Response to Joel Downs: Yes Munford is a Gun Grabber

Response to Joel Downs: 

Yes Munford is a Gun Grabber

By

James Scott Trimm

Recently James Munford's gun grabbing victim Mike Ives released an open letter calling on his State Representative Bill Zedler to renounce his endorsement of James Munford for Judge of the 322nd Court:

Munford supporter Joel Downs responded:

Somebody should ask Mr.Ives why his attorney, Jennifer Moore who is also running for the same seat as Judge Munford, gave up his gun rights by signing off on a "Mutual Injunction as to Persons" request.

This would be a nonesensical question.  Jennifer Moore never did any such thing. A box checked next to the words "Mutual Temporary Injunction as to Persons" does not meet the criteria of "explicit" terms required to trigger the 18 USA 922 (g). For an injunction to invoke 18 USC 922 (g) it must be an injunction that "explicitly prohibits the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against such intimate partner or child that would reasonably be expected to cause bodily injury."

Downs continued:

As a Board Certified Divorce Attorney, she must have known that by requesting an injunction, instead of refusing to concur with the wife's attorney while also mounting a defense of her client's rights, she would be assuring that his rights would be taken away.

 It is important to realize that there was no agreement between the parties.  Elementary contract law requires a meeting of minds for there to be an agreement.  But there was clearly no meeting of the minds here.

Actually, Jennifer Moore has stated that she checked the box knowing that a box checked next to the words "Mutual Temporary Injunction as to Persons" does not come near meeting that standard which must be met "explicitly" by a triggering injunction.

And this is a point that Judge Bill Harris and others have completely missed in their rationalization of Munford's Gun Grabbing. Jennifer Moore was well aware that a box checked next to the words "Mutual Temporary Injunction as to Persons" does not meet the standard required by the 18 USC 922 (g) to trigger its prohibition on possessing firearms. 

The Temporary Orders Munford later issued (which did contain outright gun grabbing language to which Mike Ives never agreed) did not contain the triggering language found in the petitions that would have triggered 18 USC 299 (g).  If such triggering terms had been agreed to by Mike Ives in the Rule 11 Agreement, then they should have certainly appeared in the Temporary Orders issued on August 14th, 2009.

The only injunction that existed on August 14th 2009 when Munford issued his gun grabbing order, was a box checked next to the words "Mutual Temporary Injunction as to Persons", and nothing about the terms explicitly in that injunction meet the standard required to trigger 18 USC 922(G).

Tarrant Families Matter hired a Washington DC Law Firm of Federal Litigation Experts to weigh in with an authoritative analysis.  They concluded on this issue: 



First, section 922(g)(8) simply did not apply at the time Munford entered his order in August 2009, because there was no injunction in place at that time meeting the requirement in section 922(g)(8)(C)(ii). It appears that such an order had previously applied, having been entered in June 2009, but that order appears to have expired by operation of law 14 days later. Meanwhile, a generic "injunction as to persons" order was in effect when Judge Munford entered his order in August 2009, but that "injunction as to persons" did not contain the explicit language required to trigger section 922(g)(8). Thus, section 922 was not even relevant at the time Judge Munford entered his order.


There is no evidence that Mike Ives agreed to an injunction that would have triggered the Federal Law, and certainly as the time that his guns were grabbed, no such qualifying injunction existed.

Should Mike Ive's rights have been "taken away" (your own words) unless he paid money to fight for them?  As soon as Mike Ives got his copy of the Gun Grabbing order from Munford, he posted "I don't believe there is justification to do this but it is too expensive to fight and is not as high a priority as custody of my children."

Munford's gun grabbing order had put Mike Ives in the impossible position, with his limited financial resources, to spend those limited resources fighting for his parental rights, or fighting for his Second Amendment Rights!  This is a dilemma that no parent should be put in.  As I have said repeatedly, Mike Ives only crime was being both a parent and a gun owner.  He was being forced to choose between his parental rights and his constitutional rights, and like any good parent, he chose to fight for his parental rights.  He was, at the time, being forced to simply accept being stripped  of his Second Amendment rights.... that is until the NRA agreed to back his fight.  As soon as Mike Ives was able to do so, he fought, with NRA backing very hard against the gun grabbing order that originated from James Munford.

