A bill that passed the Vermont House without controversy is now in doubt after gun-rights advocates exposed provisions allowing police to take guns during domestic disputes.
“It’s a highly illegal confiscation bill,” Gun Owners of Vermont president Ed Cutler told Vermont Watchdog.
“H.735 is a forfeiture bill that tells police if a person gets a temporary restraining order, they have to come into the house and take all weapons — not just firearms, but all weapons.”
At first glance H.735 appears to propose fee updates on mundane items — from lottery ticket sales to license renewals. Yet tucked away in the bill are provisions for the storage of firearms confiscated during domestic disputes. Gov. Peter Shumlin requested the gun-related provisions in October.
The seemingly innocuous fees came under fire during last week’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.
State Sen. Joe Benning, R-Caledonia, blasted the bill, saying Vermonters would be “deprived of their property and … told they have to pay to get it back without ever having had a day in court.” Confiscating Vermonters’ property without due process violates the U.S. Constitution, he said.
“I don’t own a gun, but I do care about the Constitution, and when you bypass that, I find that offensive.”
Cutler told Watchdog the bill applies to any dangerous objects found on site during a domestic-dispute investigation.
“It could be steak knives, it could be firearms, bows and arrows, baseball bats, chainsaws, you name it. It leaves it to the discretion of the cop,” he said.
Sarah Kenney, the public policy director for Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence, said the provisions are necessary because of “alarming parallels between access to firearms and lethality in domestic violence cases.” She said women who obtain restraining orders are at risk of violent attack.
There’s also an alarming parallel between appeals to “public safety” and the aggressive attempt to take away natural rights.
So let me propose this: instead of police disarming people at their own discretion in cases of domestic abuse allegations, maybe they should teach some classes for abused women on how to operate a hand gun. A dead attacker is seldom accused of recidivism.
Except maybe during election time in Chicago.
The Adult Order of Protection under its various appellations is one of the greatest abominations in our jurisprudence. Merely by writing the magic words, one can have a spouse/companion tossed from his/her home without access to his her personal property and records. They are routinely used to gain an upper hand in domestic relations proceedings where there is no evidence of “abuse” or violence as most people would understand it. Further, the hearings allowed some days or even weeks later are generally shams, wherein the defendant is bullied into signing a consent to the order, because many judges don’t want to deal with domestic nastiness.
We marvel at the redefining of terms like “rape” as a means to an end. That sort of redefining has been going on for 30 plus years with domestic “violence,” a term which now means nondescript behaviors causing subjective uneasiness, if even that. As said, most of these arise as a tactic in divorce and not because someone is truly in danger.
– You damn anti-Progressives racists….you see what happens when you don’t have gun control laws?
Eric Holder Plays RACE CARD Claiming Tense Exchange With GOP Rep. Gohmert During Congressional Questioning Is An Example of Unprecedented Racism Against Him And Obama…
I think they’d like to mandate that electronic bracelet idea for guns so they could remotely deactivate them at any time.
They’ll track the bracelets and then discover they’re converging on places where Holder is speaking.
About the time they realize the bracelet wearers left their guns at home Holder and his detail will need new pants, and their cars reupholstered.
“Under NY law [Safe Act] guns can be seized without warrant or review”
PALIN WARNS HOLDER ON GUN BRACELETS: ‘YOU DON’T WANT TO GO THERE, BUDDY’
No bracelets for some or suspensions either.
that bararacky should be suspended from proggtardia
Bracelets are so gay. . .oops, sorry, I condemn myself.