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There are not enough “due process protections” in Fix NICS or Gun confiscation order bills to be workable.

NSSF, NRA-ILA, legislators and more are lying to the American people about the meaning of the recently introduced bills to “enhance” background checks and introduce a new “gun confiscation” court order.  

Briefly, Fix NICS will require that all agencies at every level add names to the secret, no guns database otherwise called NICS.  It would mandate reporting for mental health treatment.  As victims of the false NICS reports will attest, once you are wrongly on the NICS prohibited list, just as with the no fly database, there’s practically no getting off that list.  It can take multiple years until you can actually buy a new firearm.  There are no safeguards preventing the government from searching as far and wide as they want into your medical and mental health records.

Briefly, Gun Confiscation Orders would be a new creation by the courts to be able to quickly get a court order to seize firearms from anyone - except a government employee - requiring they surrender firearms.  Some amount of time later, you must prove to the court that you are not a risk to yourself or others, not on drugs, addicted to alcohol, or whatever other impositions a robe wearing tyrant with a Napoleon complex decides.  The State just has to show up, utter the words “danger to self and others” and the court rubber stamps the prohibition for a year or more.  

They tell you:  Only serious mental health issues are reported to NICS and there are strong due process protections put in place if you are ever summoned to a gun confiscation hearing.

What they don’t tell you:  Any mental health issue from counseling to taking Ritalin could be reported and may be interpreted as “required by law” under fix NICS.  There are  —ZERO— provisions to either get yourself off the NICS list of prohibited persons and more importantly -  There is no penalty for wrongly adding someone to NICS, and no way to prosecute someone for wrongly putting someone into the NICS prohibited list.  

Gun Confiscation orders have been put in place by states, with some half hearted means, to confuse people into thinking there is some level of protection.  What they don’t tell you is:  Once you are named in the GCO, you must prove to the court that you are wrongly named.  The court upholds state orders more than 90% of the time without even fairly allowing the accused to speak.  But let’s assume you get a fair minded judge and it’s uncovered that cops and the prosecutors knew the source was an angry, soon to be ex-spouse, unhappy because you want custody of the family dog.  They, being dog owners themselves, sympathize and throw the “heartless” spouse under the bus.  You get to go to, guess who, the same officers and prosecutors who took you to court to confiscate your guns!

Strong due process protections right?  What do you think your chances of getting a successful civil or criminal outcome against a bad actor who just took your guns but the court gave them back?   Zero percent.  

Okay, but let’s say you get past the original prosecutor, and get another one.
Prosecutors don’t prosecute other prosecutors and cops don’t arrest other cops!  History is replete with these stories, that we don’t want to talk about or admit.  Before anyone brings up Frank Serpico, let’s remember that law enforcement agents were accessories to Brian Terry’s murder and not one has ever been punished.

Maybe that’s not enough for you to believe, so let’s look to some examples.  For exactly how well due process protects every day citizens let’s ask: 

1. Black motorists
2. Minority residents of Ferguson, MO
3. Family members of Freddie Gray
4. Steven Hatfill
5. A Branch Davidian
6. Vicki Weaver  - oops, we can’t because she was shot DEAD by FBI agent / murderer Lon Horiuchi while she was holding her baby
7. Brian Terry - oh, he was murdered too and years later his family is still waiting to find out what happened!

All of these people have or had due process Rights....until they didn’t.  They had them right up until the moment the government stole this Right from these people.  

What do all of these people have in common?  They were all victimized by the government, had their Rights stolen from them and NOBODY was ever held to account.  

These people were all denied their Rights to due process under the law, by the very same government that now wants us to support fix NICS and gun confiscation orders.

No amount of purported “due process protections” can overcome a bad law implemented by dishonest actors and enforced by government entities who police themselves without any practical oversight.  

"The broader problem with Fix NICS is that it aims to improve a system that blocks gun sales to people based on criteria that are unfairly and irrationally broad. Those people include millions of Americans who have never shown any violent tendencies.”