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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 2, 2023

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Excellent overview. DVROs can also be imposed as part of a standard practice whenever someone is charged with a DV crime. Defendants are then placed in an awkward position if they're asked whether they're following the court's order. There was court in Washington state that issued a ridiculously long and thorough decision on this issue, ruling that this type of practice was a clear violation of the defendant's right not to testify against themselves.

I'm in a state with universal background checks, and virtually all the guns that get recovered from crime scenes had been reported stolen eons ago. If the cops find a non-stolen gun, they nominally have the ability to retrace its journey by using the serial number to look up the FFL paperwork. In practice, they tend to find absurdly long gaps in the record. The guy with the gun can just say his uncle gave him the gun years ago, and it's near impossible for a prosecutor to refute that. The "family member" transfer exceptions are a huge loophole since a cousin can gift a gun to their cousin who gives it to their cousin etc. and even if that happened 100 times it would still be perfectly legal. Also, most states don't have universal background checks! So someone potentially could just say "I acquired this through a private sale when I was driving through Ohio" [Edit: woops, I was wrong about this h/t @The_Nybbler] and good luck refuting that.

So someone potentially could just say "I acquired this through a private sale when I was driving through Ohio" and good luck refuting that.

By Federal law, you can't legally buy a gun privately in a state you don't reside in. (This law should be overturned by Bruen but of course it will not be.)

You're correct, that was an error on my part. I'm now very curious as to how difficult to prove those cases. And since it's a federal prohibition and universal background checks are a state law, that would add another hurdle for enforcement.