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Red Flag Laws Will Disarm America
Yeah, it will take a bit of time to do it, but leftists play the long game.
I don’t know why I am so surprised that so many conservatives seem so naive about this. Red flag laws are cracking the lid on Pandora’s box on taking away your 2A rights and the uglies are sliding out as we speak. I would like to see how well this post has aged in 20 years’ time. I would hate to be right, but I’m pretty sure I will be.
Red Flag laws allow anyone, for any reason, to report that another individual shouldn’t have access to guns due to … whatever reason. As I understand it, if the report’s allegations are found to be sufficient, law enforcement will remove guns from the individual reported (without a prior hearing or due process) and then the individual may pursue an opportunity to refute the report and obtain the return of the firearms.
How abused do I think Red Flag laws will be? Massively. Here’s a list of why.
(1) Cowardly Judges: Judges will not be the protector of 2nd amendment rights. What judge will dare not sign any red flag request? In my experience, most judges are the biggest cowards … they look for a way out of a decision or the path of least resistance that won’t result in an appeal or reflect badly on them. No judge will risk being the authority who did not sign the order and then the subject of the report goes and shoots up a school. In my experience, judges mostly care about their pension and their elevated position in the community.
(2) Dysfunctional Courts: Any deadline for an actual “quick” hearing will be mostly ignored. I work with seniors in the guardianship setting where family members file for guardianship to take away the rights of a senior to make their own decisions. In one state I practice in, the Court can grant an emergency guardianship without an initial hearing if there is an imminent danger allegation, but the Court must hold a hearing within three days in order to continue the guardianship. The three-day requirement is routinely ignored. I had one senior under an “emergency” guardianship for over eight months before I could get it dismissed. There had been no medical evidence filed, no attorney representation for the senior at the onset, and no hearing. (The kids pursuing the g-ship didn’t like how their perfectly competent mother was spending “their inheritance.”) I even filed in my state Court of Appeals for relief … the appellate court agreed with me but remanded the case back to the trial court to “fix” it rather than grant my request for emergency relief to immediately release mom from the guardianship. (This is just the political class protecting each other.)
Even well-intentioned courts don’t work on a proper timeline. Citizens who do not have regular contact with the courts have no idea how dysfunctional they are. Heck, defendants are guaranteed the right to a speedy trial…does that happen? And the cost of engaging the system to hire an attorney, etc .,is also a limiting factor for most. Court relief will not happen in most cases. Also, even if you have the hearing, the coward judge could still find that you shouldn’t have your guns and what is the downside for him/her to do so? Almost none. Is the individual going to be able to afford an attorney to take the case up on appeal? Will the individual even be able to find an attorney to appeal? Appeals are very, very expensive and judges know this. (I did all the work in the above g-ship pro bono because I was so enraged, but it cost me thousands of dollars out of pocket for experts, medical assessments, discovery costs, etc) A judge can issue a bad decision, even an illegal one, but it stands unless overturned on appeal.
(3) Personal Payback: People will use Red Flag laws for their own nefarious purposes. Are you an adult child mad at your dad because he won’t give you rent money? Are you an estranged wife looking for a way to further “get one over” on your cheating husband? Are you in a dispute over the tree limbs on the fence line with your neighbor? Did your boss, an avid hunter, just fire you? A freedom-loving veteran who displays gun enthusiast stickers on your truck and drove too fast through the neighborhood? People will lie and they will lie big: Let me draw a parallel for you to the allegations of child abuse in divorce proceedings. In my practice as a children’s ad litem, I saw parents make the most heinous allegations of child abuse against the other for strategic advantage in custody and property division decisions. Remember, presumably, you can be held in contempt for filing a false report or lying to the court. Did that matter? Not in the least. There are ZERO penalties for lying. Example: Mom claims her estranged husband sodomized their five-year-old son with a long-neck beer bottle, put the child through a Sexual Assualt exam (which found nothing), got an emergency order to cut off all contact with dad, and then delayed the final hearing for years while the son went to “counseling” that did nothing but affirm the abuse and his alienation from his dad. At 11 years old, the son finally got in front of a judge and said that it was all a lie and that he didn’t understand what his mom was asking him to do at the time and he recanted. Dad finally got to see his son again. (Mind you, this was the same judge that bought the story in the first place and prohibited contact for years! See #1 above.) Also, dad worked in law enforcement — perfect Red Flag target had that been available. And that is just one of the scores of examples I could share. People will lie, lie, lie!
