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Title: Kobach: The Gun Confiscation Crusade Begins
Source:
Breitbart
URL Source: http://www.breitbart.com/big-govern ... n-confiscation-crusade-begins/
Published: Mar 2, 2018
Author: Kris W. Kobach
Post Date: 2018-03-04 13:00:40 by Deckard
Keywords: None
Views: 2245
Comments: 12
The next chapter of the Parkland, Florida, school shooting saga has begun. Anti-gun interest groups and politicians have used the Parkland shooting to launch what, until recently, they regarded as a distant dream — a wave of state legislation authorizing the confiscation of firearms.
Quietly, but quickly, a raft of identical gun confiscation bills have been filed by liberal politicians in states across the country. They are all copies of a ballot measure that passed in Washington State in November 2016. And that ballot measure was loosely based on a California gun confiscation law enacted in 2014 and a much older Connecticut law from 1999.
The first bill in the recent wave was actually enacted before the Parkland shooting. Oregon’s SB 719, a Democrat bill which passed with only one Republican vote, was signed into law in August 2017. Since the Parkland shooting, copy-cat bills pushed by progressive legislators anxious to signal their opposition to guns have moved with alarming speed in blue states. On Wednesday, the Vermont Senate approved its version, S 221. In Rhode Island the bill is H 7688.
In total, more than a dozen states are now considering similar gun confiscation laws. Even red states like Kansas, where SB 431 has been submitted, are considering them. On Thursday, Ohio’s Republican Governor John Kasich jumped on the bandwagon and called for a similar law in his state.
Sometimes dubbed “red flag laws,” they provide for “extreme risk protective orders” that direct police to confiscate all firearms and ammunition from any person who is targeted by such an order. At first glance, that might seem reasonable – nobody wants an unhinged psychopath who poses an “extreme risk” to others to possess a gun. But the laws are written so loosely that law enforcement can also seize the guns of ordinary citizens who have never broken the law.
These gun confiscation measures grossly violate the due process and Second Amendment rights of lawful gun owners. The constitutional problems are as follows:
One need not be a lawyer to see the multiple violations of due process in these laws. Even the ultra-liberal ACLU acknowledges that such confiscation laws threaten due process. Hopefully, when the legal challenges eventually occur, the judges will recognize the multiple constitutional problems.
But such concerns won’t stand in the way of an anti-gun state legislator demanding that we “do something” now. And never mind that the Connecticut confiscation law did nothing to stop the Sandy Hook shooter.
To be sure, a constitutional republic can and should keep guns out of the hands of homicidal maniacs, consistent with the Second Amendment and due process. But these new laws go far beyond what is necessary and shred the Constitution in the process. Indeed, if a government wanted to incrementally disarm its citizenry, then these “extreme risk” confiscation laws would be the perfect first step.
Kris W. Kobach is the elected secretary of state of Kansas. Prior to becoming secretary of state, he was a professor of constitutional law at UMKC Law School from 1996 to 2011. An expert in immigration law and policy, he coauthored the Arizona SB-1070 immigration law and represented in federal court the ten ICE agents who sued to stop President Obama’s 2012 DACA amnesty. During 2001-03, he was Attorney General John Ashcroft’s chief adviser on immigration law at the Department of Justice. He is also a 2018 candidate for the office of governor of Kansas. His website is kriskobach.com.
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#1. To: Deckard (#0)
(Edited)
Or should we use Dixie?
#2. To: Gatlin (#1)
Let's use your battle cry:
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest EXCLUSIVE – Kobach: The Gun Confiscation Crusade Begins
Cue: Battle Hymn of the Republic.
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#7. To: Gatlin (#1)
(Edited)
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