Lautenberg Amendment

[zach_]

Any lawyers out there today?

Does this law permanently prevent a person convicted of domestic violence from having a gun in Texas? class A (ASSAULT CAUSES BODILY INJURY FAMILY VIOLENCE)
A former co-worker does not want to commit a crime by trying to buy a gun, or pay a lawyer to find out. So he asked me... like I know. Just want to help if I can.
State law looks like he can have guns 5 years after being released from probation.
Does the Lautenberg Amendment prevent him from buying the gun in the first place?
I know he is not going to the range with me until we both know for sure either way it goes, after what I read.

 

[Tom Servo]

Federal law still applies. The prohibition is for life. I wish I had a better answer, but that's it.

Does the Lautenberg Amendment prevent him from buying the gun in the first place?

Yes. It prohibits the very possession of a firearm. He can be prosecuted for handling it at the range, or at the sales counter of a gun shop.

 

[Mike40-11]

Oh it's for life and its even stupider than you think. It even applies to military. We used to have to do screenings to find out if it applied to anyone in our unit.

If commanders are aware of an applicable conviction, they are not allowed to issue weapons to a soldier. They have to be assigned duties that don't need a firearm. But "no adverse personnel action".

Yeah, it's cool, you can still be in the Army. Can't use any weapons though.

 

[44 AMP]

I have a fond spot for the Lautenberg law, #1, because is it SOO BAD, but mostly for #2, because it is the only gun control law in living memory that was written and passed, that applies equally to EVERYONE.

Under that law, for once, the police and the military have to suffer the same as everyone else. There is NO exemption for active (or retired) police officers or military personnel, EVEN IN THE PERFORMANCE OF THEIR DUTIES!!!!!!

The Clinton administration bragged how their policies (and laws) "put thousands of more cops on the streets", implying they were making us safer, because of that.

The Lautenberg Amendment actually, literally took thousands of cops OFF the streets, by making it illegal for them to possess a gun, anywhere, any time, for the rest of their lives!

The Act was (I believe) carefully crafted to cover as many people as possible, the wording is exquisitely explicit to achieve just that purpose.

It created an entirely NEW class of prohibited person, and made the prohibition PERMANENT. It is the poster child for the law of unintended consequences (and some of us are not so sure the consequences are actually unintended..)

Sold to us as one thing, it actually did lots, and lots more. "Nobody wants a wife beater to get a gun", right? with this kind of slogan, how could anyone vote against it???

First, it strips us of a fundamental, Constitutionally enumerated right for a misdemeanor crime (I am not aware of any other law that does that), it does it for life, with no appeal process I am aware of.

The "crime" of domestic violence covers a huge range of behavior. Lautenberg chose a standard, and with that standard, reduced virtually all misdemeanor DV to the same thing.

IF the crime you are convicted of (or plead guilty to) has a penalty of more than one year jail time, you are a prohibited person, for life.

It does not matter at all what sentence you actually received, every case is equal in Lautenberg's eye.

AND, Lautenberg applies retroactively to the date of your birth. If you were convicted of a DV that meets Lautenberg standard, EVER, you are now a prohibited person. No matter what your job is, either. There is no "can have a weapon on duty" exemption, for anyone. (for that standard, I do applaud Lautenberg, for everything else, I think its a bad law)

Police work is high stress, police marriages have a failure rate much higher than average, and instances of some degree of domestic violence have been common for as long as people have paid attention to that kind of thing.

MISDEMEANOR crime, commonly plead guilty to, punishment being a fine, and maybe a night or three in jail. No big deal. Until Lautenberg.

Now the cop (and everyone else) that had a fight with a spouse, ex-spouse, etc., and the cops got called, charges were made, and the matter was plead to, and settled with a $100 fine, decades ago, is now a prohibited person, for life, IF the possible sentence was a year or more.

LOTS of cops, tens of thousands (possibly many times that) across the country instantly became prohibited persons for something that happened that never mattered before. And if you cannot legally carry a gun, you aren't going to be working on the street as a police officer.

So, ONE effect was to actually remove police officers from street duty.

The same for military personnel. NO exemption in the law for active duty.

Any idea how many career paths this closes?