(4) Institutional Abuse: Institutions will use Red Flag laws for their own nefarious purposes. Speak out at a school board meeting? The anti-woke employee at the HR training? Donated money to the “wrong” candidate or party? Report.
(5) Mission Creep: The Red Flag law categories will be expanded. The Feds already tried to remove gun rights from seniors who have a representative payee for their social security. (It didn’t pass.) If the VA finds a veteran incapacitated for purposes of the Aid and Attendance program payments, the veteran’s gun rights are presently removed (and there is no hearing for that either — it is based on whether the senior can handle their finances).
In the future, I can see Red Flags laws being tied to medical diagnostic codes and requiring medical providers to report. Diagnosed with Alzheimer’s? Report. Prescribed an anti-depressant? Report. Or, with Electronic Medical Records, implementing an automatic reporting feature if certain diagnostic codes are toggled.
Also, every government apparatus will grow to justify its existence. Low on red flag reports this month? Then beat the bushes to get more red flag reports in to justify the government clerks assigned to process these reports. I can see where laws will require notices of red flag procedures to be given to family court litigants and crime victims. The number of complaints goes up, the budget goes up. More and more people flagged. More and more people are disarmed. Red Flag category creep will happen. Even if you are a perfect, good citizen, you will eventually get tripped up on something. Disarmed.
Ammo Girl at Powerline said all this, but more entertainingly than I did.
Are republicans stupid? Naive? Evil? Or just uni-party and we plebs are worthless and should be governed by our betters? A disarmed society is more easily controlled and governed by unpopular edicts.
Let’s check back in the years to come to see if I am right.
Published in Guns
I strongly suspect that you are right. The left backdoors everything, so why shouldn’t they do it here?
Justice Thomas’ splendid opinion forecloses a couple of their favorite tricks, like requiring huge amounts of insurance to legally own a gun. They have plenty more tricks, and they will never stop using them. It’s for our own good, since they are much more intelligent than we mouth-breathing knuckle-dragging gun nuts.
That’s their ultimate goal, to be sure.
My thoughts are not nearly as corrupted as the Left; I would never have imagined all the ways red flag laws could be abused. I knew they could be, would be, but now I’m convinced that they are a danger to our 2nd amendment rights. thanks, DP.
Hey! Speak for yourself. I only mouth-breathe when talking to libs, and I eat plenty of garlic first.
Denial of due process is a danger to the entire Constitution.
There will be a lot of waterproof cases buried in the woods….
Somewhat related: Kirkland and Ellis will no longer take Second Amendment cases:
“We were given a stark choice: either withdraw from ongoing representations or withdraw from the firm”
This makes me feel powerless and enraged.
This development should not surprise anyone, as liberals have in recent years shown increasingly open hostility to Constitutional liberties, seeing such protections as belonging only to persons with acceptably leftist opinions.
Yes. Any time bureaucrats are given the task of determining the inner unspoken thoughts, capabilities, and intentions of other people’s psyche, they always can determine something. No matter if it’s all fantasy, or manufactured for a predetermined outcome, or just to show that they provided necessary expertise and did something to show that it was worth the time and money of calling them in.
For that matter, I don’t like it when judges issues harsher sentences or other punishment when the guilty defendant fails to show sufficient “remorse.” It could be a practice that goes back to 13th century England for all I know, but I do not like it. It’s too much like the way the Soviets extracted confessions in their show trials.
I see your point. I’ve never really thought about it. I guess I always supposed that harsh sentences were the default way to sentence and were lightened according to mercy, especially in light or hardship. extenuating circumstances, and repentance, remorse, and restitution. That kind of thing.
But if sentencing is supposed to be (or is seen as) a time for confession, if you still maintain your innocence, then yes, any call for remorse is contraindicated and would constitute a forced confession.
At sentencing, would pleading “I’m sorry! I’m sorry you’re all so blind and pig-headed as to endorse this show trial of a kangaroo court. It corrupts your souls. And for that, and for you all, I am greatly sorry, and ashamed” tend to lead to harsher sentencing?
I only mouth-breathe anymore when I have to mask, which now is only for a couple of minutes at a time when I go for my weekly Covid test in the drive through. But I had plenty of experience with it when masking was still required at my fitness club in Washington state for hours at a time in order to get on a squash court. I should probably say that because I wear glasses, mouth-breathing was a way to minimize fogging up my glasses when wearing a mask. This worked because I don’t think with my glasses I was ever able to wear a mask properly. I would make sure there were plenty of gaps for air to get in and out at the bottom of the mask. This trick even worked while flying.
