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| No | 37% | 185 votes | Total: 505 votes | |
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Add to FavoritesNo, a person should not lose rights, even the right to bear arms, based on an unproven accusation alone. Such a law would violate basic principles set forth in the fifth and sixth amendments to the Constitution.
The fifth amendment provides for the right to due process before the government can deprive life, liberty, and property. Due process includes procedural protections and substantive protections that does not allow the government to infringe on individual rights without notice and hearing and without weighing the value of the individual's right. Depriving a person of a right without notice and hearing and based on an unproven accusation would be a violation of these due process protections. It breadth of scope would sweep wrongly accused innocent persons as well as the guilty. At a minimum, the government should have to demonstrate at hearing that the accusation is true before a person's due process rights have been properly accorded.
The sixth amendment also embodies rights that allow an accused defend themselves and to obtain a proper and speedy trial before an impartial jury. These rights and protections exist to protect the basic concept that a person is innocent until proven guilty by a fair and impartial jury. Denying a person a right based merely on a accusation alone runs contrary to this principle. However one might feel about the right to bear arms, the precedent of allowing the government to deprive a person of a right based on an unproven accusation would erode this basic concept of innocent until proven guilty.
In conclusion, a person should not lose rights, even the right to bear arms, based on an unproven accusation as such a law would run contrary to principles set forth in the fifth and sixth amendments. While governments need to take measures to reduce domestic violence, especially gun related domestic violence, the government should be careful to adopt measures that do not erode important constitutional protections.
(Because the question appears to presupposes the existence of such a right, I have assumed for the purposes of this article that there is actually such a right. Whether or not such an right exists and if it does exist, what the parameters of that right might be, I leave for another debate).
Learn more about this author, GCM.
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Yes
A US citizen accused of domestic abuse should lose the right to bear arms until the case has been heard in court. If the accused is cleared of the charge, then he/she should immediately regain the right to possess weapons. If, however, the accused is convicted of domestic abuse, then the suspension of his right to bear arms should be enforced and extended.
When someone is convicted of domestic abuse, a negative character trait may be assumed. The individual has a problem with anger management. When he or she loses their temper, they are unable to control their behaviour. They become like a wild beast, striking out at the perceived enemy with whatever weapons are at hand, whether it be hateful words, their fists, or the nearest heavy object with which they can inflict damage. It would be foolish to allow such an individual to have a gun or rifle within easy reach. You would, in effect, be issuing a probable death warrant to the object of his anger.
In a fit of temper, the armed abuser may injure or kill other innocent victims: the children, the in-laws, neighbours, or innocent bystanders who step in to try to stop the carnage. Instead of one court case involving domestic abuse, the community may end up having to deal with a series of mass murders.
Society often intervenes to stop unstable citizens from committing irrational, illegal or harmful acts. Licences of drunk drivers are suspended, either temporarily or, after several convictions, permanently. Manic-depressives are allowed to have only several doses of medication at one time. Deadbeat parents are given only a portion of their paycheques until they are up-to-date on child-support payments. It is only logical that similar precautions be enacted to protect the victims of domestic abuse.
Should the abuser's loss of the right to bear arms be permanent? Not necessarily, but a series of events should occur before that privilege is restored. Any prison term or punishments inflicted by the court must be completed. A recognized anger management course must be satisfactorily completed. The abuser must undergo thorough examinations by medical and psychiatric doctors, and be declared fit to resume normal life. There must be a specified period, ideally between seven and ten years, during which the defendant returns to normal life and there are no further incidents of domestic abuse. When these conditions are satisfied, he/she may apply to have the right to bear arms restored.
Owning guns is a privilege granted to responsible citizens in a free country. The purpose of these arms should be to guard and protect their fellow citizens, not to terrorize or abuse them. If an individual shows an incapacity to exercise self-control, he should not have access to potentially lethal weapons. He has, in effect, an emotional disability. Until the time it is overcome, and proven to be so, he and those with whom he lives will be much safer if his right to bear arms is suspended.
Learn more about this author, Carolyn Tytler.
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