Lawyers on retainer, legal defense program.

[nicki]

Considering all the problems some have had when exercising what we think as constitutional rights, has there been any consideration of having "Lawyers on retainer" to deal with unlawful arrests.

Perhaps a creation of legal insurance for protection against political persecution. We could decide what would be covered and what wouldn't and then people could decide to join or not to join.

Of course, this is something that will have to wait till after Nordyke or some other incorporation case.

Right now where can a gun owner get protection from "legal persecution"?

We could create a mandatory education program so that those who join a Calguns legal defense program would be educated on the dos and don'ts.

A potential victim who shuts up, has a lawyer on retainer , and can quickly have bail posted would have less legal problems than someone who just got arrested and then was told they had one phone call.

Lets face it, if any of us gets arrested, who are most of us gonna call?

Such a program probably would help this board grow significantly, especially if we had help from the gun shops and FFL dealers on this board.

It would be something that every person who owns a OLL should consider joining.

This is not going to be cheap, as long as DA's can bully us and get away with it, we don't have rights.

As long as we have to spend money to defend people, the DA's won't stop persecution of gun owners.

When the DA's start getting hit with large judgements for malicious prosecutions, then we will start to get our rights back.

Nicki

[anthonyca]

This is a great Idea and I would like to have a gun rights lawyer on retainer or some kind of prepaid insurance program. It could get you out of trouble before it starts as a trial can easily cost over 20k and more like 50k for false charges.

[savageevo]

I would be in. I wish our cg foundation had such a program. I would pay extra per month just to have an insurance that I was protected, of course it would be separate from the standard donations to calguns.

[ilbob]

Masood Ayoob is somehow associated with some kind of organization that purports to defend law abiding gun owners from litigation resulting from self defense shootings. I forget what it is called.

I would be very cautious about so called prepaid legal services. From what I can tell, the amount of service they provide in litigation type cases (civil or criminal) is extremely limited.

[Dr Rockso]

I think there's a bit of a problem in that once you pay into such a program you have an expectation of being defended. That's all fine if you're a model citizen, but what happens when some idiot gets busted for meth and has his guns seized in the process. At least CGF can say "sorry, too much extraneous 'color'" even if he is a donor, since CGF is not an insurance program and has no obligation to provide such help. I do think, however, if you were to be arrested for obviously legal activity (such as owning an OLL) CGF is going to step in since bad case law hurts everybody.

[AJAX22]

I think there's a bit of a problem in that once you pay into such a program you have an expectation of being defended. That's all fine if you're a model citizen, but what happens when some idiot gets busted for meth and has his guns seized in the process. At least CGF can say "sorry, too much extraneous 'color'" even if he is a donor, since CGF is not an insurance program and has no obligation to provide such help. I do think, however, if you were to be arrested for obviously legal activity (such as owning an OLL) CGF is going to step in since bad case law hurts everybody.

Its very easy to include policy exemptions in the case of drug/rape/etc involvement.

That being said, it may become more common for the people to 'find' unlabeled prescription medication in your bathroom or, 'suspicious white powder' in the kitchen. so as to include those types of charges in order to invalidate a defendants prepaid policy.

[berto]

Neat idea but likely too expensive to enroll enough paying members while providing a reasonable level of coverage.

[supersonic]

Masood Ayoob is somehow associated with some kind of organization that purports to defend law abiding gun owners from litigation resulting from self defense shootings. I forget what it is called.

I would be very cautious about so called prepaid legal services. From what I can tell, the amount of service they provide in litigation type cases (civil or criminal) is extremely limited.

Masad Ayoob = $$$$$$$$$. He's more of an expert witness with a celebrity status. He will go to bat for you (if it's obvious you have a good case against what is being thrown at you); and just his being in your corner is a VERY good thing, being he is LE. However (and that's a BIG however), due to his high profile status as being "the best" in his field: DEEEEP pockets would be a prerequisite in retaining him.;)

[bwiese]

What folks are looking for is 'legal insurance for (legit) shootings'.

There is some coverage available thru NRA; not sure of its details.

[Beelzy]

OMG!

I believe there are dorks running around with CDs hawking this BALONEY.

Does any of this sound familiar??

[Jarrod]

Why not something like Pre-Paid Legal does?