I don’t know what any particular red flag law says. I know that some red flag laws that have been proposed limit those who can trigger a red flag revocation of gun rights to immediate family members, that they must present compelling evidence of an immediate danger, that the revocation must be approved by a judge, that it must be strictly limited in duration and subject to immediate appeal, and that the revocation must be overseen by a judge who must explicitly approve any extension of the revocation.
I like guns and I want to see gun laws reduced, not increased. I also am open to the possibility that, since we no longer institutionalize crazy people in America (for better and worse), it might be appropriate to have some provision for temporarily disarming them. Or perhaps for temporarily institutionalizing them, with similar due process protections.
They only care about guns belonging to rational people who may, under some circumstance, resist totalitarianism as armed citizens. They do not care about guns legal or illegal controlled by criminals, crazy people, radical dangerous leftists or illegal drug dealers who come across our border daily. These are the same people who control both houses, major states, the White House all major network TV stations, major internet systems, and most principal newspapers. But don’t worry, most of them say they support fair elections.
Yup, on many topics.
I’m kinda relieved I lost all of my guns in an unfortunate boating incident. What a headache this would be if I still owned any.
All that would be comforting if we could trust judges and the rest of the “just-us” system to be unbiased and fair toward gun owners, and that the process wouldn’t be structured so as to cost more in legal fees than the cost of the confiscated firearms.
It might be better to temporarily institutionalize people since 1) they may get the mental help they need and 2) liberal judges would be eager to release them at the first opportunity with or without expensive legal representation.
These will be the same judges, locally elected judges, who are trusted to make decisions every day involving Constitutional rights – including probable cause decisions for search warrants and arrest warrants, rulings on all kinds of contested pre-trial search and seizure issues,’and sometimes deciding guilt or innocence from the bench. And by and large they do a great job of it.
My point is: if you don’t trust the local elected judiciary, red flag laws are the least of your worries.
I don’t vote for people with the intention of trusting them. I vote for those more likely to do the right thing, but I don’t trust them to do the right thing.
Show us the great hand that comes down from the sky and forces those judges etc to do things right, and then… well, still no. Because you can’t.
They get to define “due process” and they also want to define “fair.”
Fair point, but you do get to vote for them. Or against them. (And for these kinds of local courts, it’s probably not too hard to speak with them directly when they’re running.) Their attitudes tend to reflect those of their local community, especially if they aren’t well trusted on a personal level. The ones who are particularly well liked and well respected have a bit more leeway with the public. (I know there are exceptions to this, but it’s generally true.)
All this is to say that if you have a judge who is ignoring due process guidelines and wantonly grabbing guns, political pressure (along with successful appeals) can force them to pay attention to due process.
👍
Not if the culture around you supports that. Voting doesn’t get you good leaders of the culture around you shuns good governance.
Ahem Joe Biden.
And getting info on judges for elections is nigh impossible. It is like playing Russian Roulette with the info on offer that usually comes from liberally educated lawyers who interact with them daily.
To get a well organized collection of rulings to peruse to educate on the subject is tedious. I might do it, but I know the majority is not.
My problem is that I can really see a use for red flag laws. My father had early onset dementia, he started having beliefs and actions that was dangerous for him and others. I took his gun collection. What I did was against the law and the law was on his side to keep them. I only kept them because before I would give them back as the judge and sheriff required I demanded paper saying it was by their will and not mine. If anything went wrong I wanted coverage and I was going to go wide with it so publicly they would get the blame. The threat was enough that while he won the ruling he could not get the government to come and get them from me. A well reasoned, well executed, well structured red flag would be helpful in such a situation. But unfortunately I have experienced enough government to know that is impossible. Any law may be used for its purpose but mostly would be used in lawfare against people.
Don’t even get me started on the mental health people. I have no doubt they are well meaning. Just not useful. Actually in many cases just the opposite of useful.
Good news! Law firms aren’t run by money-grubbing whores anymore, they’re run by ideologues.
And that’s the real issue – you can’t red flag a crazy, easily, at all.
But if someone has a gun, now you can.
That’s the only difference. The gun. No mention that the crazy could not have one, one day, and just get one, the next. While the red-flagged neighbor is now defenseless.
Woke is the new Jim Crow; there will be increasingly little institutional pressure, nor any electoral pressure in blue states/locales. The American Bar Association is already trying to force mandatory Critical Race Theory in law schools (already overwhelmingly Woke) as a condition of accreditation.
There is also the fact that the process is the punishment, even if technical due process is followed, with falsely flagged individuals forced to devote their own time and money in order to get their rights restored.
Correction: Money-grubbing ideologues.