TRUMP, GUNS AND DUE PROCESS

President Trump said Wednesday during a White House bipartisan meeting on school safety and gun violence: "I like taking the guns early, like in this crazy man's case that just took place in Florida ... to go to court would have taken a long time. . . take the guns first, go through due process second."  Now that position has raised the backs of a lot of Republicans, the NRA and Constitutional legal scholars over the issue of "due process."  

The Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution each contain a Due Process Clause. The Due Process Clause acts as a safeguard from arbitrary denial of life, liberty, or property by the government outside the sanction of law. In other words, you can't arbitrarily deprive a citizen of his guns without giving him the opportunity to defend himself in a court of law.  Further, I don't know where in the Second Amendment it says that you have the right to bear arms only if you are mentally capable.  

That all having been said, I sure as hell don't want some nutcase like Cruz living next door to me with a room full of guns and ammo in his house.  I totally agree that he should not have had access to guns in the first place.  So, how do we reconcile all of this?  

Well, the law says that if you are a felon, you can't own or possess or even touch a gun or a bullet.  That law has withstood the Second Amendment as far as the courts are concerned.  But, being a felon is not a grey area; you either are, or you are not.  How do you determine the mental capacity and stability of an individual?  By what measurement and who makes the determination?  How are the standards to be defined?  

While we figure all of this out and enact laws to deal with the situation, does a guy like Cruz get to continue to own guns until the very moment that he pulls a trigger someplace?  Well, I definitely don't think any law enforcement officer has the right to barge into any house and seize guns; that proposition runs contrary to the very fundamentals of freedom.  But, I do think that the officer can haul the potential offender downtown and into a court, present the facts, allow the guy to defend himself, and ask the judge to issue a temporary restraining order preventing the loon from owning or possessing until the court can permanently rule on his ability; in the meantime, his guns and ammo could be seized and locked up.  

This method would provide "due process" and allow the authorities to temporarily seize his guns in very short order.