California Seizes Guns as Owners Lose Right to Keep Arms

[Roverron]

California Department of Justice police agents walk towards a house near Ontario, California on Tuesday, March 5, 2013. The agents, working for the only state-level program to confiscate illegal firearms from owners, targeted people who’d once legally purchased firearms and lost the right after being convicted of violent crimes, committed to mental institutions or hit with restraining orders.
Wearing bulletproof vests and carrying 40-caliber Glock pistols, nine California Justice Department agents assembled outside a ranch-style house in a suburb east of Los Angeles. They were looking for a gun owner who’d recently spent two days in a mental hospital.

Special Agent Supervisor John Marsh who coordinates the operations around California, said: “We’re not contacting anybody who can legally own a gun. The only people we’re contacting are people who are prohibited from owning guns.”

Lynette lips, 48, and her husband, David lips, 51, sit in their home in Upland, California on March 5, 2013. Lynette, a nurse, had to surrender three guns after spending two days in a mental hospital in December.

Weapons with ammunition seized from the home of Lynette and David lips by agents with the California Department of Justice police in Upland, California.

California Department of Justice police agents walk towards a house near Ontario, California on March 5, 2013. Photographer: Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg

Special Agent Supervisor John Marsh with the California Department of Justice drives out to seize illegal firearms near Ontario, California on March 5, 2013.

They knocked on the door and asked to come in. About 45 minutes later, they came away peacefully with three firearms.

California is the only state that tracks and disarms people with legally registered guns who have lost the right to own them, according to Attorney General Kamala Harris. Almost 20,000 gun owners in the state are prohibited from possessing firearms, including convicted felons, those under a domestic violence restraining order or deemed mentally unstable.

“What do we do about the guns that are already in the hands of persons who, by law, are considered too dangerous to possess them?” Harris said in a letter to Vice President Joe Biden after a Connecticut school shooting in December left 26 dead. She recommended that Biden, heading a White House review of gun policy, consider California as a national model.

As many as 200,000 people nationwide may no longer be qualified to own firearms, according to Garen Wintemute, director of the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California, Davis. Other states may lack confiscation programs because they don’t track purchases as closely as California, which requires most weapons sales go through a licensed dealer and be reported.
“Very, very few states have an archive of firearm owners like we have,” said Wintemute, who helped set up the program.

The no-gun list is compiled by cross-referencing files on almost 1 million handgun and assault-weapon owners with databases of new criminal records and involuntary mental-health commitments. About 15 to 20 names are added each day, according to the attorney general’s office.

Probable Cause
Merely being in a database of registered gun owners and having a “disqualifying event,” such as a felony conviction or restraining order, isn’t sufficient evidence for a search warrant, Marsh said March 5 during raids in San Bernardino County. So the agents often must talk their way into a residence to look for weapons, he said.

rest of story here: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-0...tml?cmpid=yhoo

[Boats]

Here they come

So if you end up in a hospital, does that ever expire? What happens to your guns that you payed good money for?

Damn, what a mess!

Tom

[Sheepdog]

It really irritates me when people refer to legally registered firearms. So far we do not have gun registration. My other pet peeve is people referring to standard capacity magazines as high capacity magazines. IMHO.

[Roverron]

yep, I totally agree. They just threw the 2nd, 5th, 6th and 14th amendments in the trash. If you are free to live amongst the public you should be allowed to own arms. Prohibited persons should be locked up, either in prison or a mental hospital. Who decides if you are "Mentally Competent"? And, they can't just enter the house, they can't get a warrant so they have to talk their way in!

[MajO]

My understanding is that the mental health history is evidenced by involuntary commitment. Here in PA, two neighbors can get together and have someone committed involuntarily for up to 72 hours. If the patient is found to not be mentally ill, they are discharged. If they are mentally ill, they are adjudicated mentally ill and committed for further treatment.

You can be severely mentally ill with a history of outpatient treatment. Who is defining "mentally ill" for the purpose of precluding legal ownership of firearms? Probably Shotgun Joe Biden. This move in California is not surprising. It is a foul stench, consistent with the big brother history of the state.

[Carl in GA]

If I ever let a LEO talk his way into my home for a look around without a warrant feel free to call me mentally incompetent, 'cause that's just crazy.

This slope we're on is getting mighty slippery.

[deputybpfife]

Sad, sad, sad...

[Roverron]

....and this from New Jersey.........

Herein lies the problem with the mental health angle they are pushing for... A progressive liberal politician will report people like this and say they were threatening and that she needed to seek help and have her committed all because she spoke out and read the Constitution... we are on a slippery slope if we accept their mental health aspect on background. To progressives all gun lovers are crazy and this is an open door for them to walk us through... They are trying to make her out to be unstable.....

http://www.bizpacreview.com/2013/03/...-meeting-54802

[Jubz]

Living in CA, I've got mixed opinions on this.

Generally I think it's a good thing to have firearm rights be temporarily taken away (5 years) if someone has been 5150'd (72 hr involuntary hold for danger to self, danger to others or gravely disabled). I've seen severely mentally disturbed people who should not have firearm rights until they are psychological stable.

But I've also seen folks who've been wrongfully 5150'd; the evidence did not rise to a valid 5150. Fortunately, these folks can petition the court (CAL. WIC. CODE § 8103) and get their firearms rights restored with an attorney and facts in one's favor.

5150's are important tools when properly used, and unfortunately can also be exploited. And more unfortunately, there are way too many politicians who have no real sense or even good info on firearms and firearms rights issues and will exploit/perverse whatever they can for their own political gains.

[glider]

This amounts to confiscation without ever being convicted of anything. There should be a court hearing and a ruleing made as to the competence of the individual before personal property is siezed. There are people in the mental health community that would say firearm ownership is an indication that a person is unstable, used in that context anyone that has a firearm should have it taken away. This isn't complicated, some people in government would like to sieze all privately owned firearms and will use any excuse to do so. Catch 22 ring any bells ?