The Slippery Slope is one issue that frightens me the most.
The federal government has asked a Fifth Circuit panel to rule it may legally disarm citizens under domestic violence protective orders without any explicit finding that the person poses a credible threat of violence. Wait, did I read that correctly? Before we can even discuss the facts and history of the case, we have to ask ourselves if society and the judicial system have been dumbed down so far that we can’t see problems with this on its face. The first hurdle that the judicial system must be intellectually accountable for is how a domestic violence protective order can be issued against a person who has not been found to pose a violent threat in the first place. Since this makes zero sense in the universe we occupy, I’ll share an example of how the judicial system has intentionally perverted definitions to suit a more sinister agenda.
California family court law allows judges to issue an ex parte domestic violence restraining order against an individual for what the state refers to as destroying “the mental or emotional calm of the other party.” Ex parte means that one party asks the court for an order without notice to the other or the opportunity for that party to respond. Ex parte applications are meant for use in emergencies without enough time to hear a regularly noticed motion. I am aware of a case in which a husband spoke with his wife regarding the family possibly relocating to a different state. The wife refused to entertain the conversation, and over the next year, her husband’s periodic attempts to introduce the subject were used to establish the destruction of her “mental or emotional calm.” A domestic violence restraining order was issued, and the husband lost his gun rights. This intentionality perverts the definition of “violence.”
While the Fifth Circuit case does not deal with civil orders like those in family court, the same principle applies. It is irresponsible and intellectually devoid for a judge to issue a domestic violence restraining order without an explicit finding that the person poses a credible threat of violence. The second issue is the gaping outright admission from the government that it wants to disarm citizens and doesn’t care if there exists a finding to justify it. The case at hand began in May 2022 when Litsson Antonio Perez-Gallan was stopped by border patrol agents at a checkpoint in Texas while carrying a firearm. Having a restraining order against him due to charges in Kentucky of assaulting his wife, he was indicted for violating the Lautenberg Amendment that prohibits individuals under domestic violence protective orders from possessing firearms under federal law. A Texas federal judge, however, threw out the firearm case against Perez-Gallan, finding the Lautenberg Amendment in violation of the Second Amendment. That’s when the government appealed to the Fifth Circuit. The Lautenberg Amendment applies to protective orders where the judge finds a person poses a credible threat and those where the order simply prohibits the use of or threats of violence against the protected party, with the distinction aptly argued by Shane O’Neal, Perez-Gallan’s attorney. O’Neal offered a hypothetical yet real scenario in which individuals have voluntarily agreed to a protective order.
By Darwin Nercesian
