Loophole keeps guns in hands of people served protective orders

  The catalyst for this story is the recent and tragic death of Mrs. Ragsdale who was shot to death in the Church parking lot by her estranged husband who was under a court domestic protective order. The article goes on to say that 19 states have provisions for confiscation of all guns (not just handguns) of anyone served with a court protect/restraining order.

  "While federal law bars anyone under a protection order from having, possessing or buying a firearm, it does not set up a mechanism for states to confiscate weapons. Utah relies on an honor system that assumes a person under a protection order will stay away from firearms - even when there is a record of a threat to use one . . . . [‘The Utah protective] order doesn't say we have to take it away from you, it just says you can't have it,’ said Jaroscak, which highlights the loophole between federal law and state practice."

  The article goes on to paint the picture that, "if only Utah had a mandatory gun confiscation law for circumstances such as this . . . and maybe a gun registration database, then Mrs. Ragsdale might be alive today!

  Once more, logic loses out to emotion on the anti-gun media.

  How is a law, requiring a person under a protective order to surrender his/her gun, going to make a difference to someone who is bent on pre-meditated murder as was Mr. Ragsdale?

  I'm not sure the victim or the victim’s family will feel MUCH better knowing the police could also slap a fire-arms violation onto existing homicide charge.

  There are between 2.8 and 3.0 million people now living in the state of Utah. There were about 50 homicides in 2007. About half of these were shooting related deaths. Of the reported 5,850 protective orders issued in 2007, there is one identified instance of a related handgun homicide. In 2006 there were slightly fewer protective orders issued, and no shooting homicides identified as being related.

  Before we all jump on the legislative-fix band-wagon, a few questions need to be soberly considered:

1) Is the problem a real problem or is it simple public perception of a problem based upon news reporting/editorials? In Utah, is there a statical relationship between handguns homicides of victims under court protective or restraining orders?

2) Can a REAL fix be legislated? That is to say in this kind of situation, can passing a law be relied upon to ACTUAL result in the hoped for outcome -- fewer shooting deaths perpetrated by individuals being limited by judicial restraining orders?

3) Has a law banning possession of a fire-arm ever statically been shown as a successful deterrent in precluding pre-meditated homicides?

4) Has a gun ban or gun confiscation ever proved effective in reducing crime of ANY type, irrespect of the criminal activity targeted by the law?

5) If we REALLY think (or at least hope) that a court ordered gun confiscation will reduce related homicides, how would we measure success given only one identified instance of homicide associated with roughly 11,700 protective orders in the last two years?

If we can come up with a way to reasonably measure a success criteria, wouldn't a limited "Test program" be appropriate to see reality follows the untested theory? Perhaps we could simply try the theory against 19 states with provisions for seizing guns: Would implementation of a gun confiscation provision have significantly reduced the possibility of the murderer from both a) obtaining a gun; AND/OR b) substantially reduced the risk of the perpetrator carrying out the homicide by some other means?

  Sadly, in the most recent news story, the answer is clearly no. The assailant could just as easily attacked the victim in the parking lot with a kitchen knife with the same outcome. Even if we look to other states with gun confiscation practices, I doubt that we’d find any objectively supported evidence to show a better out come.

  I do note, that the assailant chose to execute his victim in a church parking lot where personal concealed gun carry was banned – and timely help of any kind was unlikely to be available. As I understand that the first shots fired missed the victim, perhaps an armed Mrs. Ragsdale or fellow parishioner with a concealed weapons permit would have rendered a different outcome. After all, the protective order ignored by Mr. Ragsdale had prohibitions in it against approaching, or harming his estranged wife–if he ignored those, would he have radically changed his plans if the police had come by a month earlier and confiscated the gun when they issued the original notice?

  We could all hope so, but I think our hopes would have been hollow and unfounded. Mr. Ragsdale was angry and wanted his wife dead. I reasonably think that if Mr. Ragsdale had lacked a gun, he would have shown up that same morning with a knife or ball-bat. . . but he would have shown up all the same–with the very same outcome

  As a related aside, something just doesn’t seem to add up for me. A couple of parts of the recent Salt Lake Tribune story seem to not be ringing true without some clarification (which I’ve asked Representative Fowlke for).

In the article it stated that:

  "A month earlier, Ragsdale had threatened to use a gun to ‘take care of things’ during an altercation. A judge issued a protection order that noted Ragsdale, who kept a 9 mm Glock firearm in the trunk of his BMW, was not to have, possess or transport a weapon.

Kristy Ragsdale's family assumed the gun had been taken away, but Lorie Fowlke, Kristy's attorney, said she and her client knew it had not."

  A few paragraphs further on the newspaper reports:

  "Lehi Police Lt. Harold Terry said a family member or friend is usually put in charge of making sure a restricted person doesn't have access to a gun. ‘If a restricted person is later found to be in possession of a weapon, he or she can be arrested. If you violate the protective order, you go to jail,’ Terry said."

  If attorney and state legislator Ms. Fowlke and Mrs. Ragsdale KNEW that Mr. Ragsdale was armed with the handgun, in direct violation of his court restraining order, one would be reasonable in assuming that violation of the court order was promptly reported to the Lehi police department?

  Did the Lehi police ignore the reported violation of the court order and just decide not enforce the related requirement to arrest Mr. Ragsdale for its violation?

  As a result of this incident, Rep. Fowlke said " . . . she is ‘ . . . mulling legislation to balance the right to be free from violence versus Second Amendment rights. [In the Ragsdale case], the only thing I can think of that might have made a difference is actually confiscating the gun. Maybe we need to look at that. . . .’ "

  Bad reporting? A politician putting herself the best possible light in a newspaper article? A grossly negligent police department? As the old saying goes, "Something smells fishy in the ports of Denmark."