Mike Ives attorney Jennifer Moore, with NRA funding, was able to fight Munford's order, and eventually, after the NRA got involved, Judge Berger removed all anti-gun provisions from the orders.


 Downs continued:

Since 1994, when the Violence Against Women Act was passed, Federal law has had control of firearms in divorces, if there are injunctions that contain key phrases. It just so happens that the Texas Family code, which controls divorce procedure in Texas has precise language as to what phrases a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO), or injunction contains. If either party asks for an injunction/TRO, those phrases  trigger the Federal law. 

That is simply not true. The TRO in this case had long expired (those only last 14 days in Texas).  An injunction may or may not contain the triggering language.  In fact no injunction in effect at the time Munford issued his orders contained triggering language.

In the Emerson case the court found that in that case the application of this federal law was constitutional because the laws of the various states would prohibit issuing the kind of injunction described in 18 USA 922 (g)(8)(C)(ii) unless there was "evidence credited by the court" that "reflected a real threat of danger or injury to the protected party by the party enjoined" and that "Texas law meets these general minimum standards." So while Emerson does not apply to the Ives Case directly (because 18 USC 922 (g) does not apply to it), by the standard set forth in Emerson, Munford's order would have itself have been unconstitutional, since Ives had not even been accused of making threats or of any wrong doing.

Downs went on:


Both parties asked for an injunction. The requests contained the Federal law trigger phrases because the Family Code requires them.

False. The Family Code does not require them. This is evidenced by the fact that there was no such triggering language, either in any injunction that was in effect at the time Munford issued his gun grabbing order, or even in the orders that contained the gun grabbing order itself.  In fact if the Family Code required such langauge be used in any injunction without "evidence credited by the court" that "reflected a real threat of danger or injury to the protected party by the party enjoined" then according to the ruling in Emerson, it would have been unconstitutional.  However the law does not require that language.

Joel Downs concluded:

Mike Ives lost his gun rights *because* Judge Munford is *not* an activist judge, Munford follows the rule of law. Ives also lost his gun rights because Jennifer Moore, his attorney and now candidate for the 322nd District Court, was dumb enough to give them up without a fight.

Oh, well, it is a neat trick I guess.
1. An attorney fails to protect her client's gun rights.
2. Takes pay to get them, partially, back.
3. Is declared 2nd Amendment Hero by local yahoo for doing so.
4. Becomes candidate for judge as 2nd Amendment Hero.

Joel, if your theory is right then Jennifer Moore may be the smartest lawyer in the county. She knew the law better than Munford and knew her opportunity to get rid of Munford was to lay behind the log and get the Case to Berger. She knew that checking a silly box did not meet any kind of federal or Constitutional requirement of explicit language in the order. She was prepared to take this to the Supreme Court, knowing that the NRA was looking for a test case. No two bit form that Munford followed met the explicit standard of gun triggering requirements. And if it had under these facts would have been unconstitutional.

Joel, I know you have not tried many jury trials and neither has Munford. It is common practice at charge time for lawyers to try to inject reversible error. By outsmarting Munford Jennifer is an American hero

What Moore didn't anticipate is that Munford was such a gun grabbing activist that he could not contain himself.  Instead of simply inserting language into the injunction that would have triggered the Federal Law, he skipped that altogether and wrote his own unconstitutional gun grabbing provision into his orders instead!

Joel, what law graduate helped you prepare this irresponsible analysis. You are only trying to slander Jennifer’s conduct when in fact you are not even smart enough to recognize her brilliance. 

Ridiculous. Game over.











 

Mike Ives Didn't Agree to Have his Guns Grabbed by Munford

 Mike Ives Didn't Agree to Have is Guns Grabbed by Munford

by

James Scott Trimm

News on this story is breaking,  In recent blogs I have written about.Associate Judge James Munford's Gun Grabbing court order.  Munford is the Associate Judge of the 322^nd Family Court.  Each Family in Tarrant County has an elected District Court Judge, and an appointed Associate Judge.  This blogger has obtained a court order which Associate Judge Munford signed in 2009 “grabbing” Tarrant County gun owner and father Michael Keith Ives guns:

“…the Father is not to have in his possession or control a firearm and he is placed on notice that he is not to have in his possession any firearm until such time as the injunction is resolved.  The firearms may be delivered to a third party for storage such as the paternal grandparent.”

