due to alcohol involved driving accidents. Most offenders do lose their license but none have to surrender their cars. Many go on to be repeat DUI offenders. Why is this not addressed by the politicians (REP or DEM). If it is about saving lives becasue of demonstrated violence, the use of a 3,000+ lb weapon is a very good example.
The short answer is that politicans are, by and large, drinking people, and think that "there but for the grace of God go I."
Speaking as someone who has lost a sister and brother-in-law to a drunk driver I firmly believe that a law-abiding citizen in possession of a .45 with a full magazine is FAR less dangerous than a drunk in possession of a set of car keys. NO family should have to go through what my family has experienced the past 2 years.
Drink until you can't stand up, I don't give a shit.......none of my business, actually........just don't drive!!!
I'll climb down off my soapbox now.
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Sadly, I'm pretty sure in Illinois, this is already the case. If you are accused of domestic abuse and or even have a restraining order put on you, they revoke and or ask you for your FOID card.
Now I know, there are some domestic abuse cases where one deserves to lose his FOID, but if your GF or wife just wants to make life rough, and hit you where it hurts, all she has to do is call the cops on you and say you pushed her. Now since June of 2008, Illinois has also taken another back door approach, IMHO that is. But if you go see a mental health counselor, let's say you go just simply because you've been stressed at work lately, whatever, you're just simply going because you feel the need to and it's suppose to be the right thing to do?
Well, if whom you are seeing "FEELS" you are a threat to yourself or someone else, they now, by law, must report your name to the Illinois State Police, FOID card division, and you can have you FOID card revoked. In my eyes, all this will do is prevent someone from getting the help they might need.
Then what's to say, you just don't get a mental health counselor that's anti-gun, and they now see an opportunity? An opportunity to do what they can to get guns out the hands of someone.
If you have a teenage son or daughter, and you take them in for counseling, same thing. YOU CAN LOSE YOUR FOID CARD AND GUNS IF THE COUNSELOR FEELS THEY ARE A THREAT TO THEMSELVES OR TO OTHERS.
I then say, to be fair, if the FOID card is to be revoked, then they better remove all knives, butter knives, forks, bats and even take your vehicles away from you as all those can also kill, if that's what the person wants to do. They better get all medicines and poisons out of the house as well.
From what I understand, it doesn't even matter if you have a safe. If there are guns in the house, and someone else feels whomever is getting the help, and doing the right thing, doing what they should be doing, is a threat to themselves or others, this or that person is going to have their FOID card revoked and even possibly their gun taken from them. And we all know, once that happens, they'll never get them back, if they do, they'll be all beat up and scratched up. But the odds are, they'll NEVER SEE THEM AGAIN! ALL because they did the right thing for themselves or son or daughter.
A person seeking help or a parent seeking help for their child shouldn't have it used against them. Yes, there are some cases where it will help or maybe even prevent something. But I fear it will fall under the lines of, act first, take their FOID and their gun or guns and worry about if it was right to do that after the fact, rather then, okay, we got this notice from a mental health counselor about so an so. Let's make sure. But, I feel they'll react first and not care if it was over-reacting. That it won't matter if the parents of a teenage child is taking their troubled child in for mental health counseling and the counselor thinks they might be a threat to themselves or others, and you own a gun or guns and they're kept LOCKED AND SECURED IN A SAFE AND THE TEENAGER/CHILD DOES NOT EVEN HAVE ACCESS TO IT/THEM.
This is all due to the Virgina Tech and Northern Illinois shootings. And I'm sure other incidents were factored in to this as well. And I understand and I also don't want someone with a mental issue to have a gun or access to a gun. But my fear with this is they won't factor in everything. They won't factor in you have a safe for the guns and maybe even a safe for the ammo. They won't factor anything in. My fear is that they'll just see this as an excuse and a reason to revoke someones gun card and take their guns and or prevent them from getting them back or prevent someone from even ever owning to begin with.
How many people went to jail over something minor. Say unpaid parking tickets. And have lost their rights. What the heck does unpaid parking tickets have to do with owning a gun? I for a fact know someone that was denied a FOID card because they had an unpaid or unpaid parking tickets. What does that have to do with the other? There are a few other if not many offenses a person can be jailed for that have nothing to do with guns, and even though they've say server their time, paid their fines, done everything they were suppose to and then some even, they're still denied the right to own a gun. Now I don't say any of this to create an argument. I just think there are too many back doors available to taking and or preventing someone from getting or owning a gun. And they;re coming up with more every day it seems.
After this tragic Santa massacre in Covina, California, you can now be sure that some politician somewhere is writing up some new bill that would find a way to take guns from anyone getting or going through a divorce? God forbid. But the truth of the matter is, those in power think they know what is best for us more so them we do for ourselves and are looking for any and every reason they can to take away our guns and or prevent us from having, getting or even owning them in the first place. And the sad truth of the matter is, they're slowly gaining ground and slowly winning the battle, because they're getting away with it. Because they seem to think they know what is better for us then we do.
It's all about preventing things that haven't happened yet or preventing things from happening again. Some of it I can and do understand. But I feel sometimes it's more about finding ways to take law abiding citizens guns away from them and or prevent law abiding citizens from having, getting and owning guns. If we let them, they'll eventually find enough reasons to prevent anyone from owning or getting guns and they'll also find enough reasons to eventually take everyone's guns away from them.