Rep. Dubitsky on HB 5054

Rep. Dubitsky

Yesterday was a long and emotionally-charged session at the legislature. We debated a number of bills and amendments intended to protect domestic violence victims from abuse through the Temporary Restaining Order system. The Democrats' bill, HB 5054 was seriously flawed in a number of signigicant ways. Most importantly, it puts some domestic violence victims at increased risk of abuse by allowing an abuser to disarm the victim of the very firearm she may be using to protect herself against her abuser. It does so by requiring a recipient of a TRO turn her firearms over to the police or to sell them without the ability to first have a heaing in court in violation of the victim's 5th and 14th Amendment Due Process rights. The Democrats' bill lacked the requirement for Probable Cause and allowed the TRO recipient to be served by simply leaving a copy of the TRO at the recipient's house. 

My bill, HB 5597 (see below) and several amendments I introduced during yesterday's debate, resolved these Constitutional violations by using the Risk Warrant Statute through the criminal court. If a victim is beaten and threatened with death or is in immediate danger from a domestic abuser, the victim should be given the option of having the police investigate and obtain a warrant to seize the abuser's firearms without the delay (and unconstitutional lack of due process) associated with the civil TRO system.

My bill protects all domestic violence victims while protecting the Constitutional rights of both parties. The Democtrats' bill puts some domestic violence victims at increased risk by violating their Constitutional rights to disarm them.

Unfortunately, the Democrats defeated all of my amendments and passed their dangerous bill. I will post the video of some of the debate shortly.

AN ACT PROTECTING DOMESTIC VIOLENCE VICTIMS SEEKING RESTRAINING ORDERS