Lautenberg applies severe felony level permanent punishment to select misdemeanor crimes, applies that punishment to crimes committed before Lautenberg became law (if this isn't a violation of the ex post facto principle, its darn close), applies that punishment irrespective of what the actual sentence was.

It is truly a great leveler of the playing field. Just not, in my opinion, in any kind of a good way.

 

[Tom Servo]

AND, Lautenberg applies retroactively to the date of your birth. If you were convicted of a DV that meets Lautenberg standard, EVER, you are now a prohibited person

The ex post facto element is probably the most egregious from a legal standpoint. We've brought at least three legal challenges to it on those grounds, and SCOTUS has refused to hear all three.

 

[Frank Ettin]

...if this isn't a violation of the ex post facto principle, its darn close...

But let's not follow that dead end trail. As pernicious as Lautenberg might be for various reasons, it is not going to be invalid as an ex post facto law.

So let's have a look at some court opinions on whether a law is or is not ex post facto and why or why not.

So in Cases v. United States, 131 F.2d 916 (1st Cir. 1942)) the First Circuit told us why the the Federal Firearms Act is not expost facto (at 920 -921, emphasis added, footnotes omitted):

...The Federal Firearms Act is prospective only. That is, under it no one in the class described may be convicted for having transported or received either a firearm or ammunition at any time prior to its passage. In the ordinary sense, then, it is not an ex post facto law. But the appellant contends that it is an ex post facto law as applied to him because it imposes upon him an additional penalty for a crime which he committed and for which he was convicted before the Act was passed. The cases upon which he relies are [Cummings v. Missouri, 4 Wall. 277, 18 L.Ed. 356; Ex Parte Garland, 4 Wall. 333, 377, 18 L.Ed. 366, and Pierce v. Carskadon, 16 Wall. 234, 21 L.Ed. 276.

The Supreme Court in Cummings v. Missouri and in Pierce v. Carskadon struck down as ex post facto laws and therefore unconstitutional under Article I § 10, provisions of a state constitution and of a state statute, respectively, requiring the taking of a test oath containing affirmations of past loyalty to the United States in acts and deeds, and even loyalty in words, desires and sympathies, in the first case as a pre-requisite to pursuing certain professions and avocations, and in the second case as a prerequisite to filing a motion for a rehearing in a judicial proceeding of a specified type. In Ex Parte Garland the Supreme Court struck down as an ex post facto law, and therefore unconstitutional under Article I § 9, an act of Congress requiring the taking of a similar but less far reaching oath as a prerequisite to admission to practice before the Supreme Court of the United States. At first glance these cases may seem to support the contention of the appellant, but an examination of the opinions shows that they do not. In these cases the Supreme Court held the legislation invalid because it concluded that the test prescribed was not a test of fitness to practice the professions or avocations in question or to file a motion in court, and so that the legislation, in effect, imposed either an added punishment for a past crime or a punishment for a past act which was not punishable under the law as it stood when the act was done. In the dissenting opinions in these cases it is cogently argued that the statutes under consideration were not ex post facto laws at all, but we need not enter that controversy because even under the rule established by the court in those cases, as it was later developed, we do not think that the Federal Firearms Act is ex post facto.

In Dent v. West Virginia, 129 U.S. 114, 128, 9 S.Ct. 231, 235, 32 L.Ed. 623, cited and quoted with approval in Hawker v. New York, 170 U.S. 189, 198, 18 S.Ct. 573, 42 L.Ed. 1002, the Supreme Court, after noting that the doctrine of Cummings v. Missouri had been affirmed in Pierce v. Carskadon, said with reference to the Cummings and Garland cases "They only determine that one who is in the enjoyment of a right to preach and teach the Christian religion as a priest of a regular church, and one who has been admitted to practice the profession of the law, cannot be deprived of the right to continue in the exercise of their respective professions by the exaction from them of an oath as to their past conduct, respecting matters which have no connection with such professions". The court then went on to say: "The constitution of Missouri and the act of congress in question in those cases were designed to deprive parties of their right to continue in their professions for past acts, or past expressions of desires and sympathies, many of which had no bearing upon their fitness to continue in their professions."

