A Minnesota district court used my First Amendment protected speech and conduct as evidence to permanently revoke my Second Amendment rights and ostracize me from my community.
I was targeted because of my supposed beliefs and ideology, though I hadn't uttered them to anyone or done anything else to draw attention to myself.
Instead the prosecution relied on evidence stolen from my computer by a member of my household, which the court accepted and took as evidence of my true beliefs.
The chief evidence consisted of screenshots of text and image files that the court found objectionable despite being protected by the First Amendment. Almost all of the evidence was hearsay. Unevidenced statements and outright lies by police officers were taken as fact. Anything I said in my defense was ruled not credible.
The court then issued an Extreme Risk Protection Order, and is now renewing it indefinitely with no new evidence.
There was no sign from me at any time that I intended to commit violence against anyone. There was no threat or plan to commit any violence anywhere in the evidence and nothing like that was even alleged.
The court ignored this and abused its discretion to use my alleged beliefs and supposed "mental illness" as a reason to revoke my rights permanently.
This shows a prior restraint - the court expected me to trade my First Amendment rights for my Second Amendment rights and then punished me for not doing so.
Then the local police department set about spreading rumors about me to people in my community, and petitioned to have me civilly committed, forcing me to flee the state of Minnesota to maintain safety for my family and myself.
Yes, this is what really happened. I may be eccentric or view content and read about viewpoints that some people don't like or even find scary, but this does not make me crazy, evil, or dangerous, and this does not mean we as a society have to dispose of the Constitution.
Whether or not you agree with me, this is where the battle for the Constitution is and this is where you have to fight it to stop these red flag laws from going exponential in their abuse. They will directly or indirectly effect all of us very soon - especially in democrat-controlled areas.
In my case the government had four parts to their extremely weak evidence that was supposed to meet the "clear and convincing evidence" standard:
1) Screenshots of file/folder names, crime scene photos, and text files from my computer, some characterized as racist or misogynistic and indicative of a "favorable view towards violence"
2) A domestic violence arrest from 8 years prior that resulted in dismissed charges - the claims against me were actually false and there was no witness to them
3) My significant other called for a police escort when she wanted to move out (no allegations of domestic abuse or any incident)
4) My bedroom was wallpapered in foil
The last one might elicit a kneejerk response that "this guy is crazy", but that's not fair. Plenty of people have logical concerns about radiation from wifi devices and cell towers. What if they turn out to be well-founded? I exercise an abundance of caution where the safety of my children is concerned, so what?
You can see all the case files for yourself - MN file # 02-CV-24-1265
Anyway, that's the whole story. This is about as squeaky clean as any red flag case is going to get. There is plenty of ammunition in case law to litigate the unconstitionality of this kind of application of red flag laws, but without some outside assistance I'm just going to appeal this myself.
I can't take $20k+ out of my savings that I need to buy my family a house and land for a crapshoot in a corrupt legal system. A cheaper lawyer, as I found out during the first hearing, is probably worse than going pro se.
If you or anyone you're in contact with can amplify this story or help with my case, it would be much appreciated.
