It seems everyone is in a real melt down because President Trump said to seize weapons without due process and we’ll worry about due process later. He was concerned the courts will take too long and in the interim, the perpetrator could harm someone. People are rallying against this as seizure of guns and a violation of 2nd amendment rights, and rightfully so.
Yet in New Jersey, under their Domestic Violence Laws, which are considered the most stringent in the country, law enforcement can seize any and all weapons on a reported domestic violence without warrant or due process. And no one blinks an eye, no one complains. Funny how it must be needed for the safety of the female at the hands of the armed male, but when every gun owner is now possibly targeted, it’s so very wrong.
Granted this law was based on violence in the household and weapons available could be used. But in school shootings, a mass murderer also has used weapons that if seized could have prevented loss of life. But it seems ingenuous to accept that the owner of a gun in a domestic has any less rights than the average gun owner, just because it was a domestic dispute.
When the laws were allowed to seize weapons without due process for a small sector of the population because the overwhelming popular opinion supported it and males were the unfortunate recipient of this seizure, it seemed to be something that everyone accepted without question. When you give up a right under the constitution, what makes you think that other segments of the population
wouldn’t also give up their rights.
The premise for seizure proposed is actually a little more stringent than the domestic violence law seizure. Under President Trump’s proposal, it seems that evidence of a threat to others or themselves would be the threshold for seizure without due process. Under domestic violence laws, a report of domestic violence is a per se grant to seize any and all weapons, plus seizure of firearm purchasing cards. No due process, just seizure of entire gun collections.
To make matters worse, even when the “perpetrator” seeks to regain ownership of his guns, the judge or prosecutor is very hesitant to return the weapons. Is this where we are now going under the new gun control effort? I guess this is the price we pay for allowing guns to be seized without due process in the first place. Same rationale being used in both cases, seize weapons now and worry about due process later.