In Hawker v. New York, supra, a case in which the Supreme Court upheld as valid a statute of New York which prevented one who had been convicted of a felony from thereafter practicing medicine, even though the conviction ante-dated the passage of the statute, the test is indicated by which the validity of a statute of the sort under consideration may be determined. In this case the court clearly indicates that the test is not the form in which the legislation is cast, but its substance, and that if, regardless of form, the statute in substance inflicts an additional punishment for a past offense, it is bad as an ex post facto law. But, on the other hand, this case establishes that if the statute is a bona fide regulation of conduct which the legislature has power to regulate, it is not bad as an ex post facto law even though the right to engage in the conduct is made to depend upon past behaviour, even behaviour before the passage of the regulatory act. This case also establishes that conviction of a crime may be made the conclusive test of past behaviour.

Thus if the past conduct which is made the test of the right to engage in some activity in the future is not the kind of conduct which indicates unfitness to participate in the activity, it will be assumed, as it must be, that the purpose of the statute is to impose an additional penalty for the past conduct. If, however, the past conduct can reasonably be said to indicate unfitness to engage in the future activity the assumption will be otherwise. So, in conformity with this principle, the cases cited above establish that a state cannot make past loyalty to the United States extending to words, desires and sympathies a test of fitness to teach, preach, practice law, or file a motion in court, and Congress cannot make such loyalty the test of fitness to practice before the Supreme Court of the United States. The constitutional provisions which prevent the passage of ex post facto laws by either a state or the federal government bar the way. But, on the other hand, a state can make conviction for a felony a test of fitness to practice medicine.

By the test indicated the Federal Firearms Act is clearly not an ex post facto law invalid under Article I, § 9, of the Constitution. Looking at the Act as a whole it is abundantly plain that in enacting it Congress was in no way interested in imposing an additional penalty upon those who at some time in the past had been convicted of a crime of violence. In the Act Congress sought to protect the public by preventing the transportation and possession of firearms and ammunition by those who, by their past conduct, had demonstrated their unfitness to be entrusted with such dangerous instrumentalities, and certainly no one can seriously contend that the test of unfitness which Congress established is irrelevant to this purpose. Surely it is reasonable to conclude that one who has been convicted of a crime of violence is the kind of a person who cannot safely be trusted to possess and transport arms and ammunition, and the fact that he may have reformed or that in some cases the test may operate harshly, does not invalidate the test. Hawker v. New York, 170 U.S. 189, 197, 18 S. Ct. 573, 42 L.Ed. 1002. See, also, McDonald v. Massachusetts, 180 U.S. 311, 21 S. Ct. 389, 45 L.Ed. 542....

In De Veau v. Braisted, 363 U.S. 144, 80 S.Ct. 1146, 4 L.Ed.2d 1109 (1960), The Supreme Court distinguished between a law enacted to punish past conduct and a law intended regulate present conduct (at 160):

...Finally, § 8 of the Waterfront Commission Act is neither a bill of attainder nor an ex post facto law. ...The mark of an ex post facto law is the imposition of what can fairly be designated punishment for past acts. The question in each case where unpleasant consequences are brought to bear upon an individual for prior conduct, is whether the legislative aim was to punish that individual for past activity, or whether the restriction of the individual comes about as a relevant incident to a regulation of a present situation, such as the proper qualifications for a profession. See Hawker v. People of State of New York, 170 U.S. 189, 18 S.Ct. 573, 42 L.Ed. 1002. No doubt is justified regarding the legislative purpose of § 8. The proof is overwhelming that New York sought not to punish ex-felons, but to devise what was felt to be a much-needed scheme of regulation of the waterfront, and for the effectuation of that scheme it became important whether individuals had previously been convicted of a felony....

Rejecting a challenge on ex post facto grounds of the Lautenberg Amendment, the Federal District Court for the Northern District of Georgia wrote (National Association of Government Employees v. Barrett, 968 F. Supp. 1564, at 1575 - 1576):

...Plaintiffs' claim that § 922(g)(9) violates the Ex Post Facto Clause fails because § 922(g)(9) is not retrospective.

