Political candidate for the state of Georgia's 9th Congressional District, Brooke Siskin was behind bars over the weekend for not surrendering guns and ammunition she had previously been ordered to turn in. Siskin was booked into the Gwinnett County Jail on Thursday on a contempt of court charge. Siskin had been ordered to surrender the weapons and ammunition after a 12-month family violence protective order was issued four months ago. According to her website, Siskin began working in politics in 2008 as a field coordinator for Barack Obama's presidential election campaign. In 2012, she decided to run for a House of Representatives position in the Georgia Legislature. https://www.11alive.com/article/new...ested/85-2b1c13b8-6c48-49a8-880e-ba70aab99df0 So many ironies here, and this brings up more than one political issue. There are a lot of pro-gun rights supporters who are completely clueless about what's going on. This is not merely a case where guns were confiscated, nor a case of someone being punished when police found guns they were not legally allowed to have, but this was a case where a person was punished for not handing guns over. I don't know if some of you are able to see the subtle but critical difference there, and why this type of thing is so much more concerning from the standpoint of civil liberties. The state of Georgia has long been considered one of the most conservative states in the country. (Although as I've pointed out to conservatives in the past, Georgia has also long had a very authoritarian and punitive legal culture in many ways) Then there is the issue of a Democrat supporter political activist getting in trouble for not following gun laws, which is very ironic. What is she doing supporting a party that wants to take away her rights? And now she has landed in jail over that type of thing. Only except it happened in a supposedly very gun-rights friendly Republican state. Maybe things are not always so black & white as often imagined? This also raises a huge issue with Red Flag laws. Because what many gun rights supporters seem not to realize, this is going to involve more than just confiscation; it's going to involve imprisonment if the guns (which it is believed someone owns) are not handed over by the alleged owner. Since this is a contempt of court charge, the person being imprisoned is not entitled to a jury trial or grand jury hearing, as is the case with normal criminal charges. Something else many people may not be aware of.
Meaning that the united states government, and even state level governments, are on the losing side of the argument if the people outright refuse to comply.
A tad off topic but you brought it up. What do you mean by "conservative" and "long been" cause it didn't get a Republican Gov till 2000. And ATL still has had a democrat mayor since 1875. Even still, GA almost (50k votes away) from electing a socialist in 2018.
I find this article hilarious on the toes of whats going to happen to the St Louis lawyer who had his gun confiscated by the police after defending his private property and will probably be in jail soon. Also, the op left out that though this happened in the "conservative" "Authoritarian" state of GA, it happened in the liberal area of ATL which I said in my last post that ATL has been ran by democrats since 1875. So, nice framing job.
In WA you don't have to turn your guns over to the state if you have a temporary protective order placed against you. When my (now) ex had an order placed against her (previous) ex, he was allowed to instead transfer them to a friend to keep while the order was in place. This was ~5 years ago. I still don't agree with the law, but this is a better option imo as I think folks are more likely to comply, given how hard it can be to retrieve weapons from the state.