Posted on 06/17/2011 11:57:33 AM PDT by driftdiver
California law enforcement agents have seized 1,200 firearms from people who cannot legally own them because of mental illness or restraining orders.
However, Attorney General Kamala Harris said Thursday that more than 34,000 handguns and nearly 1,600 assault weapons are still believed to be held statewide by people who should not have them.
Most people bought the weapons legally but were later prohibited from owning guns.
But 12 people were arrested on suspicion of illegally owning assault weapons or grenades during a six-week sweep by the state Department of Justice in April and May.
Harris said 90 percent of the people who had guns seized were barred from owning weapons because of mental illness and 10 percent because of restraining orders or convictions usually related to domestic violence.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
If your firearms are taken away it won’t be a secret to the local thugs, either.
Yep. A close family member’s wife filed charges against him saying he threatened to beat her up. He was prosecuted. The wife went in and said ‘hey, I made it up cause I was mad’. The judge excused the case but an order against him possessing weapons had already been made and passed onto the feds. He had the judge in the case vacate the whole thing so he could get his weapons back. The feds in their black SUV showed up at his house to check and make sure he still didn’t have his weapons. He told them the judge vacated it and they essentially said....we don’t care, doesn’t matter.
As far as the feds are concerned he cannot have a weapon in his house for 10 yrs from the date the order was made.
I better check and make sure he wasn’t one of the ones arrested. lol
Let me guess, they picked the easy, low-hanging fruit, people technically not supposed to own guns, but not all that likely to harm anyone with them.
I seriously doubt they went into the “hood” or the “barrio” to seize guns from the gang bangers who are very likely to use them.
They’re not illegal, they’re just “undocumented.”
Why is it that legal guns are illegal but illegal aliens are not?..............
Technically they are not ‘owned’ by the thief, or whoever, but are in their ‘possession’, hence ‘possession of stolen property’...........
Indeed. Or a noisy neighbor that claims your repeated attempts to quiet them are harassment..........
Well, assuming the laws making it "illegal" to own those guns pass muster themselves, and the safest assumption is that they do not. Safe both for statistical reasons (how many reasonable gun laws consistent with IIA have you seen?) and in terms of the Goldwater test (does the pro-rights or pro-state assumption work out worse if you guess wrong).
Doing the jobs American guns with birth certificates won't do!
“”Harris said 90 percent of the people who had guns seized were barred from owning weapons because of mental illness”
And what qualifies as “mental illness” such that 30 thousand people had cops show up at their doors demanding their guns? They obtained a Rx for anti-depressants? That sounds like a lot of civil committment orders if that’s what they base it on. Or are Doctors turning in their patients? Is this why doctors in lib states are asking patients if they own guns?”
I Lost a lot of respect for my doctor and doctors in general the first time they asked that question.
Frankly its none of their business what I own. A gun infinitely less an active health threat then a car. And probably a tiny fraction of the threat of many of the other things in your home.
Simply put unless you got shot a its none of a doctors business.
Actually unless you are in the home it still none of the doctors business.
The massive perils of gun registration. Gun confiscating Big Brother will always know who and where you are.
It's whatever they say it is. The Soviets had that down to a fine art.
Meanwhile the gangbangers who routinely murder people get a pass.
Mental illness is defined, by the BATF, as involuntary commitment to a mental facility. Any court order thereof is an involuntary commitment. It also would include involuntary commitment to drug treatment centers.
No.
From the FBI website:
■ A person adjudicated mental defective or involuntarily committed to a mental institution or incompetent to handle own affairs, including dispositions to criminal charges of found not guilty by reason of insanity or found incompetent to stand trial.
You are correct, but the definition at this point in time is "■ A person adjudicated mental defective or involuntarily committed to a mental institution or incompetent to handle own affairs, including dispositions to criminal charges of found not guilty by reason of insanity or found incompetent to stand trial."
Please see my citations before going to the wrong assumptions, guys.
And easily amended to, “...as well as anyone who disagrees with us.”
I'd hope the authorities were able to properly distinguish between clearly dangerous people, and others who are simply eccentric or momentarily dispossessed of their better natures, but as to the State's ability to do so effectively, I respectfully remain a skeptic.
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