New York’s Governor Weighs In To Support “Pre-Crime”

[Michael Ejercito]

https://ethicsalarms.com/2023/07/11/new-yorks-governor-weighs-in-to-support-pre-crime/

New York’s Governor Weighs In To Support “Pre-Crime”
JULY 11, 2023 / JACK MARSHALL


“Pre-crime,” nicely eviscerated in the Spielberg-Tom Cruise film
“Minority Report,” is now a popular concept among anti-Second Amendment
activists. New York Governor Kathy Hochul (or, more likely, a
ghost-writer with her approval) has issued an op-ed in the New York
Times with the emotion-based headline, “The Supreme Court Case That Has
Me Worried, for Survivors and for My State.” Anyone capable of reading
it with their critical thinking skills activated should be able to
recognize Hochul’s arguments as the deceptive and manipulative tactics
they are.

Here we go…

Hochul: “…I’m so concerned about the outcome of an upcoming Supreme
Court case, United States v. Rahimi, which next year will decide whether
to uphold a gun safety law that protects survivors of domestic violence.”


That’s not what the case is about. What is at issue is whether a
constitutional right can be removed from an individual based on what
they might do, even though they haven’t done it. This is the essence of
“pre-crime,” punishing citizens based on speculation, statistics, or the
actions of other. It is unconstitutional, and, except to those who
neither respect nor understand the founding document, obviously so. The
Roberts Court will uphold the Fifth Circuit’s decision that government
cannot prevent an alleged perpetrator of domestic abuse who has had a
protective order issued against him (or her) from possessing a
firearm….as it should. Felons are already prohibited from owning guns. A
conviction of a serious crime justifiably forfeits the right to bear
arms, just as a conviction can forfeit the rights to liberty and the
pursuit of happiness. Hochel and her like want to use subjective
criteria to decide who gets to keep their rights.

Hochul: “By overturning a federal law aimed at protecting survivors of
abuse, the appeals court put forth an outrageous legal theory that
claims individuals with domestic violence orders have a constitutional
right to possess a gun.”

To aspiring totalitarians like Hochul, holding that the state can only
inflict punishment on a citizen when there is a charge, a trial, legal
representation and the opportunity to be acquitted by a jury is “an
outrageous legal theory.” It is, in fact, a basic tenet of the justice
system and criminal law.

Hochul: “The Supreme Court has a choice: It can lean into the dangerous
Fifth Circuit theory that guns cannot be regulated for the purpose of
protecting survivors of domestic violence, or it can uphold federal law
that keeps guns out of the hands of dangerous individuals.”

That one is laughable. Everyone knows–including Hochul—that federal law
does not keep guns out of the hands of dangerous individuals, because
the really dangerous individuals pay no attention to the law. More
significant still is the deliberate vagueness of “dangerous.” If someone
can have their Second Amendment rights removed because the government
thinks he or she is “dangerous,” what stops this from being a precedent
to justify First Amendment rights being removed? After all, speech makes
progressives feel “unsafe.” How do Hochul and her Borg-mates distinguish
between their opposition to stop-and-frisk policies, which permit
loosening of the Fourth Amendment guarantee against unreasonable
searches in order to apprehend “dangerous individuals” based on police
assumptions regarding the race, demeanor or actions, and their advocacy
of suspending Second Amendment rights based on another individual’s
complaints? They can’t, and Hochul doesn’t even try. Her argument is
aimed at emotion, bypassing law and honesty.

Hochul: “In the spring of 2022, we bolstered our state’s red flag laws,
getting guns away from people like domestic abusers who pose a risk to
themselves or others and closing loopholes that made the tragedies in
Buffalo and in Uvalde, Texas possible. As a result, courts have issued
roughly 9,000 extreme-risk orders of protection in the past year, up
from 1,400 in the preceding two and a half years. Depending on the scope
of the court’s decision in Rahimi, these protections could be at risk as
well.”

Those aren’t “protections,” they are breaches of individual rights. Red
flag laws are pure pre-crime, and unconstitutional as well as unethical.
They also represent a treacherous slippery slope. The key phrase above
is “people like domestic abusers.” Who gets to make the determination
that someone is “dangerous” even though they have been convicted of no
crime? The answer is “the good people who know best,” like Governor Hochul.

No one should trust someone who puts her name an op-ed like this to have
control over our individual rights.