[Take Action] Stop Gun Confiscation in the Senate!

“Red Flag Laws” are really Gun Confiscation Orders


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Gun Confiscation Orders Lack Due Process

Dear Friend:

Sources inside the U.S. Senate are now telling us that we may not have seen the last gun control measure to be considered this year.

At a time when Chuck Schumer and his anti-gun minions are blocking reciprocity, hearing protection, and veterans’ rights legislation, the gun-hating zealots are trying to force consideration of a particularly nasty piece of legislation.

That bill, S. 2607, introduced by Florida Senators Marco Rubio (R) and Bill Nelson (D), would try to force every state to adopt gun confiscation measures.

Gun Confiscation Orders are sometimes sugar-coated as “red-flag laws” or “extreme risk protection orders.”

But make no mistake about it: They are nothing more nor less than efforts to strip Americans of their gun rights through secret star-chamber proceedings — in which the gun owner is barred from participation.

Under this Rubio-Nelson abomination, the police or an angry “ex” could convene an Orwellian “secret hearing” to strip you of your constitutional rights without giving you a chance to be heard — in what is otherwise known as an ex parte hearing. [proposed section 3042(b)(3)]

The secret hearing would find you “guilty” — not by a standard of “beyond a reasonable doubt” … or not because there was probable cause to believe you had committed a crime … or not even because there was probable cause to believe you would commit a crime.

Rather, you would be stripped of your rights based on a subjective determination that you presented a “significant danger” to someone, including yourself. [proposed section 3042(b)(2)(A)(iii)]

And, incidentally, the bill strips state courts of all discretion about whether they can decline to take away your rights.

We have some experience with these “star-chamber” proceedings in which only the accuser is in the room. In those cases, the judge almost always issues the order.

In a study of Gun Confiscation Orders in Seattle, the court granted 28 of 29 applications.

A Massachusetts legislator stated, with respect to much-more-limited domestic violence ex parte orders (where only the accuser is represented) that the courts “don’t ask many questions.”

The first time a gun owner learns about the proceedings is when a police SWAT Team, that normally serves high risk arrest warrants for violent criminals, arrives at his door to immediately seize his previously lawfully-owned firearms.

After a fixed number of days, S. 2607 generously allowed you to spend $10,000 and up for attorneys and expert witnesses — in an effort to convince a court that it made a mistake.

Few gun owners have the resources to mount such a challenge, and few courts are willing to reverse themselves on these types of issues.

If you look at the specifics of S. 2607, paragraph-by-paragraph, it is very similar to bills being hawked in the state capitals as the most extreme anti-gun element of the anti-gun agenda.

So there is every indication that the language of this bill ultimately originated in the backroom of Michael Bloomberg’s offices.

We saw with the anti-gun Fix NICS language that when it was stalled in Congress, the Republican leadership attached it to the must-pass omnibus spending bill (which passed in March).

So gun owners have our work set out for us. The next must-pass spending bill will be voted on before October 1.

Gun owners need to let their senators know how toxic this bill is, or there is a chance that we will receive yet another anti-gun “knife in the back” in September.

So please contact your Senators to oppose S. 2607 in all forms, whether as a standalone bill or as an amendment to a larger bill.

In liberty,

Michael Hammond
Legislative Counsel
Gun Owners of America

PS: GOA is expending vast resources battling gun confiscation orders, fighting bump stock bans, and to elect the best candidates in the 2018 elections. Could you contribute to the fight? Even $10 or $20 goes a long way!

PPS: Many states are also battling gun confiscation orders. You can take action here to combat state level bills.