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THE MISDEMEANOR GUN BAN (How did this happen????)
GunLaws.com ^ | Alan Korwin

Posted on 01/21/2003 11:07:50 AM PST by SunStar

THE MISDEMEANOR GUN BAN:

Congress slides dangerously far from the Constitution

by Alan Korwin

The new federal Gun Ban For Individuals Convicted Of A Misdemeanor Crime Of Domestic Violence removes civil rights for anyone who violates it, or anyone who violated its requirements before it was passed. Congress has exceeded its delegated authority here, even though the intention is a noble one.

The new law increases the list of prohibited possessors people who may not have, ship, transport, or get firearms or ammunition under federal law. Anyone ever convicted of a minor violation involving use or attempted use of physical force, or threatened use of a deadly weapon, among family members (spouse, parent, guardian, cohabiter, etc.), is now prohibited.

This marks the first time in history that a misdemeanor offense denies a constitutional right. The law is retroactive, affecting an unknown number of people, and no provision is made for the firearms such women and men might already possess. Firearms possession by a prohibited possessor is a five year federal felony.

A number of narrow conditions may exempt you from this law, such as whether you were represented by an attorney, the type of trial and plea, an expungement or set aside, or a pardon or restoration of civil rights. Misdemeanors can be handled by courts not-of-record, so some of these determinations may be impossible.

The current congressional practice of placing unrelated laws in larger acts, in order to get them passed without debate (or even unnoticed), has raised concerns among many observers. Politicians who operate by skulking around this way should be shamed from office. This law, sometimes referred to as the Lautenberg amendment, is an extreme example of such a practice, catching firearms-rights advocates and adversaries by surprise.

The law is drafted broadly, affecting sworn police officers nationwide, the armed forces, and agencies such as the FBI, CIA, Secret Service, Forest Service and others, most of whom are accustomed to being exempted from such laws. Many of these groups are currently battling to get themselves exempted from the law. They don t believe they should be prevented from defending themselves or others because of prior minor infractions. Police agencies nationwide have laid off officers who are in violation.

So many problems exist with respect to this legislation that is has raised concerns unlike any recent act of Congress. Indeed, some members reportedly were told before voting that this language had been deleted from the final version, and the vote was held before copies of the 2,000 page act were available for review. Experts close to the issues cite numerous constitutional conflicts.

Eight different guarantees in the Constitution are violated by the Misdemeanor Gun Ban, aka The Lautenberg Amendment:

Domestic violence does not have a single definition at the state level. Some states laws require the arrest of at least one party if the police respond to an apparent domestic violence report. This raises all the issues of judicial process and plea bargaining after an arrest.

Domestic-violence pleas have been a standard ploy to validate divorces for decades. A parent who pays a small fine rather than endure a long costly trial can now be charged with a federal felony. These charges now deny your right to keep and bear arms, and may stop you from voting, holding office and more.

An analogy to cars crystallizes this law s affects. It is as if a former speeding ticket were now grounds for felony arrest if you own a car or gasoline. When a law is scrutinized for constitutionality it is typically held up to one constitutional provision. The eight constitutional issues in this short piece of legislation may set a record. Our Congress has moved too far from its charter.


Alan Korwin is a full-time free-lance writer and author of seven books on gun law, including Gun Laws of America Every Federal Gun Law on the Books with Plain English Summaries. Permission to reprint this article is granted to non-profit organizations, provided credit is given to Alan Korwin, Bloomfield Press, Phoenix, AZ. All others, just call us.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Government
KEYWORDS: 2ndamendment; 666; banglist; copernicus4; domesticviolence; lautenberg
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Comment #21 Removed by Moderator

To: EricOKC
NO. Am aware of the unfairness of that and that's a significant part of what brought me down on the side of the Constitution.

Am aware of all kinds of trumped up things by spouses.
22 posted on 01/21/2003 4:42:11 PM PST by Quix (11TH FREEPCARD FINISHED)
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To: EricOKC
I have no hint of an idea where you get off with your intense assaults

--all the more so since I come down on the side of protecting gun ownership even in the cases discussed and certainly on the side of protecting Constitutional rights to own guns.

