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(courtesy gunenthusiastspeaks.files.wordpress.com)

“For nearly a decade, the National Rifle Association successfully blocked a bill in Washington state that would have required alleged domestic abusers to surrender their firearms after being served with a protective order,” huffingtonpost.com reports. “Only those actually convicted of felony domestic violence, the nation’s largest gun lobby argued, should be made to forfeit their gun rights.” Given the legal principle of presumed innocence – a person is until proven guilty – that sounds about right. Judges can and do issue protective orders against suspected domestic abusers without allowing the accused any say in the matter whatsoever. As the HuffPo reports, the NRA’s position on the matter has shifted . . .

This past year, the NRA changed its tune. As the bill, HB 1840, once again moved through the state legislature, the gun lobby made a backroom deal with lawmakers, agreeing to drop its public opposition to it in exchange for a few minor changes. This February, with the NRA’s tacit approval, the bill sailed through the state legislature in a rare unanimous vote . . .

One of the “minor changes”: alleged abusers can surrender their guns to friends and family instead of the state. It’s a change that once again signals the fact that the NRA plays realpolitik, or, if you prefer knows how to make the best of a bad situation. The crap sitch here being the certainty that the law would pass anyway, and that anyone who opposed it would look like they supported domestic abusers. According to the HuffPo some dirty laundry may also have played a part.

The gun lobby wouldn’t say, but the timing suggests that politics, both internal and external, were at play. Documents and press releases reviewed by HuffPost show that the NRA began to relax its position on gun restrictions for alleged domestic abusers after March 2013 — the same month the New York Daily News reported that a top NRA official, Richard D’Alauro, had pleaded guilty to harassing his wife “by subjecting her to physical contact.” A judge served D’Alauro, the NRA’s field representative for New York City and its suburbs, a protective order and ordered police to remove all 39 guns from his home.

D’Alauro’s wife claimed that he had physically abused her for years. He settled the case by pleading guilty to harassment — a less serious charge than a misdemeanor. But once the case started attracting media attention, the NRA began softening its position on gun rights for accused domestic abusers.

Be that as it may, the gun control industry seized on the NRA’s shift as an opportunity to work the whole “civilian disarmament helps protect women” angle.

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s gun violence prevention group, Everytown, sees potential in the NRA’s subtle shift in its stance on domestic violence restrictions. The group plans to push for expanded domestic violence protections as part of a broader campaign to tie gun restrictions to women’s health and safety.

“We’re going to start to talk about the ways gun violence affects everyday Americans, including domestic violence, suicide, and child access to guns,” said Erika Soto Lamb, a spokesperson for Everytown.

With the gun-rights lobby in a bit of a retreat, gun control advocates are beginning to feel emboldened. “This is not your grandfather’s NRA,” Soto Lamb said.

You see what they did there? Give ’em an inch and they’ll take a mile. Only the NRA and their five million members aren’t in the mile-giving business. Still . . .

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32 COMMENTS

  1. First it was the felons

    Then it was the unproven guilty

    Then it was the soldiers coming home from duty

    Then it was for any reason they wanted it to be

  2. Washington is taking a hard left turn, with Initiative 594 seeming likely to pass with a big majority. I’m afraid that WA is about to be Kalifornicated and the NRA is shoveling sh1t against the tide.

      • I swear gun people would make the worst generals in history. Currently, Washington state has better gun laws than Texas and upon hearing that that is threatened the reaction is “oh, well?”

        If we’re going to lose it’s because we’re going to beat ourselves, not because they defeat us.

    • The polls showing widespread support for UBC’s in many if not all parts of the US probably have some degree of truth to them, which is why Alan Gottlieb thought a year ago one should cut a deal while one can, and he specifically mentioned the prospect of referenda on this issue in multiple states as something to worry about. And we can bet it won’t stop with WA state once it passes there.

      I am still not sure one way or the other if the deal on UBC’s was worth seeking back then, maybe it was best to have the antis fight hard for UBC’s so they wouldn’t think they could easily move on to their other pet issues. But the issue is still around, and the day may yet come when the NRA will be “quietly accepting” more than the relatively obscure (in comparison) issue of domestic violence.

      And to think that it used to be a free country.

    • Is that why 591 got more signatures than 594 with less than half the money spent. Or why 594 backers still pretend that it’s NOT a registration bill? The only way you can prevent illicit private sales is to register all guns. But of course 594 backers can’t reveal that.

  3. My ex-wife accused me all kinds of crap that never happened. All while screwing her former boyfriend. I’m glad she didn’t wreck my life. Sometimes you have to give a little to get a little. I’ll still support the NRA.

    • As a former prosecutor of over 1,000 DV cases, I can tell you that a significant minority of the “victims” in these cases file false claims of domestic violence and /or stalking to gain leverage in a divorce or custody case. The standard of evidence to obtain a protection order is low. Consequently, one’s gun rights can be placed in jeopardy quite easily. Especially since the unconstitutional, ex-post facto Lautenberg law of the 1990’s.

    • more like guilty until proven otherwise. We have no “due process” anymore, our rights are being trampled daily. When’s the next spaceship leaving?

      • Probably never, because using tax dollars for space exploration (and the HUGE benefits that it reaps) is better spent on pork projects and useless crap.

        Heinlein would weep at the state of our space program. And our citizenry.

  4. Dear god almighty. Harassing his wife by subjecting her to physical contact? TAKE ME, I confess. In the past 47 years I have subjected my defenseless bride to physical contact so many times it’s impossible to comprehend. WTF kind of laws are we passing which can be described like this?