Plaintiffs' argument that § 922(g)(9) is retrospective is based on the fact that § 922(g)(9) prohibits an individual convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence from possessing a firearm even if the individual's conviction occurred prior to the effective date of § 922(g)(9). Defendants counter this argument by pointing out that the activity prohibited by § 922(g)(9) is the post-enactment possession of a firearm, not the pre-enactment misdemeanor crime of domestic violence. Defendants' argument comports with the decision of United States v. Brady, 26 F.3d 282 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 513 U.S. 894, 115 S.Ct. 246, 130 L.Ed.2d 168 (1994) In Brady, the Second Circuit addressed an ex post facto challenge to § 922(g)(1) whereby a defendant argued that his 1951 felony conviction could not serve as a an element of the offense prohibited by that section of the gun control laws. In rejecting defendant's challenge, the court held:

Regardless of the date of [defendant's] prior conviction, the crime of being a felon in possession of a firearm was not committed until after the effective date of the statute .... by [the date of defendant's conviction under § 922(g)(1), defendant] had more than adequate notice that it was illegal for him to possess a firearm because of his status as a convicted felon, and he could have conformed his conduct to the requirements of the law. Therefore, the Ex Post Facto clause was not violated by the use of a 1951 felony conviction as a predicate for a violation of § 922(g).

Brady, 26 F.3d at 291. Cf. Landgraf v. USI Film Products, 511 U.S. 244, 269 n. 24, 114 S.Ct. 1483, 1499 n. 24, 128 L.Ed.2d 229 (1994) ("[A] statute `is not made retroactive merely because it draws upon antecedent facts for its operation.'") (quoting Cox v. Hart, 260 U.S. 427, 434-37, 43 S.Ct. 154, 157, 67 L.Ed. 332 (1922)); United States v. Allen, 886 F.2d 143, 146 (8th Cir.1989) ("So long as the actual crime for which a defendant is being sentenced occurred after the effective date of the new statute, there is no ex post facto violation.")....

In Enos, et al v. Holder, et al. Case #2:10-CV-02911-JAM-EFB, filed on 10-29-2010 in the US District Court of the Eastern District of California, Don Kilmer, a well known, experienced, skilled and knowledgeable lawyer, did not raise ex post facto as part of his challenge, on behalf of several plaintiffs, of the Lautenberg Amendment. If that would have been a fruitful basis for challenge, he no doubt would have used it as a basis for a claim for relief in addition to the nine claims for relief he sets out in the initial complaint.

The Lautenberg Amendment has been challenged in other litigation and upheld at the Circuit Court level (see U.S. v. Hartsock, 347 F.3d 1 (1st Cir., 2003); U.S. v. Chester, 628 F.3d 673 (4th Cir., 2010); U.S. v. Skoien, 587 F.3d 803 (7th Cir., 2009); and U.S. v. Booker, 644 F.3d 12 (1st Cir., 2011)). In none of those cases was ex post facto raised. Are we to conclude that the plaintiff's lawyer in each of those cases was so incompetent as to ignore a potentially meritorious line of attack on the federal law?

To recap in terms of the Lautenberg Amendment --

1. Ex post facto essentially means being subject to criminal sanctions today for an act performed in the past which was legal when performed. That is different from from being subject to criminal liability for the continued possession of a thing after the effective date of a law making that thing illegal for you to possess.
   
   
2. In terms of the Lautenberg amendment, it may be understood as follows:
   
   
   • One may have possessed a gun after having been convicted of a domestic violence misdemeanor and prior to the effective date of the Lautenberg amendment.
     
     
   • If that person had sold the gun prior to the effective date of the Lautenberg amendment, he would have no criminal liability under the Lautenberg amendment for the act committed and concluded before that amendment became effective.
     
     
   • If however the Lautenberg amendment purported to make criminal that prior possession of a gun no longer possessed, it would be ex post facto and violate the Constitutional prohibition.
     
     
   • But instead the act made illegal under the Lautenberg amendment is the possession of a gun after the effective date of the amendment by someone convicted of a domestic violence misdemeanor. The illegal conduct, possession of the gun, must occur after the effective date of the law.
     
     
   • What is unlawful under Lautenberg is the continued possession after Lautenberg became effective, not the possession of a gun prior to the amendment's effective date.

 

[44 AMP]

Correct me if I am wrong, please.