Ives only crime was being both a father, and a gun owner.  He was not accused of threatening anyone, or doing anything inappropriate with his guns, yet Gun Grabbing Munford was effectively stripping Ives of his second amendment rights!

As I had reported in the past, Munford's Gun Grabbing provision was later removed by 322nd District Court Judge Nancy Berger, but only after the NRA got involved and began backing Mr. Ives' in his fight to keep his guns.

The Munford camp has been desperately trying to rationalize Munford's gun grabbing order.  The most recent tactic has been the classic "blame the victim" strategy.  This latest tactic has been to try to paint a picture that blames Ives himself.

The new strategy has taken two forms:

1. An Erroneous claim that the July 9th 2009 Rule 11 Agreement represented by the July 9th Associate Judges Report amounts to an agreement by Mike Ives to be stripped of his second amendment rights.

2. That Mike Ives failed to challenge the August 14th gun grabbing order within ten days and thus acquiesced to having his guns grabbed.

Both arguments are aimed at transferring blame from James Munford, to the victim of his gun grabbing, Mike Ives.  Lets examine each claim carefully.


Did Mike Ives Agree to have his Second Amendment Rights stripped in the Rule 11 Agreement?

To begin with, it is important to know what a Rule 11 agreement is.  A Rule 11 agreement is an agreement that the parties enter into on their own, outside the courtroom.  It is typically represented in the court record by an Associate Judges Report fill in the blank form.  The form in this case has a box checked next to the words "Mutual Temporary Injunction as to Persons."

This July 9th document was the only injunction in effect at the time Munford issued his "gun grabbing" order on August 14th, 2009.

In the past the Munford Camp had erroneously claimed that the box checked next to the words "Mutual Temporary Injunction as to Persons" triggered Federal Law 18 USC 922(g).   This has been shown to be untrue. 

 Both parties agreed to an injunction that was very vague.  The injunction that they both agreed to on July 9th was nothing more than a box checked next to the words "Mutual Temporary Injunction as to Persons." This said nothing about guns.

It also did NOT include the language that would have been required to trigger the Federal Law being talked about.  For an injunction to invoke USC 18 922 (g) it must be an injunction that "explicitly prohibits the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against such intimate partner or child that would reasonably be expected to cause bodily injury."

 A box checked next to the words "Mutual Temporary Injunction as to Persons" does not come near meeting that standard which must be met "explicitly" a triggering injunction.

The Munford Camp is now arguing erroneously that since each party had asked, in the original Petition for Divorce (flied by Mrs. Ives attorney) and the Counter Petition for Divorce (filed by Mike Ives Attorney) had asked for an injunction against the other, that would have triggered this law, that the box checked next to the words "Mutual Temporary Injunction as to Persons" somehow transplants the terms which appear in the Petitions, into the Injunction itself.

In fact Faith Bussey has gone so far as to post a picture of page form the Counter Petition and falsely claim that it is a page of the July 9th injunction!:

This is an outright falsehood!  This is not a page of an injunction, it is only a page of a Divorce Petition!

The fact that both parties asked for this language in their petitions does not mean that after they entered into negotiations, that they agreed to these terms to be included in their Rule 11 Agreement.  There is no evidence to indicate that, and a petition is not considered evidence in a court record.  There is in fact evidence that their Rule 11 Agreement did not embrace such triggering language.  The only thing the July 9th Associate Judges Report on the Rule 11 Agreement indicates is a "Mutual Temporary Injunction as to Persons" with no further language, nothing explicitly using the terms required to trigger 18 USC 922(g). 

At the bottom of the AJ Report in the Rule 11 Agreement we read that Munford directed Mrs. Ives' attorney to prepare formal orders in conformity with the Report on the agreement:

(The form has "Judge Haddock" here because Munford had apparently run out of forms and borrowed one of hers.  He made appropriate changes elsewhere, but forgot to change this line.)

Munford was then supposed to use the material submitted by Mrs. Ives' attorney as a basis to issue formal Temporary Orders.  These are the Temporary Orders Munford issued after a hearing, on August 14th, 2009.  These Temporary Orders Munford issued (which did contain outright gun grabbing language to which Mike Ives never agreed) did not contain the triggering language found in the petitions that would have triggered 18 USC 299 (g).  If such triggering terms had been agreed to by Mike Ives in the Rule 11 Agreement, then they should have certainly appeared in the Temporary Orders issued on August 14th, 2009.