    • I presume, perhaps wrongly, that in Richard D’Alauro’s case, it was physical contact of a less than salubrious nature, LarryTX, and that in your case it was physical contact that was reciprocally pleasurable to you and your wife and not such as was likely to lead her to seek an order of protection against you.

  5. OR it might have had something to do with the recent SCOTUS decision upholding misdemeanor domestic ‘violence’ (unwelcome touching) as being within the realm of making a person a ‘prohibited person’. They did not address the constitutionality of the law tho, as the petitioner did not challenge it (well, not until too late anyway, and merely as an afterthought).

    • And that’s the problem we have with laws like this. They sound good until you think about them for a minute. But most people don’t take a minute so they see a bill that takes guns away from spouse-abusers and think it’s a great idea… without considering how it will be enforced.

  6. “With the gun-rights lobby in a bit of a retreat,”

    Yeah, someone forgot to tell the “gun lobby” they were supposed to be “in a bit of a retreat.”
    Seems more like the anti-rights lobby is in a bit of a “feeding frenzy” over an isolated incident of domestic abuse but, you know, F**K my constitutional rights, and all that…

    • Right. Five minutes ago, Georgia adopted their so-called “guns everywhere” law, which for the most part just brought Georgia’s laws into alignment with those of about 30 or 40 other states, and the gun grabbers were proclaiming the decline and fall of western civilization. Five minutes later, with this bill, the gun rights movement is supposedly in retreat. With that whipsaw and warped view of reality, I’m a little concerned for the safety and stability of the antigunner crowd. Maybe someone should get a court order to have them committed for 72 hour observation.

  7. Depending on the exact definition of a “protective order”, it can be something that requires an actual finding of specific acts of domestic violence and future dangerousness (albeit by a mere preponderance of the evidence) all the way down to an ex parte temporary restraining order granted on the unsupported allegations of one person without the other person even being notified that such an order has been sought. Such ex parte TROs are routinely granted because by their terms they generally are ordering someone not to do things they legally shouldn’t be doing anyway. But it can be a real due process problem if such TROs start carrying additional disabilities with them, such as the inability to possess a firearm.

    • ^ This!!!!!

      My brother-in-law is one such victim. One day his wife flipped out and stated she was filing for divorce. Days later she stands before a judge and claims that her now estranged husband threatened her … BAM! Instant personal protection order and no more guns for my brother-in-law. He cannot possess them. He cannot hunt with them. All on the unsubstantiated claims of an estranged wife without any evidence, comment, or representation for the estranged husband.

      This situation happens thousands of times every year all across the United States. This is an abomination to the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution. Why do we stand for this?

      • The penalty for deliberately filing a false claim for the purposes of getting a protective order should be 20 years at hard labor.

        That might make them think twice about it.

        • Except it doesn’t work that way through it should. In reality the courts and Law enforcement allways takes the woman’s side even when they are clearly lying. Even if it is discovered and proved a woman lied in court, they refuse to punish them because they are female. This is just a anti-male and anti-gun law and they know it. The NRA should have the balls to fight it rather then roll over and let gun owners get screwed over.

  8. “Given the legal principle of presumed innocence”

    Not when it comes to ‘She said’ vs. ‘he said’ cases.

  9. Many states do this on a Judges order. GA does but we also allow family to store the weapons. The term is usually 14-21 days when the person can defend against the order.
    I dont agree with it but that is the law. Guilty until proven innocent.

  10. Well crazy psycho ex claims he/she were abused and threatened with gun. Your guns get taken, crazy ex comes in with gun of their own. You now have words and a phone to protect yourself from crazy ex’s gun.

  11. I’m not saying that I’m all for the new provisions, but I just wanted to clarify some details.

    A person would be prohibited from possessing a firearm if,

    “During any period of time that the person is subject to a
    15 court order issued under chapter 7.90, 7.92, 9A.46, 10.14, 10.99,
    16 26.09, 26.10, 26.26, or 26.50 RCW that:
    17 (A) Was issued after a hearing of which the person received actual
    18 notice, and at which the person had an opportunity to participate;
    19 (B) Restrains the person from harassing, stalking, or threatening
    20 an intimate partner of the person or child of the intimate partner or
    21 person, or engaging in other conduct that would place an intimate
    22 partner in reasonable fear of bodily injury to the partner or child;
    23 and
    24 (C)(I) Includes a finding that the person represents a credible
    25 threat to the physical safety of the intimate partner or child;

    So, it does require that the judge go beyond the normal restraining order in that they must find the person to be a credible threat to the other person. I know that this may still be possible in a he said she said type of case, but the proof will be in how the statute is applied.

    • Indeed, and taking someone’s guns for made up accusations may also go some way in escalating the situation, not helping at all.

  12. I may not be a legal scholar, but I thought the Bill of Rights says something about not being deprived of rights without due process of law…and just because your significant other says so isn’t due process of law. If there is a charge, file charges, give them a speedy trial, and if convicted by a jury, THEN take their guns…otherwise don’t infringe on someone’s rights just because their soon to be ex-spouse wants to get revenge. I had a friend have this happen to him. Screwed up his turkey season.

  13. Supporting domestic abusers? Not so much. Supporting due process and the doctrine that the accused is innocent until proven guilty? Absolutely. How can a person be deprived of a basic (natural) civil right without being convicted of any crime? This situation is deplorable and frightening. It’s enough to make one review the list of countries that don’t have an extradition treaty with the US and start ordering a package from Rosetta Stone.

    Not feeling very free here in the home of the brave.

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