Lautenberg avoids technically being ex post facto, because it relies on an actual conviction, in the past. What it does is add a penalty (loss of gun rights) to that conviction, effective after Lautenberg passage.

So, if the misdemeanor DV was punished by $100 fine, in 1963, having a gun between then and Lautenberg passage was not a crime. After passage, it is.

Retroactive penalty, sort of.

 

[Frank Ettin]

...Retroactive penalty, sort of.

Not if a court concludes that deny possession of guns or ammunition to persons convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence is permissible regulation.

As the First Circuit said in Cases, supra (at 921):

...Looking at the Act as a whole it is abundantly plain that in enacting it Congress was in no way interested in imposing an additional penalty upon those who at some time in the past had been convicted of a crime of violence. In the Act Congress sought to protect the public by preventing the transportation and possession of firearms and ammunition by those who, by their past conduct, had demonstrated their unfitness to be entrusted with such dangerous instrumentalities...

 

[zach_]

Thanks everybody. The former co-worker did have a lapse in common sense by simply not walking out of the domestic situation months before the incident occurred. There were no kids involved in the relationship, both of them were self sufficient.
There is no excuse for domestic violence of any kind. He was guilty, and has been/will be paying the price for the rest of his life. His lack of being able to have guns is just one of the consequences.

I hope our younger shooters out there read this thread. Men and women alike.

 

[natman]

I understand that Lautenberg is not technically an ex post facto law, but it certainly is an ex post facto penalty.

Imagine the outcry if you got a speeding ticket 20 years ago, paid the fine and one day the sheriff showed up at your door and hauled you off to jail because it was decided retroactively that speeding now carried a jail sentence. Had you known that you would have fought the ticket in court, but it's too late for that now.

That's exactly what Lautenberg does, and while it doesn't violate the letter of ex post facto law, it certainly violates the spirit, with a good measure of double jeopardy thrown in. (again in spirit, I realize that it's not technically DJ because you pled guilty.).

It's a bad principle, which once again illustrates how distortion of cherished legal principles is tolerated as long as it is directed at gun owners.

 

[44 AMP]

Lautenberg is also a shining example of zero tolerance at it's "finest".

EVERYONE is equally guilty under the law.

The fellow who shoved his wife in an argument 40 years ago, pled guilty and paid a small fine, ON THE ADVICE OF COUNCIL, (which was valid at the time), and has lived happily married ever since, now gets the same "punishment" as the serial abuser who beat his wife, sending her to the hospital 6 times in the last 4 years....

It is absolutely equal treatment under the law (and therefor constitutional, in that regard) but it is neither fair, nor just.

And then there is the whole concept that somehow domestic violence deserves more punishment than any other equal level of violence.

You lose your right for LIFE for something that does not reach the level of a felony. For something that, if it happened with a stranger, would NOT cost you your gun rights for life.

About the only thing Lautenberg seems to lack is a requirement for the convicted MISDEMEANOR DV abuser to wear a special badge on their clothes or have a scarlet letter burned into their foreheads.

 

[kilimanjaro]

If you think Lautenberg is bad, wait until your ex-girlfriend, ex-wife, or a co-worker can claim you're a mental case, based on nothing, and then watch your gun rights, and guns, go down the road in the sheriff's van.

 

[44 AMP]

wait until your ex-girlfriend, ex-wife, or a co-worker can claim you're a mental case, based on nothing, and then watch your gun rights, and guns, go down the road in the sheriff's van.

They can already do that now! With a restraining order. All they have to do is lie to a judge, pay a small fee, and there goes your property, and your rights, for the duration of the order (typically at least one year)

Now, with a restraining order, you DO have the right to give your side of the story, BEFORE the process is finalized, and if the judge believe YOU, then you can get your guns BACK. But count on it, they WILL be taken (and likely damaged in the process) and you WILL have to fight to get them back, if their return is allowed.

And note that there are jurisdictions in the country that will not give you your guns back, no matter what. Any other property, they will return, but not guns. The will cut you a check, instead, and say you are now adequately compensated. Some of my firearms have been in my family for over 100 years, no amount of mere money, dispensed from the bench, out of the public trough could EVER compensate me for their loss, particularly their loss due to a capricious slander and the STATE's automatic reaction to it.