Even if we assume that the box checked next to the words "Mutual Temporary Injunction as to Persons" was intended by both parties to refer to the terms in the petitions (and there is no evidence of that) then this still would not have triggered 18 USC 922 (g) because 18 USC 922(g) requires the terms to appear "explicitly" in the injunction itself.

The only injunction that existed on August 14th 2009 when Munford issued his gun grabbing order, was a box checked next to the words "Mutual Temporary Injunction as to Persons", and nothing about the terms explicitly in that injunction meet the standard required to trigger 18 USC 922(G).

There is no evidence that Mike Ives agreed to an injunction that would have triggered the Federal Law, and certainly as the time that his guns were grabbed, no such qualifying injunction existed.


Did Mike Ives acquiesce to have his guns grabbed by failing to challenge the Gun Grabbing order within ten days?

The end of the Temporary Orders (containing the gun grabbing provision) read:

This order was originally issued on August 14th, 2009.  It was received by Mr. Ives' attorney on August 17th, 2009 and on August 20th, 2009 Ives' attorney filed a motion asking for a new hearing and saying in part that "...under no circumstances should an injunction be entered that has the effect of depriving either party of their constitutional rights."

 

This was set for hearing before Judge Berger to be held on September 15th, 2009.  Ives' attorney ultimately waved that hearing.  The reason why is that an out of court settlement was reached on many of these issued on September 11th, 2009.  Why did Mr. Ives not pursue the September 15th hearing?  The answer is clear from a post he made on an Internet Forum on August 18th, 2009 (the day after Mr. Ives attorney received the orders with the gun grabbing provision. The post is as follows:

Munford's gun grabbing order had put Mike Ives in the impossible position, with his limited financial resources, to spend those limited resources fighting for his parental rights, or fighting for his Second Amendment Rights!  This is a dilemma that no parent should be put in.  As I have said repeatedly, Mike Ives only crime was being both a parent and a gun owner.  He was being forced to choose between his parental rights and his constitutional rights, and like any good parent, he chose to fight for his parental rights.  He was, at the time, being forced to simply accept being stripped  of his Second Amendment rights.... that is until the NRA agreed to back his fight.  As soon as Mike Ives was able to do so, he fought, with NRA backing very hard against the gun grabbing order that originated from James Munford.

Mike Ives attorney Jennifer Moore, with NRA funding, was able to fight Munford's order, and eventually, after the NRA got involved, Judge Berger removed all anti-gun provisions from the orders.

On 11/24/2010 Mike Ives filed a Motion for new trial claiming his second amendment rights were violated by the Divorce Decree:

Then on 12/15/10 Mike Ives' attorney Jennifer Moore filed a motion to Clarify again claiming his second amendment rights were being violated:

 And then on 1/12/10 Mike Ives's attorney Jennifer Moore filed a motion to Reform the Decree, again claiming his rights were violated:

This is a process called "perfecting the order" that one follows before filing an appeal.  However when Judge Berger realized that the NRA was backing Mike Ives suit, she issued a Clarified Final Decree of Divorce.  On February 28th 2010 Judge Nancy Berger issued a Clarified Final Decree of Divorce which eliminated gun grabbing language entirely, saying only that both parties should behave responsibly and not drink alcohol while having firearms around the children:

 The fact is that Munford issued a Court Order stripping Mike Ives, a man who had not even been accused of making threats, or of any wrong doing, of his Second Amendment rights.  Munford's gun grabbing provision was later taken out entirely, after the NRA got involved.  Second Amendment Hero Jennifer Moore was Ives Attorney, who got the NRA involved and saved Mike Ives' guns from Munford's Gun Grabbing Order!

Mike Ives' rights were violated the minute Munford issued an order stripping him of his Second Amendment rights despite the fact that he had not even been accused of making threats or of any wrong doing.  The fact that he was not initially in a financial position to fight for his rights, does not change the fact that they were being violated.  Munford's gun grabbing order put Mike Ives in a gut wrenching position of choosing between fighting for his children and fighting for his guns!  Thank God for the NRA backing Mike Ives fight!

This is so simple even a Caveman can understand it!

