NY takes it's Gun Control cues from California. Wait till you read this!

[Mr VJP]

Anti-gun folks do not intend to stop their war on guns until we are all disarmed, jailed, or dead.

If you doubt that, you need to see this.

 

"And the Second Amendment fight has never cooled in California, but it got a few degrees hotter yesterday when California Democrats proposed a new bill (Assembly Bill 1014) that would allow for anyone to request a court for a "Gun Violence Restraining Order" and "firearms seizure warrant" against California gun owners."

According to the bill's text, courts would be required to issue a restraining order if a person-who doesn't even have to know the target of the order-submits a form saying that a gun owner "poses a significant risk of personal injury to himself, herself, or others by owning or possessing" guns.

The response from the California Association of Federal Firearms Licensees (CAL-FFL) was quick and direct.

"a gun control nightmare," is how Brandon Combs, president of CAL-FFL described AB1014. "California Democrats are taking their radical anti-gun agenda to an entirely new and horrifying level." Combssays that the bill "guts due process" and the presumption of innocence.

CAL-FFL warns that the broad language of the seizure warrant could lead to midnight "no-knock" raids against the subject of the restraining order-who may not even know that their gun rights have been stripped away and that they are now a "prohibited person"-but also the homes of their friends and family, and even places of employment.

Combs believes that the bill's language is ripe for abuse, especially by anti-gun groups frustrated with their lack of success at pushing through more strict legislation. "Cyber-bullies like Shannon Watts and her 'Moms Demand Action' extremists could simply go on Facebook or Twitter, grab a photo of you and your gun, and slap it on a restraining order request. There's no criminal or civil penalty for filing false or vexatious reports and no provision for the recovery of damages and someone's loss of rights. AB 1014 would make it open season on California gun owners."

Combs continued, "On mere hearsay, an anti-gun judge could instigate a life-ending terror campaign against a gun owner and everyone who knows them."

 

The TacticalWire

 

[Mr VJP]

Mr. Orwell? Mr. George Orwell?

 

You can't discriminate against a gay person just because you don't like the fact they're gay and in their being gay they make you uncomfortable. 

You can't discriminate against a black person because you've seen black people on the evening news being arrested for committing some crime and therefore black people make you uncomfortable.

You can't discriminate against Jews because you don't like them and they don't share your same belief system.

But, if you don't like guns you're in for a treat because Democratic California Assembly Members Nancy Skinner of Berkeley and Das Williams of Santa Barbara have introduced Assembly Bill 1014 giving you the power to do something about your unease with and dislike of firearms.

According to CAL-FFL, Assembly Bill 1014 allows you to ask a court for a "Gun Violence Restraining Order" and subsequent "firearms seizure warrant" against California gun owners. And the best part is that you don't have to actually know the person or anything about them other than they own a firearm.

So what does that mean?

Well, you could find all the people in your local area that own guns - maybe with the aid of one of those helpful CCW maps newspapers are so fond of publishing - and start asking the courts for a "Gun Violence Restraining Order" against each of those individuals simply because you believe they, as CAL-FFL notes, "pose a significant risk of personal injury to himself, herself, or others by owning or possessing" guns.

We would never accept this kind of unwarranted harassment of other groups, such as gays, blacks or Jews, because we inherently understand that to be morally wrong. But when it comes to gun owners, that seems to be a whole other issue and people are completely fine and utterly unfazed by applying a standard they would never dream to apply to groups identified by their sexual preference, ethnicity or religious beliefs.

As gun owners though, we are simply fair game. We can be as law abiding as we want. We can be upstanding members of our communities. We can be philanthropists and generously volunteer our time for important causes. 

But, if we own a firearm then we are a separate kind of citizen, a second-class citizen, and all our contributions to society are for naught and we are deemed undeserving of the same constitutional protections others are entitled to and enjoy. 

All this is because somebody somewhere committed a crime with a gun.

In their zeal to pass legislation that reflects their doing "something, anything" to address gun violence, the California legislators reveal their true, horrifying nature. And that is the harboring of a casual indifference to gun owners as a group which perilously borders on dangerous because it serves to fuel the misdeeds of a governmental system that plays to public outcry by taking advantage of isolated tragedies, such as the recent Santa Barbara area shooting.

I could suggest parallels like the rounding up of Japanese Americans by the U.S. Government and placing them in internment camps during World War II, but they'd say "that's entirely different."

I could point to Russia's reported recent registration of Ukrainian Jews, which was met with global damnation, but that would again be "entirely different." In fact, I was told just that by a friend whose view on guns is that they are inherently dangerous and therefore registration of gun owners is perfectly justified, as opposed to the registration of Jews which is horrifying. I did not ask how they proposed handling registration of a gun owner that was Jewish.

I could point to the systemic isolation and subjugation of blacks through past racist laws and societal norms, but that too would be "entirely different."

The fact is that we are being further marginalized as a group, but because we are not identifiable by sexual preference, ethnicity or religious beliefs it doesn't rise to the level of discrimination - regardless of how specifically and narrowly targeted their efforts are.

We are entering a climate increasingly reminiscent of something out of George Orwell's classic, 1984, where our fellow citizens are encouraged to report us to the authorities. Of course, we have already been through this with the fight against the red menace during the McCarthy era...but "that's entirely different." 

The turning of citizens against citizens is exactly what Assembly Bill 1014 would implement. And the bill proves that the road to Hell is indeed paved with good intentions but they should at least be honest about their intentions and rename this Assembly Bill 1984.

- Paul Erhardt, Editor, the Outdoor Wire Digital Network

Edited June 4, 2014 by Mr VJP