Firearms Owners Against Crime
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Extreme Risk Protection Orders (ERPOs), commonly referred to as red flag laws, have been all the talk in Washington. Politicians on both sides of the aisle seem to think red flag laws are the answers to the mass shootings taking place in our country.
The House Judiciary Committee proved once again that they don't understand or value the Constitution. They green lighted ERPOs, despite many Second Amendment advocates concerns over the lack of due process.
Talk radio host and pro-gun activist Dana Loesch compiled a Twitter thread giving Americans 10 reasons why we should all be against this move.
1) #RedFlagLaws are an inversion of “innocent until proven guilty.” The standard of evidence is low and while state laws vary, many different people, not just family, can report you.
2) You don't have to be in the room (and advance notice isn't required) for the petition to be granted meaning you must wait to defend yourself. Most laws provide no penalty for abuse and no state law allows for civil cause of action against false accusers.
3) Time varies as to how long until respondents can have their day in court. A study conducted on Indiana's law, which said 14 day wait, revealed that the average wait was 9 months. Rights delayed are rights denied.
4) @davekopel , who has done excellent research on this, has noted that of the four states with the oldest gun confiscation laws, Connecticut, Indiana, California, and Washington, no research has revealed any statistical reduction in crime. #RedFlagLaws
(Also still No. 4) Furthermore, Kopel notes that nearly 1/3 of such orders are improperly issued against innocent people.
5) No advance notice is given ahead of serving a #RedFlag order. That worked out horribly for Maryland resident Gary Willis, who was shot and killed when answering his door early morning before the sun was up. This puts LEO in a HORRIBLE position of enforcing these orders.
6) Counsel is not provided (Blumenthal draft does, it's of little solace considering), meaning you could be like FL man Jonathan Carpenter, who is waging an expensive court battle to clear his name and reclaim his property because his name was too similar to a drug dealer's.
Florida resident Jonathan Carpenter's case is a prime example of red flag laws gone wrong. A woman filed a complaint against a drug dealer with the same name. Police came knocking on Carpenter's door, confiscated his firearms and then he had to go to court to prove they had the wrong person. It wasn't until he showed up in court, the plaintiff saw him and told cops they had the wrong person, that Carpenter was allowed to get his guns back.
7) We aren't arresting people, we're arresting guns. State laws ignore the very reason the petition was granted in the first place: danger resulting in violence or mental instability. No mental evaluations given, no charges for a crime.
8) How will confiscated firearms be stored? Local police will be tasked with figuring out storage and bearing the cost of any liability or insurance -- at a time when some struggle with budgets to afford body cams.
9) This isn't just about the 2nd Amendment. It doesn't matter if you're a "gun nut" or even own guns. The deconstruction of due process calls into question your 5th and 14th Amendment rights, too.
10) Lastly (not really, but I'm sticking to 10), if there is enough evidence to strip you of your rights THERE IS ENOUGH EVIDENCE TO CHARGE YOU or commit you. There are NUMEROUS other options to start fixing this problem WITHOUT sacrificing due process.
The biggest issue our nation has is the lack of law enforcement. Yes, we have cops, the FBI, the CIA, ICE but what we're missing is adequately enforcing every single law that's on the book.
Anti-gunners want to strip more rights guaranteed to us by the Second Amendment but they're not looking at the flaws that already exist, the biggest one being with background checks. The National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) isn't a completely wholesome system. Assuming a criminal decides to go through the "legal process" of purchasing a firearm, there's a chance that he or she may be given the green light when really they're a prohibited possessor. That's not something that will be fixed by adding another law. It's something that's fixed by enforcing the law and requiring every government agency, at every level, to provide their convictions to the National Crime Information Center (NCIC), which oversees NICS.
The other issue is to stop letting people off with a slap on the wrist. If the court thinks you're mentally unfit or unstable enough to take away your firearms, there's a pretty good chance they have enough evidence to convict you of a crime. Right?
https://gunwatch.blogspot.com/2019/09/dana-loesch-proves-once-again-why-red.html