Faith Bussey Gets it Wrong: Munford is a Gun Grabber

UPDATE: The Munford Machine Fix is in!
I was just blocked from the Tarrant County Republicans
Facebook Group by Chris Dillard, for no other reason 
than posting this response to Faith Bussey.  Her post attacking
my blogs and memes was allowed, but my documented
defense was blocked!  The Munford Camp is now
trying to silence the truth!
(See proof of this at bottom of this blog)

Faith Bussey Gets it Wrong: Munford is a Gun Grabber

By

James Scott Trimm

Faith Bussey has recently written a post on Facebook in which she claims that my blogs and memes about the Munford Gun Grabbing case are false.  Bussey responds by presenting a great deal of information from her "research" that is just plain factually incorrect.  Here are the documents to prove it:

Faith wrote:

Some folks in Tarrant County may have noticed an inundation of memes regarding a "Gun Grabbing Judge of Tarrant County"- James Munford, who is running for a judgeship, and a "2A Champion"- Jennifer Moore, who is running for the same position. These memes are written by the guy working for/being paid by Gerald Haddock of Tarrant Families Matter, and despite the fact that I recognize where this writer and I agree on issues and hope to continue working together where we can agree...I wanted to do more research into this issue so that I could understand what it was all about. And now that I've done that, I feel the need to set some things straight.

If the implication is that I have been paid to write my blogs or to create my memes that is false.  I have a completely unrelated business relationship with Gerald Haddock.  Gerald and I are developing a cryptocurrency related business together.  Faith has let her irrational hatred for my personal friend and business associate Gerald Haddock, blind her to the facts.

Faith continues:

First, this lawyer lady may be nice, but she is no 2A Champion.  The couple getting divorced both signed temporary injunction papers in July. Both attorneys asked for the same basic things, including a provision that would invoke a federal statute preventing *both* parties from owning or possessing firearms and  ammunition. *Both* parties signed off on this with their attorneys.

This is false.  Both parties agreed to an injunction that was very vague.  The injunction that they both agreed to on July 9th was nothing more than a box checked next to the words "Mutual Temporary Injunction as to Persons." This said nothing about guns.  It also did NOT include the language that would have been required to trigger the Federal Law being talked about.  For an injunction to invoke USC 18 922 (g) it must be an injunction that "explicitly prohibits the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against such intimate partner or child that would reasonably be expected to cause bodily injury."  

A box checked next to the words "Mutual Temporary Injunction as to Persons" does not come near meeting that standard which must be met "explicitly" a triggering injunction.

 Faith continues:

Second, when Judge Munford signed off on their temporary orders, he made a NOTE that there was a mutual injunction *already in place* (because they both agreed to it and signed for it in July) and explained that because this injunction existed, it meant the father could not be in possession of a firearm until the injunction was dissolved because it fell under this federal statute.

This is also false.  Here is the page from the Temporary Orders which Munford issued.  Item 6(c) is not a "note" it is an organic part of the orders Munford issued.  As noted above, there was no injunction in effect at the time Munford issued this order on August 14th, that  "explicitly prohibits the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against such intimate partner or child that would reasonably be expected to cause bodily injury." There is nothing in this order that "explains" that "the injunction was dissolved because it fell under this federal statute" because that is false!  This is not a note or an explanation, it is a court order.  I will add that had the Federal Law applied (and it did not) then by writing this language into the order, Munford would have fumbled the ball anyway.  The Federal Law applies only to guns that have become subjects of interstate commerce, but Munford's order applies to all guns, even those made and sold in Texas.  Also states are not required to enforce federal laws, but they are obligated to enforce state court orders. 

Ives was upset and posted on the Highroad Forum just two days later:

Faith continues:

Now, my first question was why did this only affect the father. The answer was that he was the one who owned the guns. That made sense.



That makes no sense, because: 1) The Federal Law also prohibits buying a gun, which the wife could have done at any time, and 2) if Faith had really looked at the court record, the wife was asking for some of the guns in the property dispute.

Faith also writes:

The final divorce decree and the amended version both have stipulations on guns- that firearms must be secure away from children, that they are not to have any firearms on their person while the children are in their possession, and that they are not to have the children around any other person with firearms. This is certainly unusual for a divorce decree, but since their trial lasted for three days, I guess Judge Berger saw fit to keep something about that in there.



