Hoo boy, this sound bite. Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo was speaking about the death of fallen hero Sgt. Christopher Brewster, who was murdered while responding to a domestic disturbance call. God bless his grieving family and cover them with the peace that surpasses understanding. The murderer is reported to be a prohibited possessor with a history of mental illness.

In his remarks, Acevedo accused Republicans of failing women because they didn’t reauthorize the Violence Against Women’s Act (the House version of the bill was filled with numerous recently added gun control restrictions, some which reduced due process protections, that would hurt more than help empower women; the politicization of the bill with gun control actually hindered its reauthorization).

First, domestic violence is already a classification of prohibited possession, my emphasis:

The Gun Control Act (GCA), codified at 18 U.S.C. § 922(g), makes it unlawful for certain categories of persons to ship, transport, receive, or possess firearms or ammunition, to include any person:

      • convicted in any court of a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year;
      • who is a fugitive from justice;
      • who is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance (as defined in section 102 of the Controlled Substances Act, codified at 21 U.S.C. § 802);
      • who has been adjudicated as a mental defective or has been committed to any mental institution;
      • who is an illegal alien;
      • who has been discharged from the Armed Forces under dishonorable conditions;
      • who has renounced his or her United States citizenship;
      • who is subject to a court order restraining the person from harassing, stalking, or threatening an intimate partner or child of the intimate partner; or
      • who has been convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence.

The GCA at 18 U.S.C. § 992(n) also makes it unlawful for any person under indictment for a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year to ship, transport, or receive firearms or ammunition.

Further, the GCA at 18 U.S.C. § 922(d) makes it unlawful to sell or otherwise dispose of firearms or ammunition to any person who is prohibited from shipping, transporting, receiving, or possessing firearms or ammunition.

More, since Acevedo needs a refresher:

A “misdemeanor crime of domestic violence” is an offense that:

     (1) is a misdemeanor under Federal, State, or Tribal law;
     (2) has, as an element, the use or attempted use of physical force, or the threatened use of a deadly weapon; and
     (3) was committed by a current or former spouse, parent, or guardian of the victim, by a person with whom the victim shares a child in common, by a person who is cohabiting with or has cohabited with the victim as a spouse, parent, or guardian, or by a person similarly situated to a spouse, parent, or guardian of the victim.

However, a person is not considered to have been convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence unless:

     (1) the person was represented by counsel in the case, or knowingly and intelligently waived the right of counsel in the case; and
     (2) in the case of a prosecution for which a person was entitled to a jurycase was tried, either –
          (a) the case was tried by a jury, or
          (b) the person knowingly and intelligently waived the right to have the case tried by a jury, by guilty plea or otherwise.

In addition, a conviction would not be disabling if it has been expunged or set aside, or is an offense for which the person has been pardoned or has had civil rights restored (if the law of the jurisdiction in which the proceedings were held provides for the loss of civil rights upon conviction for such an offense) unless the pardon, expunction, or restoration of civil rights expressly provides that the person may not ship, transport, possess, or receive firearms, and the person is not otherwise prohibited by the law of the jurisdiction in which the proceedings were held from receiving or possessing firearms.

[18 U.S.C. 921(a)(33); 27 CFR 478.11]

In the above clip Acevedo ridiculously suggests that you can’t support women and firearm ownership (or police and firearm ownership, which is equally ridiculous considering most police support lawful firearm ownership). What if you’re a woman and you own and carry firearms because of your previous experience with domestic violence? My first experience with defensive gun use was a good guy with a gun protecting his family against such an abuser. So are we women who want to protect ourselves against ourselves? And why on earth pivot to political divisiveness after remarking on the loss of a bright young sergeant?

The idea that leftist chief Acevedo (and many gun control advocates) promotes in this clip, that firearm ownership is a man’s thing, so if you support it you’re standing against women, is so disgustingly and offensively sexist, it’s logical vomit. It doesn’t seem surprising after reading Acevedo’s reported history:

Acevedo leaves the Capital City as yet another milestone in his legacy of disgrace. He was pressured to leave the California Highway Patrol in 2007 following a sexual harassment lawsuit from a woman who allegedly had an affair with him. Afterwards, he was snatched up by the City of Austin and hired as Police Chief.

In his nearly decade-long tenure in Austin, Acevedo has been pockmarked with rocky relationships and controversies. It is well known that Acevedo had a difficult working relationship with City Manager Marc Ott – Acevedo has been reprimanded several times for disobeying orders, including having his pay docked for speaking out about ongoing investigations to officers when told not to.

In 2014, he exacerbated community relations for a tone-deaf comment in which he defended his officers for slamming a 19-year-old woman on the pavement for jaywalking, saying that sexual abuse by officers in other cities made his officers look good by comparison.

Despite his tendency to constantly put his foot in his mouth, Acevedo has not shied away from the public spotlight, and frequently grandstands for liberal causes. Last year, he testified against both open carry and campus carry. He caught flak for his comments on the latter, in which he stated that it would be better for a sexual assault victim to undergo counseling following an incident than have had the ability to defend oneself in the first place.

 

Acevedo once tried bullying this female Second Amendment supporter with the threat of lawfare because I publicly and civilly challenged some of his claims and invited him to discuss them on air, a chance I fairly give everyone. It’s difficult to take seriously his concern for women considering how he reacted to simple political disagreement. (FYI: If Acevedo believes me to be incorrect he’s more than welcome to join my nationally syndicated radio show, which airs in his area also, for a legitimate, civil discussion if he’d like. The invitation is there.)

Instead of encouraging women to empower themselves, to learn about firearms and train — or at the very least go to the range once — gun control proponents such as Acevedo treat women like weak creatures, creatures suffering from the crippling disability of our female sex which renders us incapable of protecting ourselves, much less lug around a heavy gun to do it. It reminds me of a similar example, the time when Colorado Democrat Joe Salazar said that women shouldn’t carry on college campus because:

“It’s why we have call boxes, it’s why we have safe zones, it’s why we have the whistles. Because you just don’t know who you’re gonna be shooting at. And you don’t know if you feel like you’re gonna be raped, or if you feel like someone’s been following you around or if you feel like you’re in trouble when you may actually not be, that you pop out that gun and you pop … pop around at somebody.”

I do not trust any agent of the law who thinks that women are too stupid to carry thus making women more defenseless is the answer to predation on women. I know that the abuser in the personal experience I referenced would have preferred his target unprotected, like the convicted rapist in Ohio who I discovered was rallying for gun control after he was interviewed by the media. I wrote several years ago in my first book Hands Off My Gun that gun control is the ultimate war on women. Disarming women simply makes us easier targets for armed attackers and abusers. If you support disarming women you are against women. If lawful carry isn’t your thing, fine, but don’t rob us of our choice because you choose not to carry.

So who’s side are you on, Art Acevedo? I would hope mine.

*Update: Thanks to Daily Wire for the coverage and including some good points on VAWA:

“Finally, stop pretending like having problems with VAWA specifics is the same as cheering on domestic violence or being unconcerned with disarming dangerous individuals. It’s deeply insulting, and alienates people who are otherwise on the same page about stopping DV offenders.”