A reader who prefers to remain anonymous writes:
Above the fold headlines in both Gongwer and MIRS today suggest that RINO Rick Snyder is launching an intense effort to secure passage of Representative Robert Wittenberg’s HB 4706 and HB 4707. These bills create a new category of judicial proclamation – ‘Extreme Risk Protection Orders’ – which direct police to confiscate the firearms of anyone who is denounced to a Michigan court “without written or oral notice” to the victim.
These ERPO bills have been rebranded as ‘red flag laws’ after the Parkland, Florida high school shooting. Both of Wittenberg’s bills received their first reading (of three) last year and were languishing in the House Judiciary Committee. No longer.
Here are the headlines:
Gongwer: Snyder Preparing Gun Control Proposal
MIRS: Snyder Considers Waving The Red Flag; Sheriffs Want Cops Back In Schools
Both stories are behind a paywall, but RINO Rick’s spokesperson Tanya Baker floated a trial balloon on the AP three days ago. The Democrats have been all in for a while, so whether ERPOs come to Michigan will be determined by the Republicans in the legislature soon.
Here is the problem: Some clown you hardly know can petition a judge to issue an ERPO which orders the police to seize your firearms, CPL, knives, baseball bats, golf clubs, etc. You only find out that an ERPO has been issued when the police break down your door to effect the seizure. You have no opportunity to contest the initial issuance of an ERPO in front of the judge. It is a bolt out of the blue.
The police get to throw your valuable collector firearms into a dump trailer, willy-nilly, without any responsibility for the condition or safekeeping of your property. You, the restrained individual, then have 14 days to file a counter action. Good luck with that.
Stalinism meets civil forfeiture
Even the mentally ill deserve due process. Representative Wittenberg and RINO Rick haven’t explained to the public why the mentally ill deserve the secret police treatment. Just how difficult is it to serve them and invite them to their court hearing? Wittenberg and Snyder are not willing to institutionalize them, after all. Absence of due process was a hallmark of the KGB. Somehow the left seems to think denial of due process is progress. Back to the future.
Now consider how ERPO’s can be used against you in a contentious divorce proceeding or a contested will. There is a very good reason to afford due process to everyone in the legal system. Nasty legal actions among family members will be taken to the next level without due process.
Any police officer can also apply for an ERPO, so it becomes a useful tool for retaliation and/or a backdoor route to end ‘shall issue’ CPLs. Yet the Democrats support ERPOs, so you know they really aren’t afraid of President Trump. Wittenberg’s ERPOs are available to the Feds, too.
ERPO’s are now law in five other states, so this is a developing threat to Michigan gun owners. Democratic polling house EPIC-MRA is now claiming that 70% of Michigan voters support ERPOs. But somehow they neglected to mention the complete absence of due process in their question to voters:
“A bill dealing with the possession of firearms is under consideration in the state legislature. This legislation would create a new class of court-issued protection order called an, ‘extreme risk protection order.’ Under this bill, a family member, someone in close relationship, a former spouse, a co-parent or a law enforcement official could petition the court asking for an order prohibiting a named defendant from purchasing or possessing a firearm for a period of one year, and the order could be renewed after that time. To grant such an order, the court would have to be presented with clear evidence that the named defendant poses a significant risk of personal injury to him or herself or others by possessing a firearm. Under certain circumstances the court can order the seizure of any firearms known to be owned by the defendant. If issued by the court, the name of the defendant would be entered into the network of databases maintained by the state, federal and local law enforcement agencies. Violation of the order could result in the defendant being fined up to $500 and/or serve up to 93 days in jail. Anyone subject to such a court order would have the right to petition the court to rescind or modify the order.”
“Thinking about the provisions of the bill which would allow an ‘extreme risk protection order,’ do you support or oppose enactment of this legislation into state law?”
Ed Sarpolus and the other two founders of EPIC-MRA (one improbably named Bernie Porn) were staffers of the Michigan House Democrats in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s before they went ‘independent’. Their usual stock in trade are polls which show that Michigan voters support proposed tax increases. Their poll callers are MSU poli-sci students earning extra credit. Anyone suspect bias here?