Faith gets it wrong again.  She clearly does not know how to review a court record.  In fact the initial draft for a Final Divorce Decree did contain language requiring both parties to secure arms and not have firearms on their person on in the vicinity of the children (which in Texas, I guess means don't take them out in public, as we had concealed carry at that time in Texas).

However on 11/24/2010 Mike Ives filed a Motion for new trial claiming his second amendment rights were violated by the Divorce Decree:

Then on 12/15/10 Mike Ives' attorney Jennifer Moore filed a motion to Clarify again claiming his second amendment rights were being violated:

And then on 1/12/10 Mike Ives's attorney Jennifer Moore filed a motion to Reform the Decree, again claiming his rights were violated:

This is a process called "perfecting the order" that one follows before filing an appeal.  However when Judge Berger realized that the NRA was backing Mike Ives suit, she issued a Clarified Final Decree of Divorce.  On February 28th 2010 Judge Nancy Berger issued a Clarified Final Decree of Divorce which eliminated the gun grabbing language entirely and said only that the parties should act responsibly and not drink alcohol when having the children around firearms:

Faith gets it wrong on almost every point!



The fact is that Munford issued a Court Order stripping Mike Ives, a man who had not even been accused of making threats, or of any wrong doing, of his Second Amendment rights.  Munford's gun grabbing provision was later taken out entirely, after the NRA got involved.  Second Amendment Hero Jennifer Moore was Ives Attorney, who got the NRA involved and saved Mike Ives' guns from Munford's Gun Grabbing Order!

This is so simple even a Caveman can understand it!


-----

UPDATE: The Munford Machine Fix is in! I was just blocked from the Tarrant County Republicans
Facebook Group by Chris Dillard, for no other reason than posting this response to Faith Bussey.  Her post attacking my blogs and memes was allowed, but my documented defense was blocked!  The Munford Camp is now trying to silence the truth! (See proof of this below)

Munford Gun Grabbing Supporters are Like a Broken Record

Munford Gun Grabbing Supporters are Like a Broken Record

By

James Scott Trimm

Tarrant County Judge Bill Harris still rationalizing Munford's Gun Grabbing. In a recent Facebook post Judge Bill Harris said:

The debate over Judge Jim Munford’s generous and  public interest warnings to litigants in family law cases has gone from ridiculous to the sublime. Temporary or final orders made or agreed to, approved by Texas judges that contain injunctions as to persons, after a hearing or opportunity to be heard, subject all parties subject to the injunction for liability under 18 U.S.C. 922(g) for possession of a firearm or ammunition.... The rendition or approval of an injunction as to persons is NOT a comment on the merits of a Federal statute.  No Texas judge can negate the application of 18 U.S.C. 922(g) or relieve any litigant of those provisions....  Fred Adams, a highly respected Dallas lawyer and life member of the N.R.A. has, for the last 16 years since the decision in United States v. Emerson... advocated the warning of litigants subject to injunctions as to persons about the restrictions imposed by Federal law.  Judge Munford does that, nothing more, nothing less. 

 

In response to Judge Harris I quote Luke Skywalker in the Last Jedi, "Almost everything you just said was wrong". 

Harris is now sounding like a broken record, he keeps repeating the same things over and over, even though they are arguments that have already been disproved in my most recent blog on this subject.  There is no point in my emulating Judge Harris by simply repeating myself here. 

Harris claims that the Munford was only giving a warning "nothing more, nothing less" yet this claim has already been proven to be completely erroneous in my recent blog Was Munford Gun Grabbing Justified by Federal Law? Munford's Gun Grabbing provision was a court order, not a mere warning, and it had far reaching negative effects that a warning would not have had.

 

Harris has almost become entertaining in his repetitions.  He repeats, like a parrot as if chirping away in a "Polly wants a cracker" intonation. "Injunction as to persons, chirp chirp... Federal Law 18 U.S.C. 922 (g) chirp chirp... US v. Emerson, chirp chirp."  Harris completely ignores that fact that at the time Munford issued his "gun grabbing" order, that no injunction containing the terms which 18 U.S.C 922(g) states must be included "explicitly" for an injunction to trigger that law, was in effect.  Therefore 18 U.S.C. 922(g) did not apply to this case, and therefore neither did U.S. v. Emerson which dealt only with 18 U.S.C. 922 (g).  These facts are all laid out in my recent blog Was Munford Gun Grabbing Justified by Federal Law? with such clarity that even a cave man could understand it!