Edited to add:

Um, I mean like the subscription to get an attorney if you need one. Not the questionable MLM marketing rest of the prepaid legal scenario.

[Whiskey_Sauer]

Good idea, as an idea, but not so workable in concept.

Not to mention that a very small fraction of people will participate in such a program, and an even smaller number (if at all) will ever need the use of such services.

The best thing to do, if you are really concerned about it, is to find a good criminal defense attorney, with a good reputation, and one that you trust, and have his or her business card with you at all times (while handling firearms). Say nothing to the police once you are in custody, and ask to speak to a lawyer.

[nicki]

What folks are looking for is 'legal insurance for (legit) shootings'.

There is some coverage available thru NRA; not sure of its details.
__________________
-----------------------
Bill Wiese
San Jose, CA

No postings of mine here, unless otherwise specifically noted, are


The NRA does have a program, the problem though is they pay after the fact.

The program costs is not that high and perhaps a program that we put together should require membership in that program with a provison that our program gets reimbursed from the NRA program.

There is always the possibility that we will have a bad apple amongst us.

There is also the possibility that we will have a stupid city/county that will create opportunities for civil lawsuits.

The thing we need protection from is what I call "Color of Law" arrests, like these OLL or UOC charges that have no merit.

If everytime one of our people got arrested, that a team of legal sharks hit the DA with motions and bonafide claims for damages, the problems would start becoming rare.

As a organization, once we are set up, we could even do a pre emptive strike by educating DA's across the state who we are and letting them know that we have a class of citizens who we have worked with so that they comply with the law.

We may even find sympathetic DAs who will help us on this one because I imagine from their point of view, they are busy enough and if they can avoid unneeded lawsuits they will.

For DA's who are anti gun, they probably will figure that there are other gun owners they can fry who don't have coverage another day. Kinda like the traffic cop who works the speed trap.

The reality is the chance of us needing coverage is rare, but if you are that one person, it is a major ht that will destroy your life.

If we have some risk management people on this board, perhaps they could crunch some numbers for us to give us a idea.

Considering many gun owners here in California feel that the government is out to get them, we have a huge market.

The types of people who will consider this type insurance are the types that will also avoid problems. Look at the level of non problems that exist with people who have CCW permits in the other states.

Most people get into legal trouble because of ignorance and lack of common sense.

If we create a insurance program that requires attendance at a "legal workshop" that we create and that we require "continuing education" to maintain the insurance, the claims that we have will be few and far between.

The Legal Workshops would be open to the public and they would help us improve our public relations.

The reality is we are percieved by some as "reckless rednecks". The more we do to break that "stereotype", the easier it will be to protect our rights.

If we had 10 cases per year and each case ran up 100K in legal bills that would be 1 million in expenses. Now, if we keep the administrative costs of the program down to say 25 percent, we now have 250K to run the program.

The question is for most of us, how much would you pay now to avoid paying 100K later. I believe 10 to 20 dollars per month is a range that would get the most people.

I realize many gun owners are pennywise and dollar dumb, and for such a program to work, we probably will need to target for 10,000 gun owners to get it off the ground, but isn't it worth it.

We have close to 10K people that are active users on this board already.

We have many gun dealers on this board and this could be a stream of extra cash flow for them.

Hell, we could set up affliate programs so that it could be a source of extra cash flow for those of us who would market the business.

Nicki

[elSquid]

I realize many gun owners are pennywise and dollar dumb, and for such a program to work, we probably will need to target for 10,000 gun owners to get it off the ground, but isn't it worth it.

We have close to 10K people that are active users on this board already.

We have many gun dealers on this board and this could be a stream of extra cash flow for them.

Hell, we could set up affliate programs so that it could be a source of extra cash flow for those of us who would market the business.

I would imagine that such an insurance program would be subject to the laws of California:

http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/.html/ins_table_of_contents.html

And anyone wishing to sell/market/etc policies would have to be licensed:

http://www.insurance.ca.gov/0200-industry/0020-apply-license/0100-indiv-resident/

So there are many legal issues that would need to be addressed.

Personally, I would have little faith in an insurance company started from ground zero with no capital by persons with no background in that domain. That strikes me as a very risky proposition.

I do agree with you in that it's important that we "push back" in a legal manner for malicious prosecutions. My hope is that this will eventually be done selectively, via CGF. I'm quite willing to contribute for such actions.

-- Michael