Rep Debbie Dingell, the wife of former Rep John Dingell, has announced that she is busy writing a gun confiscation bill. She claims that the bill would include due process, but that’s impossible.
The only way you satisfy both would be to have a court appearance before the guns are confiscated. That’s not what this bill does. This bill confiscates the guns first. Since she says she’s modeling it after the Indiana law, that means you have fourteen days to go to court and show that there was a reason to confiscate the guns in the first place.
I could be wrong but get the wrong cop or judge and you can lose a constitutional right.
Also, in my humble opinion, you would be reversing due process. If they took you to court first, then the burden of proof is on them but if you have to go to court to get your guns back, the burden of proof then shifts to you. It also makes you vulnerable to vengeful relatives and neighbors.
Your brother or your sister could call the police and falsely claim you threatened them with your gun.
How could you possibly prove you didn’t. It’s their word against yours and you have the burden of proof.
The Salt Lake Tribune summed up the Indiana law, “In Indiana, law enforcement can confiscate weapons without a judge’s order. The gun owner must ask the court to get the weapons returned.”
Extreme Risk Protection Orders have proved a popular gun control response to the February 14 Parkland school shooting. However, it is difficult to believe such orders would have prevented that attack.
On February 23, 2018, Breitbart News reported, “The family with which [Cruz] was staying repeatedly called the police on him in November 2017 but refused to file charges when sheriff’s deputies arrived.
A member of the family with which Cruz was staying explained away Cruz’s erratic behavior by saying he ‘had been suffering significantly from the loss of his mother’ earlier in the month.”
I think we can all agree that crazy and extremely violent people do not need to have guns, but on the other hand, I don’t want someone innocent to have to face accusations that he or she can’t win.
Maybe they could amend the bill to mete out mandatory jail sentences for making a knowingly false claim?