 

Harris keeps repeating arguments that have already demonstrated by overwhelming evidence and documentation to be false.

 

I will add that Tarrant Family Matters commissioned a Washington DC law firm to effectively fact check the claims of my blogs on these matters.  Their complete report is as follows:

• It is basic law that state judges have the authority, indeed the duty, to follow the constitution, even if that means ruling that federal statutes are unconstitutional. There are many examples of state courts doing this successfully or unsuccessfully. See, e.g., Glen Ridge I Condominiums, Ltd. v. Fed. Sav. & Loan Ins. Corp., 734 S.W.2d 374 (Tex. App. 1986); Pierce Cty., Wash. v. Guillen, 537 U.S. 129 (2003). Here, there are potential constitutional arguments that section 922(g)(8) is invalid under the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, but they are beside the point.

• The larger issue is that Judge Munford didn't just fail to fight for the Second Amendment; he and other judges like him are actively working to undermine it, and the basic principles of the Texas Republican Party. The fundamental truth is that even if 18 U.S.C. section 922(g)(8) is constitutional, Munford should not have included in his order an injunction specifically barring Mr. Ives from possessing a gun and judges should not routinely enter orders barring divorcing parties from threatening each other unless there is an actual need to do so.

o First, section 922(g)(8) simply did not apply at the time Munford entered his order in August 2009, because there was no injunction in place at that time meeting the requirement in section 922(g)(8)(C)(ii). It appears that such an order had previously applied, having been entered in June 2009, but that order appears to have expired by operation of law 14 days later. Meanwhile, a generic "injunction as to persons" order was in effect when Judge Munford entered his order in August 2009, but that "injunction as to persons" did not contain the explicit language required to trigger section 922(g)(8). Thus, section 922 was not even relevant at the time Judge Munford entered his order.

oSecond, and perhaps more importantly, even if a qualifying order under section 922(g)(8)(C)(ii) was in place at the time of Munford's order, there is absolutely nothing in section 922 that would require Judge Munford to go further and add an injunction barring Ives from possessing a gun. In fact, in the Emerson case, the Family judge had not included such an order. Judge Munford's order was purely voluntarily and seriously undermines principles we hold dear.

 Judge Munford effectively eliminated Ives' ability to even challenge that section 922(g)(8) is invalid under the Second Amendment. Even if Ives could successfully argue that the Second Amendment made section 922(g)(8) invalid, Ives still could not possess a gun because, in addition to the so-call injunction "as to persons" Judge Munford voluntarily added a separate injunction specifically barring Ives from possessing a gun.

 Judge Munford took the matter from being governed solely by section 922(g)(8) – a federal law that the State of Texas could have chosen not to enforce – into one of state law that Texas courts would be required to enforce. That is, Texas does not have to enforce alleged section 922(g)(8) violations. But it does have to enforce violations of injunctions entered by Texas judges.

o Third, no judge is under any obligation to enter automatically an injunction that would trigger the potential application of section 922(g)(8). Yet, some Family judges insist on mindlessly entering these orders as a matter of course. For example, at various times, there was an injunction barring Ives – and his wife – from all manner of things listed in Texas Family Code section 6.502(a). But just because a Family judge "may render" such order does not mean that he or she has to or should do so in every single divorce. In the Emerson case, the Fifth Circuit explained that Congress presumed in section 922(g)(8) that state court judges would not enter qualifying injunctions unless "evidence credited by the court reflected a real threat or danger of injury to the protected party by the party enjoined." 270 F.3d 203, 262 (5th Cir. 2001). No such finding was ever made against Ives and his wife in their case. Yet, broad injunctions barring all sorts of conduct – including threatening each other – were included. There was no basis for the Family judges to do that. That mistake is made even more egregious by the fact that these unfounded injunctions might have the impact of triggering section 922(g)(8) and thus unjustifiably taking away a person's guns merely because he or she is getting divorced.

 

And can also be found in my recent blog Was Munford Gun Grabbing Justified by Federal Law?

It is time to stop rationalizing Munford's Gun Grabbing order. Munford issued an order that would have stripped a man who had not been accused of making threats, or of any wrong doing, of his second amendment rights.  That is just plain wrong, and no amount of rationalization can change that simple fact.