Even if the money came from the personal pockets of those actually responsible, (and, it wouldn't) it could never be enough.

The focus on "mental health" as a way of reducing the "gun violence" problem (and to be clear, "gun violence" is their term, and implies the gun is somehow responsible and the user is not), focus on mental health is NOT going to solve the problem, and could easily send us further down the slippery slope to totalitarian rule.

Changes to our mental health care system are drastically needed, and long overdue, but beware the slippery slope of believing the mass shooters are "mentally ill" in the standard sense.

Taken to the extreme (and there are always those who will try to take it there), any dissenting thought from the govt/society approved "normal" makes you "mentally ill". Possibly someday, your belief in individual rights will be classified as a delusion. For your own, and public safety, you will not be allowed to roam about loose with such a tragic "condition".

Sound like a bad SciFi plot? (or even a good one?) scoff not, we are already on our way there, if we allow it. The groundwork is being prepared as we speak, and has been for some time.

I read a piece this morning (since pulled from the headline page) describing how the shooter's mother "hid her love of weapons behind a joyful exterior" (or something very close to that).

THIS is the kind of attitude we are up against. If you enjoy firearms, they feel there is something wrong with you. Boiled down, quite simply they feel that if you like guns, you MUST be mentally ill. The only discussion they entertain is how damaged and dangerous you are.

They will carry this over to any and every variance from the established groupthink standard, if allowed to do so. You can already see it numerous places.

The mass killers are NOT mentally ill, in the usual sense. The system will not identify them, will not give us "warnings", unless they themselves cooperate with the system. Some of the killers had contact with the system and "slipped through the cracks", which is a cover up for the fact that the doctors involved were quite simply WRONG about the danger they posed.

And then the other side of the coin, the individual who was never in trouble with the law, never in the mental health system, someone who was just a "little odd" and never thought to be a danger, until they snapped and went on a killing spree. NO background check can ID these people, no amount of testing can ID them, no mental health professional can, with certainty, point them out, let alone help them avoid becoming spree killers, as indeed they themselves may not know or realize it, until they snap.

What amount of dark brooding fantasies are enough to justify the govt taking over your life? People get rich and famous writing and making movies with these themes, they MUST think them up before hand. Is the difference between a writer like Steven King and a mass killer in a schoolyard simple a roll of the dice???

Is / Can the gov or society come up with a valid "grip on reality" test? If even if they could, how hard would it be to give them the answers they expect???

"the more you kill, the more famous you are" is a though that shows up often in the writings the mass killers have left behind. For some of them, it appears to have been a "game", but one played with real people's lives as pawns, and dead bodies as points.

While people who do this are unquestionably "sick", they are not the general run of "mentally ill", and our system is not set up to deal with them, or even recognize them most of the time.

Saying gun ownership is the problem is simplistic and ignorant. I would remind everyone that the greatest mass murders in the US (by body count) did NOT INVOLVE ONE SINGLE GUN OR BULLET.

 

[Gary L. Griffiths]

As the First Circuit said in Cases, supra (at 921):

Quote:
...Looking at the Act as a whole it is abundantly plain that in enacting it Congress was in no way interested in imposing an additional penalty upon those who at some time in the past had been convicted of a crime of violence. In the Act Congress sought to protect the public by preventing the transportation and possession of firearms and ammunition by those who, by their past conduct, had demonstrated their unfitness to be entrusted with such dangerous instrumentalities...

Same principle as the 1968 gun control act that made possession by convicted felons illegal.

 

[rkbanet]

"I understand that Lautenberg is not technically an ex post facto law, but it certainly is an ex post facto penalty."

The law is IMHO obviously NOT ex-post facto... which is defined as...

A law that makes illegal an act that was legal when committed, increases the penalties for an infraction after it has been committed, or changes the rules of evidence to make conviction easier.

The penalty is not for the past act, but is for the current or future act of possessing a firearm. It would be ex-post facto if it made it illegal for you to possess the firearm BEFORE the law went into effect. For example

Conviction - Jan 1

Law goes into effect Jan 15

If you could be prosecuted for possessing a firearm on Jan 2 to Jan 15 it would be ex-post facto. If you can only be prosecuted for possession after Jan 15 it is not.

