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California, Naturally… Gun Confiscation Law in San Jose
It seems that the City of San Jose in Silicon Valley California has just passed, unanimously, a law taxing legal gun owners (details such as tax levels, insurance requirements, not final yet). If those legal gun owners do not comply with the tax, their gun will be confiscated. Here’s a quote from the Fox News article, emphasis mine.
But with no official registry of gun owners either locally or federally, officials recognized that enforcement of the forthcoming taxes and insurance requirements could be difficult if not impossible. So, they said they would authorize any law enforcement officers to confiscate the firearms of any gun owner they stumble upon who does not provide proof that they have complied.
If you were a legal gun owner in San Jose, would you comply with this law? San Jose to its legal gun owners: “Your papers, please.”
Published in Guns
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“Officer, I have no idea what you’re talking about. Who needs a gun in San Jose?”
That’ll last about 5 minutes when it gets to court.
Do you know the way
toout of San Jose?Someone call Dionne Warwick…
Are you confident that John Roberts would decide that it’s an “undue burden” or whatever?
It’s not like we’re talking about a tax on abortion!
It would have to wind it’s way through the 9th circuit first before going to the “Supremes”.
The law is so outlandish that it might no even survive the 9th.
Punishing law-abiding gun owners for the crimes of others seems just plain wrong. However, I don’t trust that the courts will view it the same.
If Roberts can okay ACA because it’s “just a tax” then anything is possible.
Someone should have reminded the city council of the massive non-compliance with various registration mandates that some states in the northeast United States imposed in 2013 (after the Sandy Hook school shooting). Estimates were that fewer than 20% of the people supposedly subject to the mandates complied. Also that many law enforcement chiefs declined to enforce those mandates (they didn’t want their officers to become targets).
Recommendation to residents of San Jose: Do not let any government official (including police) onto your property. If you need to deal with them, do so on the sidewalk or in the street. Once inside your house/office/warehouse/shed/garage, officials have been known to justify all sorts of searches of the owner’s belongings.
I thought you were evading the CoC filter, but I see that you’re in no need to.
This response to the story would have been filtered: σκατά.
Such a banal, boring, bureaucratic phrase: “…authorize any law enforcement officers to confiscate the firearms of any gun owner they stumble upon who does not provide proof that they have complied.” And yet it leads to dozens of immediate and potential infringements to the civil rights of San Jose’s citizens.
We already have the probable answer to this, based on other asset confiscation programs. There is no due process. The burden of proof is on the property owner. The agency is not required to safeguard the property against damage or loss, unless the agency intends to use it as evidence to establish criminal charges against the owner.
He won’t have to give an opinion, seven Justices will claim a lack of ‘standing’.
True. But this does seem to be a violation of the 14th Amendment’s Due Process Clause…such due process “demands only that the law shall not be unreasonable, arbitrary, or capricious, and that the means selected shall have a real and substantial relation to the object sought to be attained.” (Thanks, Wikipedia here)
It appears that the city government of San Jose are purposefully crafting a law that is “unreasonable, arbitrary, or capricious,” although they will likely get away with it.
So if this kind of taxation of 2A rights, when can we reinstitute the Poll Tax ?
My brother in law ran afoul of the police in Illinois over a stupid misunderstanding. No charges were ever filed. He had a FOID which was valid. Regardless, the State Police confiscated every weapon in his house. They held them for over a year refusing return them. When finally ordered to return them by the court, they returned his weapons as a completely disassembled pile of parts in a box. Thats’ how they respect the law.
Several of my friends have commented that if any type of gun registry or tax comes near here, authorities may learn that there’s been a flurry of “canoeing accidents” that left a lot of guns at the bottom of a lake.
They don’t need the law anyway. Just use Civil Asset Forfeiture. We think this gun is part of a crime. And take it.
Civil Asset Forfeiture is legal across the Land of the Free. No due process. And, some of our very own here at Ricochet defend it. Law Enforcement loves to just take things from people. The Police do not exist to stop crime. They exist only to shake down law abiding citizens. If an individual cop is not on board with that, he will soon be gone.
“Only.” Okay. So defund and dismantle, yes?
Hmmmmm… Whatever happened to “Come and get ’em”? I’m pretty sure that if I lived in San Jose, no way would I comply with that unconstitutional law. Fortunately, I don’t.
If they are going to follow the model of the police in the UK, where they concentrate on pursuing ever more esoteric Thought Crime while also arresting honest citizens for defending themselves, while refusing to arrest those involved in widespread sexual crimes against children, if they are going to be the enforcement arm of the Wokestan regime, enforcing collection of tribute for violating Green Laws, if they are going to be the enforcers of the Gun Confiscation laws in Wokestan, etc etc etc, then yes.
The smaller the better.
I would 1) not comply, and 2) move out as quickly as possible . . .
Besides the 2nd Amendment, there are private property laws and the California Constitution too. It won’t last long.
Anyone who’s still in San Jose after what’s already been happening, may not leave no matter what else happens.
Just wondering if San Jose is a sanctuary city?