Posted on 09/20/2022 9:16:27 AM PDT by fwdude
Yes, like a conviction first.
I remember reading somewhere, (can’t find it now) that if you went to prison in the 1800s, they gave your confiscated guns back when you got out. Weapons were necessary for survival. The right to protect yourself was well understood. Today, not so much.
Anything that blows up the Dim heads is fine with me.
Excellent!
Now do “civil forfeiture”.
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Indeed. There is a pernitious practice used as a money maker by cities and towns that presumes guilt without a trial.
BINGO!
It’s about time. Previously, one ‘tax fraud’ conviction (e.g., author Dale Brown), and you couldn’t own any modern firearms (>1895) ever again. This is nonsense. If a person cannot be trusted with firearms without a custodian, leave them in jail.
Tell that to the judges that have upheld civil forfeiture without trial.
Yep, and you can even get your voting rights back now too.
If a person is too dangerous to be walking around the streets armed, then they are too dangerous to be walking around the streets period, and we shouldn’t be letting them out of prison.
Here is a nice old Texas case...
Jennings v. State, 5 Tex. Crim. App. 298, at 300-01 (1878).
“We believe that portion of the act which provides that, in case of conviction, the defendant shall forfeit to the county the weapon or weapons so found on or about his person is not within the scope of legislative authority. * * * One of his most sacred rights is that of having arms for his own defence and that of the State. This right is one of the surest safeguards of liberty and self-preservation.”
Sounds to me like you are describing some history and tradition. There is no history or tradition of having Federal Firearm Licenses. Oops.
We need to get rid of serial numbers, carry permits, background checks, and all other infringements.
We need to assume that anyone released from prison will be armed within an hour and modify our prison sentencing policies to take that into account.
No. It significantly restored Second Amendment rights.
How do you know, when there hasn't been a conviction, or, often, no arrest or charge of a crime?
Goes back to thr common law in existence when the Constitution and the 2nd Amendment was passed.
I guess we're defining "forfeiture" differently. Most certainly, I would require a conviction through due process before this is allowed.
I also think that people convicted of property crimes should be forced to restore the victim's property at 3 times the value taken or destroyed. Steal a $20,000 car? You owe the victim $60,000 upon conviction. If that takes hard labor in prison for 10 years, so be it.
Overview
Civil forfeiture occurs when the government seizes property under suspicion of its involvement in illegal activity. Such a proceeding is conducted in rem, or against the property itself, rather than in personam, or against the owner of the property; by contrast, criminal forfeiture is an in personam proceeding. For this reason, civil forfeiture case names often appear strange, such as United States v. Eight Rhodesian Stone Statues,1 and the property owner is a third-party claimant to the action while the property is the defendant. This form of forfeiture is codified in 18 U.S.C. §§ 981, 983, 984, and 985, as well as in 21 U.S.C. § 881.
The government does not have to charge the property owner with any specific crime in order to seize his property, and must prove only by a preponderance of the evidence that the property is legally forfeitable. After property has been seized, the burden of proof shifts to the owner, who must prove that the property was not involved in nor obtained as a result of illegal activity.
While the government views civil forfeiture as a powerful tool against the drug trade, organized crime, and political corruption, it is often criticized as an unconstitutional exercise of government power, in violation of the Fourth, Fifth, and Eighth Amendments, and as against a fundamental element of due process: the presumption of innocence.
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