Your assault is thoroughly unearned and well over the line of irrational.

Please get a grip.

I've returned to New Mexico after 15 years in China etc.
We have suitable . . . uhh pieces in the home.

23 posted on 01/21/2003 4:44:50 PM PST by Quix (11TH FREEPCARD FINISHED)
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Comment #24 Removed by Moderator

Comment #25 Removed by Moderator

To: dirtboy; Quix
Quix,

Constitutional considerations aside, where is your historical perspective? Is a government out of control better for "the children" or the battered women? This is a subject that really gets my goat. Here in Wisconsin you don't have to do anything to have a record for domestic violence. Anonymous tiplines so the government squealers and informants can tell the authorities that you spanked your children.

A couple of years ago a friend of mine finally threw his 23 year old alcoholic son out of his house. The kid went to the police, filed a report, highly exaggerated, and guess who went to jail and got the record? The sober, productive citizen. Another incident I'm familiar with is a man who lived a couple of blocks away from me. He was Italian and talked with his hands. In the middle of carving a roast he was having a political discussion with his wife while waving his arms in the air, carving knife in hand. A short while later, the police were there and hauled him away for questioning.

I personally have investigated the county mental health and mandatory brainwash center. Included in their official literature defining domestic abuse are such heinous offenses as tickling ("I swear your honor, I have never tickled my children or my wife for that matter.") and controlling the family income (does this mean we're supposed to cash our paychecks, walk through the door and throw the money in the air while telling the wife and kids "Well, take what you want and I'll pay the bills with what's left over.") Mutual masturbation (whatever that is) and whole lot of other consentual acts that can be reported after the fact. Children get mad at their parents and scream abuse and even if they retract their accusations the district attorney says he is obligated to carry this through.

I for one was accused of kidnapping my child while going through a divorce because I picked him up from school and went to a burger joint without his mother's permission, even though she was at work and had no idea where he would be if he hadn't been with me. Fortunately, it was a small town and I knew the cop and he didn't want to do the paperwork. Angry spouses can and do use this type of law to punish the other party and most police departments are obliged and more than happy to cart one or the other off once a report has been filed. Domestic abuse has been on the rise in part because they have trivialized it and now include spanking your children, verbal arguments, throwing worthless adult kids out of the house, all on the flimsiest evidence and tips.

IMHO, these laws are ANTIFAMILY and part of the leftist, Marxist, feminist agenda.

Your theory about accelerating from heated discussion/fight to shooting is pure conjecture. Most people so enraged would use any weapon available, including their bare hands. Has your myopia and fear severely hindered your ability to see the big picture? Will you be happy if the government is successful at micromanaging people's lives through massive amounts of legislation?

IMO the antifamily agenda is far worse for the children.

26 posted on 01/21/2003 5:03:47 PM PST by Ches
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To: boris
"This is the leftist technique; why can't we use it?"

Just shootin' em is a lot faster, cheaper, and offers a permanent solution.

It's gonna come down to that anyway.

27 posted on 01/21/2003 5:17:02 PM PST by wcbtinman
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To: Quix
Given my experience with couples wherein domestic violence is a problem, I feel from both sexes, taking guns out of the homes of X% of them would mean X less deaths per year. I think that's a fairly self-evident fact.

If did not trust the person I was living with with a gun, if I thought the only thing keeping me alive is their lack of access to a gun, I would leave so fast I would not even pack my belongings. In other words if anyone is comforted by a law keeping a spouse from owning a gun that comfort is an illusion. Woman who then stay because of this comfort and are killed anyway are killed because of this law right?

Also, the number of people killed because someone is denied self-defense tool by the is probably greater than those (if any) whor are alive because of the law.

Most such gun deaths are impulse sorts of things. But where there's a habit of violence and especially with alcohol, the step to adding a gun in the moment of anger is an easy one to take for many, many men.

So, yes, it would mean X% less deaths.

