Sure as the gods made little green apples, Red Flag laws are back in the headlines.
For the people who think these are a great idea, I have one simple question:
How many people have been convicted of misusing a Red Flag law?
Whatever you want to call it — “Misusing”, “False filing”, “Obtaining under perjury”, whatever — a fraudulently-obtained Red Flag law denies the person it was obtained against a civil right. Civil rights that the Government should be bending over backwards to protect.
The first Red Flag law was passed in 1999. 23 years ago. People are people, and someone has blatantly lied to obtain a Red Flag order against someone.
Someone in the last 23 years has misused a Red Flag law to harass someone else.
So. Show me their conviction for doing so.
I know about the time someone tried to get a Red Flag order against the cops, and that doesn’t count — some animals being more equal to other animals, and all that.
I’m talking about Joe Average having his civil rights taken away for a year with a misused Red Flag order. It has happened — we all know that it has happened — and I want to see the criminal record of the person who fraudulently deprived someone else of their Second Amendment right for a year.
Any claim of “Well, they’re so well checked that it’s never been abused” it complete and utter horse-puckey — I was in law enforcement for 26 years, that isn’t going to fly.
Absent a conviction, I will accept the name of a judge who rubber-stamped every Red Flag request to cross his desk, never turned one down, and was removed from office because of it.
If you don’t have that information, then your opinion on Red Flag laws means nothing; and you should be ignored.
LawDog
It's worse than simply stripping someone of their basic constitutional rights without due process, it's also the functional equivalent of "SWATTing".
Its not like if you find yourself under one of these orders, the police are going to show up at your house late in the afternoon, knock on the door, had you a copy of the order and politely request that you go collect your guns while they wait on the porch.
No, it'll be served by a dynamic entry team at oh-dark-thirty … they'll kick your door in, shoot your dog, drag everyone in the house out of bed in whatever state of undress they're in and shackle them in the front yard for all the world to see (if you're lucky, if you react quickly they'll just murder you in your bed as you reach for your side arm). Then if you've survived this long, you get to listen to your dog whimpering and gasping as it slowly dies in your living room while the officers ransack your house making sure nothing of value is left unbroken to make sure they find every last one of your guns (the nicer of which may not end up in the paperwork but instead in the private collection of the officer that finds it). All so you can then spend significantly more than your guns are worth trying to get them back (and repair the damage done to your home). Again, assuming you live through the initial contact.
No, Red Flag laws are one of the most evil and un-American things imaginable and anyone that would support them I have to see as my mortal enemy.
Red Flag laws will be used in every acrimonious divorce case. Want to get back at your cheating husband (or the one who is upset about your cheating)? Now, not only can you accuse him of domestic violence and child abuse, you can now say he has guns and you fear he will use them. As a bonus, the burden of proof is way lower on that accusation. If you're lucky, he might be one of the ones who doesn't survive the delivery of the Red Flag warrant, and now you don't have to spend your money on a divorce attorney.
Is there really going to be a discernible difference between a violent career criminal sleeping with a gun at the ready by the bed to blast anyone making forced entry, or the normal homeowner that does the same? I say no. If some jackass decides to call in a false red flag order or a swatting on me at zero-dark-thirty, rest assured no one in my home (me, wife, dogs, guests, etc.) will survive the encounter. And I can guarantee that not all the members of the entry team will be going home alive either.
Perhaps the more carnage that occurs, this shit will stop.
Sigh… You're right, and this IS going to go south as the other commenters have said. Meanwhile, states will continue to NOT make the proper entries on the crazies, they will continue to pass the NICS checks, and get weapons. The only real impact will be to law abiding citizens who fall afoul of vengeful spouses/neighbors…
The "crazies" are socially friendly elements, and may well be getting assistance in passing NICS checks from the organs of the state (see Solzhenitsyn).
Elected Misrepresentatives, Senators & Senatrices, & Presidents & Vice-Presidents who support and pass or sign Red Flag assaults on our rights ought to be rendered unemployed and unemployable, immediately!
