Just in case, we’ll take your gun

Posted on August 6, 2008

Outrageous Connecticut law allows cops to seize firearms before any crime is committed. ACLU on the right side for once.

A new report to the Connecticut state legislature shows police have used the state’s unique gun seizure law to confiscate more than 1,700 firearms from citizens based on suspicion that the gun owners might harm themselves or others. The state’s law permits police to seek a warrant for seizing a citizen’s guns based on suspicion of the gun owner’s intentions, before any act of violence or lawbreaking is actually committed.

The law was first proposed in 1998, following a mass shooting at the Connecticut Lottery Corporation that left five dead, including the gunman. Since the law went into effect Oct. 1, 1999, according to new Office of Legislative Research report, police have made more than 200 documented requests for warrants to seize firearms from citizens, and only two of the requests have been denied. The law has remained hotly debated since its passage, as some point to possible murders and suicides it may have prevented, and others worry that police would abuse the law. “It certainly has not been abused. It may be underutilized,” Ron Pinciaro, co-executive director of Connecticut Against Gun Violence, told the Waterbury Republican American. “The bottom line from our perspective is, it may very well have saved lives.”

Attorney Ralph D. Sherman, who has represented several of the gun owners whose firearms were confiscated under the law, disagrees. “In every case I was involved in I thought it was an abuse,” he told the newspaper. “The overriding concern is anybody can report anybody with or without substantiation, and I don’t think that is the American way.”

Joe Graborz, executive director of the Connecticut Civil Liberties Union, an affiliate of the ACLU, told WND the law “continues to invest unusual and far-reaching powers in police authority that does not belong there” by requiring “police to act as psychologists in trying to predict and interpret behavior.” “What is the standard of proof on this?” he asked. “The way this law is written, it can and will be easily abused by police.”

Under the statute, dubbed the “turn in your neighbor” law by opponents, any two police officers or a state prosecutor may seek a warrant, following a specified process of investigation, to confiscate guns from people deemed a risk to harming themselves or others. The vast majority of cases, however, begin when a person - usually a spouse or live-in, according to the OLR report - file a complaint.

More here

Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS Also, don’t forget your roundup of Obama news and commentary at OBAMA WATCH

» Filed Under 2nd Amendment, ACLU, Guns, Illegal Activities, News, Psychology

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One Response to “Just in case, we’ll take your gun”

Linoge on August 6th, 2008 8:37 am

I am honestly kind of surprised this all started in Connecticut, and not some other state with a name starting with a “C”, but I guess that is neither here nor there. Who knew that the Connecticut police had Minority Report - style technology at their disposal to determine what a person is and is not going to do? And how many lives were lost or shattered when people’s self-defense tools were stripped away from them, for no apparent good reason?

Hey, it could be worse… could be that almost anyone could take a restraining order out against you for almost any reason, and that alone could stop you from purchasing/owning firearms. Oh, wait…