For a hypothetical law targeting only the people you describe, perhaps, perhaps not. For the law as written, no.

28 posted on 01/21/2003 5:17:54 PM PST by On the Road to Serfdom
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To: SunStar
Hate to tell you, but this is old news. They have even added the question to the 4473 form. It has been there for awhile, like years.

What is far more frightening is that a temporary restraining order also strips you of your rights according to the 5th circuit court in the Emerson case.

29 posted on 01/21/2003 5:26:01 PM PST by Double Tap
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To: On the Road to Serfdom
If did not trust the person I was living with with a gun, if I thought the only thing keeping me alive is their lack of access to a gun, I would leave so fast I would not even pack my belongings. In other words if anyone is comforted by a law keeping a spouse from owning a gun that comfort is an illusion. Woman who then stay because of this comfort and are killed anyway are killed because of this law right?

EXCELLENT POINT.

However, it's often extremely difficult to get the co-dependent spouses who've been even almost killed--hospitalized even--'tis often hard to get them to leave the guy. The relationships are sick from the git-go. YOU probably wouldn't have entered into that kind of relationship with that kind of person in the first place.

Many people--women in most cases in this topic area--see themselves as desperate for shreds of affection, comfort, support however twisted and transitory.

30 posted on 01/21/2003 8:13:10 PM PST by Quix (11TH FREEPCARD FINISHED)
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To: Ches
UHHHHH HELLO?

SORRY I DIDN'T SAY "FAR" WORSE for the families.

I'm on your side. I agree with you.

The status quo state of affairs is hideously destructive to individuals and families for no good reason.

Yes, violent people use whatever's handy including their hands. No, I don't think my perspective is that much conjecture having been fired in the furnaces of having to intervene in quite a number of cases.

I understand your emotion about the issue. Please avoid putting words or attitudes or ignorance in my fingers. I do quite well enough on my own.

ONCE AGAIN: I AGREE WITH YOU.
31 posted on 01/21/2003 8:17:43 PM PST by Quix (11TH FREEPCARD FINISHED)
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To: EricOKC
HEY DEAR FREEPER BRO,

PLEASE take better care of yourself. 4 days without sleep or much sleep could make you as looney as I'm assumed to be!!!

I am concerned--sleep is a pretty priceless thing.

No problem about your tirade. Understandable. I just hope you manage to get lots of extra sleep. If I could send it over the wire, I would.

32 posted on 01/21/2003 8:24:28 PM PST by Quix (11TH FREEPCARD FINISHED)
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To: Quix
Good, I'm glad we're on the same side and I see now all your comments are strictly from your professional perspective. If I'm required to wallow in the mud all day and the government proposes a law to prohibit it, would this be a good thing or a bad thing? (Just joking). Have a good night.
33 posted on 01/21/2003 8:32:32 PM PST by Ches
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To: Quix
EXCELLENT POINT.

Thank you, and I understand you are against the law on constitutional grounds event thought you think it has benefits. I just hope you see that the law also has costs especially as it is written and you would not be so quick to cede the cost-benefit argument to the ‘other side’.

34 posted on 01/22/2003 11:07:49 AM PST by On the Road to Serfdom
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To: Cacophonous
Boy it sure will be nice when we have a Republican congress...oh wait...we have one...

A SALUTE TO THE GOP CONGRESS

Wish I'd know back then I could include their yeoman's work in handing the left their talking points into the next millenium on the subjects of coercive State Population Control and Environmentalism as stalking horses of human life and liberty in the land of the "liberated":

Recommendations of the Task Force on Earth Resources and Population (George H. Bush, Chairman) ... excerpts from the Congressional Record.

35 posted on 01/22/2003 11:34:11 AM PST by Askel5
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To: On the Road to Serfdom; Alamo-Girl; MHGinTN
I don't think I'm at all quick to cede the point about cost/benefit.

Neither do I want to be quick to run from protecting life. I really do believe that more lives would be lost and others more damaged by eroding the right to individual gun ownership.

But it is ALSO TRUE that those who live by the sword die by the sword.