EPIC-MRA’s greatest service to the public in recent years was declaring Hillary the certain winner of Michigan in early October 2016; guaranteed a double digit win. We can all be grateful that Hillary’s campaign relied on them.
How do ERPOs get used?
Seattle just confiscated their first firearm using an ‘Extreme Risk Protection Order’, a piddling Phoenix .25 ACP pistol, from an unidentified man accused of “staring-down customers through store-front windows with a gun holstered at his side”. So open carry and ‘staring’ are demonstrated justifications for ERPOs. What can possibly go wrong?
This post originally appeared at rightmi.com and is reprinted here with permission.
At this point I almost welcome the revolution…
I believe it was Thomas Paine who said:
“I prefer peace. But if trouble must come, let it come in my time, so that my children can live in peace.”
Thomas Jefferson’s quotation, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”
My personal favorite comes from John Adams.
“I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy…”
Which doesn’t explain how those guys were far better philosophers than their offspring; we really have yet to improve upon their initial governing document (just about every single constitutional amendment can be pointed to as dissolving precious checks & balances that limit federal power & abuse)
It’s the cycle of hard men. Hard men work to create an easy life for their children. Those children have an easy life and they do not work hard, which leads to hard times. Hard times create hard men. Hard men work to create an easy life for their children. And on it goes.
Anti-Constitutional F bags shouldn’t have their job protected until the next election.
All states and federal need recall provisions to immeadiatly allow vote or petition to remove politician for things like unlawful conduct by promoting or voting on laws that are unconstitutional or interfere with due process etc.
Ugh it’s metastatic.
Like I’ve been saying. Domino theory. Here it comes nationwide.
Well, at least gun owners seem a lot more pissed off this go around than in 1994
Who executes ERPO’s the police or SWAT, Are they No-Knock Gun Confiscation Raids?
Gun control libs and politicians aren’t the ones executing ERPO raids But maybe they should be……………..IYKWIM
It’s going to cause some pre-emptive, and/or retaliatory strikes on the “takers”.
WHEN THE LAW ABIDING ARE BRANDED THE LAWLESS. THE LAWLESS DO FULL-ON FIFY.
Cuckservatives!
Is anyone really having a hard time grasping why the name so aptly fits? “Conservatives” cant even conserve a God given and constitutionally protected civil right.
Can the citizens file these ERPO demands on all dem/progtards and popo?
This is truly scary.
Yep.
When the safes are opened, they better be already hiding.
When it is time for good people to hide/bury their firearms, it is time to use them.
Well. . .
Those proposing this are Fing crazy.
Somebody take all of their weapons NOW.
What? I gotta do paperwork on them first?
You’re Fing crazy.
The lawsuits these laws will spawn will raise the stock of every company that sells popcorn.
How do we reverse the cultural momentum? Not just 2A, but also restoring 5A and 6A?
I don’t think cultural tides like these ever reverse; they just burn out after reaching their logical conclusion, collapse, and are replaced. I’m reminded more and more of when Ayn Rand remarked on her experience during the Soviet Revolution as the people “trading tyranny for insanity.”
If an ERPO is granted because of the claim by some dummy, I predict that some cops won’t be going home safe that night.
Solzhenitzen.
I’m sure these bills have heavy penalties starting civil and going to criminal for people who would intentionally abuse a ERPO right?
AHAHHAHHAHAHHAH….yes….some do have criminal penalities. The original Florida one made it a big bad misdemeanor! I think the one that passed upped that to Felony.
Of course….someone would have to be charged with it. Do you really think any DA is going to bring up charges against police officers for this? That’s laughable. How about family members or ex wives? Probably not. So then YOU the injured party would have to CONVINCE the DA to bring the charges…what are the chances of them doing so? Probably very slim to none. THEN you’d have to prove in court beyond a reasonable doubt the people KNEW they were giving intentionally false statements. Think about how hard it would be to DISPROVE you ex-wive saying “He told me many times he would kill me.” Most of these will be based on he said/she said crap!
