Posted on 05/07/2002 2:21:39 PM PDT by greydog
I have a problem with folks being penalized by the government in this way and others without having been found guilty or liable in a legitimate court of law.
A restraining order is a nearly automatic formality in domestic dispute cases in many localities, whether or not they involve violence, so they are not, in my opinion, due process.
Other things that stick in pretty much the same place in my craw are things like garnishments and seizures for tax collection purposes. Any other debtor must sue you and win in court by proving it's case before doing those things, and I think it's entirely fair for the same to be demanded of the government. The government once stole the contents of a bank account of mine in this way, based on a debt supposedly owed by a family member. I got it back, but the problem was that the burden was on me to prove the government was not entitled to it, and that is just wrong.
In the case of restraining orders filed as a part of divorce and other domestic dispute proceedings, it is my understanding that they are issued based on evidence provided only by the party requesting the order, with the potential restrainee most often not present or even served with notice of a "hearing". Such a proceeding ought not deprive one of property or civil liberties, because there is no trial (due process).
Dave in Eugene
Sometimes the guys in the black mumu's glissade like Fred Astaire. It seems that the judges in question made lots of encouraging noises during oral argument and then eased gun in close. Dictum is dictum and holdings are holdings. Most striking is the bobbing and weaving of the administration when the 2nd Amendment is on the table. After all, even the Goron's post game analysts agree that he lost WVA and Tenn due to his contempt for those God given rights protected under the 2nd Amendment. Sad to say, Dubya is starting to look more and more like a man of few principles.
The minute the order is issued, VAWA kicks in. However, the respondent is not present at the original hearing, just the petitioner. I have a very large problem with depriving anyone of a civil right on just the say-so of one person where there is no ability to put on your own evidence and/or cross examine the peititioner.
But Ted Olsen doesn't think Emerson should go up...and if you ain't with us your against us, right? Who am I? I'm not the solicitor general so I must not know what I'm talking about, right?
Bunk. This "shift" in position is just an attempt to sooth Bush's supporters and not cause him to lose our support....and it won't work.
Many went along complacently for decades after WWII while the leftists promoted their agenda a little bit at a time. We upset the left in the Al Gore defeat when gun owners in otherwise democrat strongholds voted Republican for a change. That can change overnight once they get lulled back to sleep by the democrats. During Reagan, we had the Reagan democrats in Macomb County, Michigan. In reality they were mostly a bunch of pouting blue collar democrats who voted democrat locally, and now vote democrat nationally again as well--i.e. Bill Clinton. It wasn't just Wayne County that gave Gore Michigan in 2000.
I would like to see President Bush be more agressive in some areas of national policy, but I recognize that he has a slim majority to work with in the house and a go along to get along Republican minority in the senate. I believe your observation--a radical swing to the right will only make Bush a one termer and risk two or more terms of communazi control. Unfortunately, and patiently, we need to be as pragmatic as they are.
Makes you wonder what Reno was doing.
No wonder the liberals are scared/fearful/hate-filled towards Ashcroft.
Not so fast: "...to restrict the possession of types of firearms that are particularly suited to criminal misuse."
That allows for a continuation of Brady and NFA. Ashcroft is close, but still not a 2nd Amendment absolutist.
Exactly. Far from being an extremist position, Ashcroft's is quite moderate. He clearly sees a legitimate role for federal regulation of firearms.
In fact, everything the gun-grabbers say they want can be done under Ashcroft's interpretation of the 2nd.
So if you see any gun-grabbers complaining about this interpretation, it can only be because it would not allow the things that they won't openly say that they want.
Something Gary Kleck once wrote is apropos:
It is ironic ... in light of all the impassioned scholarly dispute, that large defensive gun use estimates pose no threat whatsoever to the moderate gun controls, such as background checks of prospective gun buyers, that most Americans support. These measures would not deny guns to any significant number of noncriminals, and thus would not prevent defensive gun use among the law-abiding. People who sincerely support only moderate controls, but oppose gun prohibition, should have no political concerns about large defensive use estimates.
Such estimates do, on the other hand, constitute a very serious obstacle to promoting gun prohibition, which would deny guns to criminals and noncriminals alike, and thus would reduce whatever benefits defensive gun use may yield. Therefore, in light of the absence of any intellectually serious basis for discounting large defensive gun use estimates, one plausible explanation of why some scholars cling to the rare-defensive gun use theory in the face of overwhelming contrary evidence is that they favor a disarmed populace and accurately perceive high defensive gun use estimates as a significant political obstacle to achieving national gun prohibition.
- Gary Kleck, "Armed: New Perspectives on Gun Control.
Cases v. U.S., 131 F.2d 916 (1st Cir. 1942), cert. denied, 319 U.S. 770 (1943)
...if the rule of the Miller case is general and complete, the result would follow that, under present day conditions, the federal government would be empowered only to regulate the possession or use of weapons such as a flintlock musket or a matchlock harquebus. But to hold that the Second Amendment limits the federal government to regulations concerning only weapons which can be classed as antiques or curiosities,--almost any other might bear some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia unit of the present day,--is in effect to hold that the limitation of the Second Amendment is absolute. Another objection to the rule of the Miller case as a full and general statement is that according to it Congress would be prevented by the Second Amendment from regulating the possession or use by private persons not present or prospective members of any military unit, of distinctly military arms, such as machine guns, trench mortars, anti-tank or anti-aircraft guns, even though under the circumstances surrounding such possession or use it would be inconceivable that a private person could have any legitimate reason for having such a weapon. It seems to us unlikely that the framers of the Amendment intended any such result.
It seems quite likely to me that the framers intended exactly that result - and that they were quite explicit about it.
But we've had 60 years of lower-court decisions, referencing "Cases", and pretending that it somehow discovered a "collective rights" meaning in "Miller", when "Cases" in fact, did exactly the opposite - it found a strong "individual rights" meaning in Miller, and then intentionally ignored it.
it's all of that, to be sure. But the acid test will be when this policy overturns the flagrantly anti-Second Amendment laws we have in states like California, whose state justice department operates under the concept that the Federal government can pass no law that takes precedent over the states.
That sure wasn't the case when Eisenhower sent the 101st Airborne Division to enforce school desegregation in Arkansas in 1954. Guess then, the U. S. Constitution took precedent. Guess now it doesn't.
This is good news and a positive, pro-gun-rights step, but this being FR, and FR being inundated with professional Lefties and liberals who pretend to be more "conservative" than Reagan himself, no doubt we will hear cry after cry about how Bush sold us down the river by daring to change this policy.It's all so...
predictable.
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