Choices are not always easy. Generally, it's better to err on the side of giving life extra support and extra chances. Sometimes that side is not so clear or easy to discern. It is understandable to feel and be torn between choices.

I believe part of what you are ranting against is the horrid state of affairs in our nation, world, culture. Right and wrong have been turned upside down in a list of ways and on a list of issues. The choices contributing to that have been countless in the countless moments of countless lives.

Selfishness is deadly. Arrogance is deadly. Stubbornness is deadly. Greed is deadly. Power mongering is deadly. A bullet is more quickly deadly. But the above traits, habits, tendencies to choose for selfishness etc. are more deadly in raw numbers than all the arms in all the lands in all the cultures.

But the bucket tends to SEEM to fill slower before it is tipped over with the molten death. Tiny little "white lie choices" by tinly little white lie choices fill the buckets relentlessly in hearts, lives, relationships across our evil polluted planet. "This doesn't/won't hurt anyone else. It's my right."

It does hurt when anyone makes a deadly choice. And all our choices to greater or lesser degree [except perhaps between vanilla vs chocolate ice cream sorts of choices]--all our choices are toward more death or more life. And they add up relentlessly.

And when the buckets are full enough, they spill over, tip over and the molten death floods over the landscape. Many are wounded. Many die. Not just the perpetrator doing it in the dark because it felt good and he didn't think it hurt anyone else or that no one else mattered.

Usually, it's because, to the individual doing the deadly dead, no one else matters.

We are about to learn anew in our land what Chinese have known better for eons. Relationships matter. Others matter. They matter life and death. And I'd even better treat my enemy with respect else in the future he holds a life or death decision over me. Of course, the Chinese carried that to absurd extremes.

But we seem to have lost all sense about such issues in our land. The man slugs his pregnant wife and kicks her in her swollen tummy and thinks it's his right, his property. And if the child survives, perhaps he becomes a serial killer or a get-out-the-vote leader for Shrillary Hillary in his rage against authority, limits, law, right and might which have seemed so deadly to him in his home context.

The fact remains, the letter of the law kills. The spirit brings liberty.

Laws of all kinds have limits. And people with lawlessness in their hearts will always manipulate laws to their benefit and others' hurt. That's one reason our founders declared that our form of government would not work except for the Christian substrate upon which it was founded. If good hearted lawfulness is not in the hearts of the citizens, all that's left is using the law to beat one another over the head; muffle, mangle and murder our neighbors; and strike, stun and steal from our oponents.

When there is no right or wrong, the law is the victim and the subordinated victims have little recourse but for God's protection. Thankfully, HE IS ABLE and FAITHFUL according to HIS priorities.

Yes, women are battered and men are manipulated into an untenable vise of officialdom as women become trained artists at getting what they need/want through the laws now written and applied through all kinds of idiocy by all kinds of judges reared that there is only the right or wrong that they decide--without any objective standard to be accountable to.

But we have brought it on ourselves. We have forsaken the higher way of living by a higher law in our hearts.

So, we suffer the brutality of the law, ignoring the earlier, more foundational brutality of our own hearts in millions of earlier choices.

36 posted on 01/22/2003 11:39:41 AM PST by Quix (11TH FREEPCARD FINISHED)
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To: SunStar
(How did this happen????)

The NRA made clear in September of 1996 that they would endorse any GOP candidate who was even marginally more pro-gun than his opponent. When the Lautenberg Act came up for a vote, the GOA was all over talk.politics.guns, but the NRA was silent. When the Lautenberg Act saled through the Senate on a 97-2 vote, the NRA--true to its word--refused to hold anyone accountable and ignored the Lautenberg Act for several months while touting the victory of keeping a "pro-gun" Congress. Of course, by my tally, even if every Senate election brought in a pro-gun Senator there would still have been at least 63 anti-gun Senators held over, but that doesn't seem to have factored into the NRA's reporting.

37 posted on 01/23/2003 12:28:10 AM PST by supercat (TAG--you're it!)
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