A Federal Appeals Court ruled just yesterday that the government cannot in
fact stop people who have a domestic violence,
restraining orders out against them from owning guns.
Let's backtrack and see how we got to this point that the Fifth Circuit Court could
make this determination and change so many state level laws all at one time.
So police in Texas found a rifle and a pistol at the home of a man who was
the subject of a civil protective order that banded from harassing, stalking, or
threatening his ex-girlfriend and their child.
The order also banned him from having guns.
Federal grand jury indicted the man who pled guilty.
But he later challenged his indictment arguing the law that prevented him from
owning a gun was unconstitutional.
At first, the Federal Appeals Court ruled against him, saying that it
was more important for society to keep guns out of the hands of people accused of
domestic violence than it was to protect a person's individual right to own a gun.
But then last year, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a new ruling in a case known as
New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v Bruen.
That case set new standards for
interpreting the second amendment by saying the government had to justify gun
control laws by showing that they are consistent with
the Nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation.
Which is a thing that they came up with that isn't applied to literally anything
else in our politics, but that they thought it would be convenient to stop gun
control legislation from existing.
That's basically how that works.
I'm not a lawyer, but I think that that's the spark notes of it.
Anyway, the appeals court withdrew its original decision.
And on Thursday decided to vacate the man's conviction, and
ruled that the federal law banning people subject to domestic violence,
restraining orders from owning guns was unconstitutional.
So, there are certain state level laws that will not be affected by this.
I believe California, which has a version of this red flag law will not be affected,
but we're going to see the ramifications going forward for this.
And I want you to focus while you were talking about the Supreme Court and NRA,
and all that stuff.
This comes down to, there is a never ending rash of people who have
committed acts of domestic violence, who go on to murder their partner.
Generally, men murdering women, and generally they do it with a gun.
Will give you more the stats soon.
But that is the stakes here.
Today as a result of that ruling, the odds of this happening more the number of
people, especially women who will be murdered as a result of this have gone up.
We don't know yet who, we don't know which state it will be in.
But that is the actual effect.
It is the known predictable outcome of this, and
the Supreme Court has done it anyway.
Brett what do you think?
>> In every case I could see leading up to this,
in order to get a restraining order can't just say like, I think he's a stalker.
Like I think he is a abuser.
You have to present some physical evidence in addition to your allegations and
swarm statements.
So it's not like, I understand the counter argument being like,
you can't just say I'm an abuser, and suddenly I'm an abuser,
innocent until proven guilty, but there is a review process.
So the law does enter into it.
A judge says this is a valid restraining order or a non-valid restraining order.
And so I don't see their counter argument as holding water,
especially if our goal is to protect people.
And if that's the case, then I would say that the Republican Party and
all these people that have taken part in changing and packing the Supreme Court
over time through very nefarious non-American traditionalist means.
They are arguing that we arm felons who have murdered people.
>> Yeah.
>> Their argument is there is no law or consequence of breaking a law or
consequence of a judge's action against you as the accused, that should result in
you losing your constitutional second amendment right to bear arms.
So they are essentially arguing that we should give guns to criminals.
We should give guns to murderers, thieves,
anyone who's committed any kind of violent crime.
And I am with them on that.
And I don't think we should stop at giving them the right to do that.
I think we should actually have the Republicans who vote for
this go present the guns to the abusers in these cases, personally.
Go to their houses and give them, I don't know, why stop at a handgun?
Go with a shotgun, an AR-15, give them tanks, tanks for abusers.
>> Yeah, hashtag tanks for abusers, the GOP today.
I told you I would give you some of the stats that I want to.
So first of all, I said most, it's two thirds of women that are killed by
an intimate partner are killed with a gun.
Obviously, having the gun makes it far easier for
these broken men to do it and they do.
But the overall numbers of how much this happens are, it's just shocking
every month, an average of 70 women are shot and killed by an intimate partner.
That is, I don't know, you can decide for
yourself, if I asked you how many do you think happen a month?
I don't know what you would have said.
Let me know in the chat, what you would've said.
I would not have guessed anything like 70.
That is an absolute epidemic.
Over 4.5 million women have reported being threatened with a gun by an intimate
partner.
There's a vegetable percentage of the population.
And access to a gun makes it five times more likely that a woman will die at
the hands of a domestic abuser.
That is what they are pushing for.
And so obviously, with all of these sorts of things,
you need to weigh if you actually care about the outcome, which they don't.
You need a way, what are the pros and cons?
So taking it out of the hands of someone who has already committed acts of
domestic violence, dramatically lowers the chance that the woman will die.
And on the other hand, he won't have the gun for a bit.
What was he planning to do with the gun that he so
desperately needed to have it during that specific period of time?
>> He's defending himself.
>> Why did it have to happen?
>> He's defending himself from her attitude, from her nagging.
That's what he's doing.
From her telling him to stop drinking.
That's what he's doing.
Like that's their argument.
That's how pathetic and weak the argument is.
That's the only thing I can justify.
>> Yeah.
>> It's insane.
It's so stupid.
This is an argument for them to just go buy a video game,
if you wanna shoot people up, if you wanna have like, I have a gun, you have a gun,
just go play a video game.
>> Seriously, seriously, this is just, look when we say that elections matter,
when we say that the Supreme Court matters and you should always think about
the future of the Supreme Court when it comes to an election.
This is what we're talking about.
Not just the initial, not just like one thing that they do, but
insane foe precedents that they set.
They did that thing in the Supreme Court last year to tell other courts just have
a ball man, just knocked down all gun control effectively.
And that is what we're seeing.
And it is going to continue to play out for years and years.
Final point, we gotta move on.
>> Last thing I'll say on this is if you look at the prevailing argument
that the right has against criminal justice reform, prosecution reform,
it's that the left is letting all these criminals out of prison so
they can go commit crimes again.
Yeah.
>> This is the same dynamic.
They're arming people who are five times more likely to
kill their domestic partner.
They're creating a situation where it's five times more likely for
a domestic partner to be murdered.
That's it. That's their argument.
They are the thing that they criticize.
>> And their pro life.
Never forget that.
[MUSIC]