 

[natman]

"I understand that Lautenberg is not technically an ex post facto law, but it certainly is an ex post facto penalty."

The law is IMHO obviously NOT ex-post facto... which is defined as...

A law that makes illegal an act that was legal when committed, increases the penalties for an infraction after it has been committed, or changes the rules of evidence to make conviction easier.

The penalty is not for the past act, but is for the current or future act of possessing a firearm. It would be ex-post facto if it made it illegal for you to possess the firearm BEFORE the law went into effect. For example

Conviction - Jan 1

Law goes into effect Jan 15

If you could be prosecuted for possessing a firearm on Jan 2 to Jan 15 it would be ex-post facto. If you can only be prosecuted for possession after Jan 15 it is not.

Thank you for the definition of ex post facto.

However, I'm not sure what part of "I understand that Lautenberg is not technically an ex post facto law" prompted you to post this.

But since you did, let's go over some of the points you've brought up.

[an ex post facto law is] A law that makes illegal an act that was legal when committed, increases the penalties for an infraction after it has been committed, or changes the rules of evidence to make conviction easier.

Lautenberg definitely increases the penalty of a misdemeanor DV conviction after it has been committed. I suspect that this would fall under double jeopardy rather than ex post facto, but it's your definition.

The penalty is not for the past act, but is for the current or future act of possessing a firearm.

Nonsense. Lautenberg prohibits firearms ownership for misdemeanor DV convictions that occurred before Lautenberg was passed. How is that not a penalty for a past act?

 

[natman]

The penalty is not for the past act, but is for the current or future act of possessing a firearm.

It took me a while to figure out what you were referring to as "the penalty". You are referring to the felony that would be committed if someone who had a DV conviction failed to give up their firearms.

That would indeed be neither ex post facto nor double jeopardy.

The penalty I'm talking about is having to give up one's firearms itself, which IS a penalty added on after conviction. I have heard some argue that giving up one's firearms does not constitute a penalty. This preposterous bit of doublespeak could only be uttered by somebody who doesn't have to do it.

We're talking about forfeiture of a constitutional right explicitly recognized in the Bill of Rights. It's bad enough that it happens because of a misdemeanor, to have it imposed retroactively is beyond the pale.

 

[Dreaming100Straight]

We're talking about forfeiture of a constitutional right explicitly recognized in the Bill of Rights. It's bad enough that it happens because of a misdemeanor, to have it imposed retroactively is beyond the pale.

Go back and look at all the cases holding that the right can be regulated. As for it being lost as a result of a misdemeanor, we all know that many felonies are reduced to misdemeanors and many domestic charges are simply dropped by the loving spouse - too many times with tragic consequences.

What was O.J.'s track record before he slaughtered Nicole and Goodman? I don't believe he even got a misdemeanor DV charged.

 

[natman]

Go back and look at all the cases holding that the right can be regulated. As for it being lost as a result of a misdemeanor, we all know that many felonies are reduced to misdemeanors and many domestic charges are simply dropped by the loving spouse - too many times with tragic consequences.

I take it you think it's OK for a constitutional right to be forfeited for a misdemeanor. You're going to have to go into a good deal more detail why beyond merely saying "the right can be regulated" to make an argument that's remotely convincing.

What was O.J.'s track record before he slaughtered Nicole and Goodman? I don't believe he even got a misdemeanor DV charged.

It's amazing how easy it is to make these judgements in hindsight. It's a bit trickier when you have to predict behavior in advance - while respecting the civil rights of citizens who have every right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty.

So what would you have done with OJ before the killings?

I realize that this may come as a surprise, but there are millions of law abiding gun owners who insist on having their rights respected. If they were actual criminals the ACLU would be all over them to make sure the constitution was applied to them to the Nth degree. Alas, gun owners don't get that sort of support from them.

 

[Dreaming100Straight]

Yes, there are millions who insist on having their rights respected. Then there are those that don't understand that there are other rights and the rights of all need to be respected.

Presuming innocence until proof of guilt is made after due process doesn't mean ignoring the plights of female, and sometimes male, DV victims

Ar you even aware about the domestic violence calls about OJ before he killed Nicole? I don't know what the law is/was in Cali then, but I believe some states mandate that the police arrest someone on a DV call.