Ulises from the People’s Republik of Kalipornia
How about losing ALL RIGHTS, FOREVER? The first time a red flag was applied here in Anne Arundel Co. Md., it resulted in the death of a Citizen, at the hands of police. Served at 0 dark 30, gentlemen understandably answered knock on Door pistol in hand. Oops, so sorry we killed you…
Re Anonymous: I remember that incident. It was created by a female relative, a niece or such, living in the home, that didn't get something she thought she deserved… so, she called down the fire. The guy is dead as dead can be. The person(?) who started the ball rolling? Crickets.
Red Flag Laws are like #ME2, with an official mandate for violence.
We're going to have Red Flag laws until a few Liberals are subjected to the hot lights and rubber hose routine while their children are handed off to the pesos in family services and searchers tear down their house and every vehicle they own searching for anonymously reported ghost guns.
Jay Dee, the left will burn their own so no, liberals subjected to red flags will do nothing to sway the rest of the leftists from embracing them wholeheartedly.
Anything that they can use to burn "their enemies" without due process just gives these sickos too big a chubby to let the deaths of a handful of their allies deter them.
Broken eggs and omelettes and all that.
If a person is so mentally ill/dangerous as to need a Red Flag order, then they meet the criteria for an emergency psychiatric evaluation don't they? Take them for the eval, and if they are kept; they become a prohibited person and the family can remove the firearms while they're in the hospital. If they aren't, there is no need for a Red Flag.
At least that is the way I see it.
That is A: Not typically how red flag laws work.
And B: Evalled by whom?
And C: Why does a mental health issue, real or imagined allow you to remove my due process rights. If I and aawyer can't face my accuser (and that is what a red flag 'informer' is in court with the presumption of innocence – this is just pre-crime at best.
"How many people have been convicted of misusing a Red Flag law?"
That is an excellent question. I'm not even sure how one would go about researching it. Especially given the number of courts that can issue such orders.
Since clearly it isn't illegal to call in a red flag alert, if it passes I'm calling them in on every fucker that votes for it.
All of you have made excellent arguments against red flag laws. And I think you're probably right. I don't really trust the government to use such laws fairly or justly. I just have one question: what other measures do you suggest for making sure that something like the Parkland shooter – about which, remember, multiple people tried to warn the authorities and they said "there's nothing we can do" – can't get its hands on a gun or two and carry out another mass shooting?
Yes, I know, they're not nearly as common as the left-wing press wants us to believe they are. So what? They're still cases of lots of innocent people being murdered by something that should never have been able to buy a gun. I want them to stop. So do you. I believe there are other measures that will reduce the long-term odds of human beings turning into would-be mass killers – but for the ones that are already out there, how can we stop them now?
Wolfwalker, There is nothing that can be done to prevent these outlier tragedies. Period. The best we can do is harden our institutions and make sure that the very rare lone nutter gunman can't use the gun he bought to much effect (make sure there are no self-defense free zones where he can murder without being shot at). Using laws to stop him from legally buying the gun in the first place:
1) doesn't stop him from using other means of mass murder (a few bike locks and a couple gallons of gasoline and you could kill a LOT more people in a school, for example) Remember the worst mass murder at a school in American history was done with dynamite. and
2) Will more often be used to disarm good, law abiding people instead (which is the real goal).
Making it harder to buy guns (especially "assault" weapons) is about protecting the political class from the people when they decide they want to put their boot on our neck. None of these plans to prevent "crazy people" from purchasing guns will do anything to stop mass murder, they'll only make the populace more susceptible to a mass murderer in uniform.
As for shooters like the Parkland shooter, there are already constitutionally sound methods that respect due process and the assumption of innocence that they could have used to take him off the streets, but the authorities chose not to do so. I personally believe this was done on purpose because the political advantage of allowing spree shooters outweighs the political advantage of stopping them.
Didn’t someone get killed in Maryland over a falsely issued “red flag” confiscation attempt?