As far a civil penalities I’m sure you could sue someone for damages even without anything specifically in the law that addresses it. But again…good luck. Who has thousands and thousands of dollars to take someone to court….again to PROVE someone saying “I heard him say blah blah blah”.
Which is exactly WHY WE NEED REAL DUE PROCESS….ie the State brings up charges against someone….they prove their case in court beyond and reasonable doubt…a jury of your peers finds you guilty..and THEN the guns are taken away.
And by the way all of that would have been done if the f@@@@ police and school system did their jobs and had that guy arrested for the multiple felonies he committed before the shooting!
A misdemeanor for ruining someone’s life, whereas a bumpstock carries a felony! Such are the wages of Trump; this crap was petering out when he pulled his heel-face turn and sold out every one of us.
So, a person is deemed a risk and we restrain … the gun(s)?
If so deemed that much of a risk, we should be restraining the person, with all due process that it would entail.
That’s the beauty part; by going after the guns, we don’t need to bother with that pain in the ass “due process” crap!
WAY too much knee Jerk reaction here. Read the linked article about flaoting trial balloon wrt ERPO. And the pushback it ha received. It will not make it through and be put into law in the state of Michigan. Snyder knows this. Don’t be fooled. This guy streamlined CPL process by removing county boards and CPL’s skyrocketed. You can hunt with suppressors. He put into law that the UN is null and void in his state and declared NDAA illegal and any fed will be arrested trying to leverage it. The house and senate are republican and will crush this ERPO bill on due process grounds. This ain’t Florida.
Former Michigan resident…30 years there…15 now in Florida. I would have said the same thing about Florida 2 months ago. NO WAY with the Republicans having a super majority and a solid conservative Governor would ANY gun control pass. Yet in a blink of an eye these same people passed some laws the even some of the bluest of states still don’t have.
Trump won Michigan by what amounted to an accounting error(10k votes). 1988 was the last time before 2016 that Michigan voted for a Republican President.
Michigan hasn’t had a Replican Senator since 2000.
Snyder is an Ann Arbor Republican…he’d be a Democrat down here. And he’s no friend to gun owners. He’d support this type of bill or an assault weapons ban in a heartbeat.
So you guys are one sensationilzed shooting away from gun control laws….trust me. If our supposedly SOLID conservative Republicans down here would flip on a dime the squishy “Republican” governor there and in the legislature would flip even quicker.
You are right but I disagree on the House passing this nonsense. I personally know many of these people and they come to me and a friend to write a lot of 2A bills.
The buggiest problem is teaching people what MI gun laws actually say. For example, registration is only for purchases, not for possession. Even then, the Firearms Act has registration exemptions.
Yeah. Well, not many in Florida thought this shit had a chance either. It CAN happen to your state.
ERPO Passed in my state, It’s law now. WA,
So wait a minute… The police couldn’t stop or even confront one teenager shooting up a school (allegedly)… And now they’re gonna start a mass confiscation of guns from those the state deems “dangerous.”
The politicians are highly over estimating LEO’s ability to enforce these laws. With this open policy there would be thousands of calls about “dangerous” people who own guns a day (mostly unjustified and out of spite). So in return their gonna send high risk swat teams to every residence on the dangerous person list???
This is complete nonsense which lacks the funds, manpower and initiative for that matter. In reality the police can’t handle what’s on their plate as is….
The “X” makes it sound cool.
How’s that elephant eating going?
We’re already seeing similar Ex Parte acts being carried out against farmers and ranchers by PITA activists. Just making a complaint is enough to have your farm animals confiscated. Local animal control bureaucracies are often staffed by BITA/animal rights advocates who work hand-in-hand with people making the complaints. Don’t think for a minute that similar tactics won’t be used by gun-controllers. The assumption behind these Ex Parte laws is that the people making the complaints won’t have nefarious motivations. That’s a pretty stupid assumption for even politicians to make. These laws can and will be challenged in court because they are direct violations of the right to keep and bear arms. They may be overturned after a decade or so of legal to-ing and fro-ing.
Why do I get the feeling that, in 10 or 20 years, the headlines in all the “woke” sources are going to be about how ERPOs are the new search warrant? Look, Ma, no evidence of a crime required!
Comments are closed.