WH support for "red flag" laws

[Kraut]

So I read that Trump has voiced support for state passage of "red flag" laws to allow people determined to be a danger to themselves or others to be stripped of their guns. Four or five states were mentioned as already having such laws, CA, WA, OR, and I forget the other(s). Passed individually by the states, the processes could vary significantly across the nation. The article I read mentioned a judge having to be involved and a claim of appropriate due process, but the descriptions indicate that they are like other restraining orders, and those are initially issued on one party's complaint, with a hearing set after service of the order where the subject of the order has to show cause why the order shouldn't be made permanent. Add in the factor of judicial activists trying to legislate from the bench (reference last year's adoption case where despite no finding of law, a judge refused to grant adoption to a family unless they surrendered their concealed weapons permits - Michigan or Minnesota I believe), and the ease with which one can already get someone involuntarily brought for mental evaluation (I think many places call it being "Baker Acted," we refer to it as an OPC, Order of Protective Custody or PEC, Physician's Emergency Committal), and this has a potential for really jamming someone up in the attendant bureaucracy. I have reservations about expanding the scope of protection orders in this manner, combining them with the easily abused, vague standards that are applied to mental commitments (the minimum standard here is driving to the coroner's office and using the right verbiage on a brief form, which is then faxed to the sheriff/local police and voila!, one involuntary trip to the ER). I'm not 100% on protective orders, but I believe one must at least show some proof such as a police report of a verified incident before a judge will issue the initial temporary order and bring someone into court for a hearing.

I get not wanting people known to be dangerous, violent, and mentally unstable to have access to firearms, but the way many of these processes already get abused, expanding the scope so broadly to cover seizing guns makes me leery.

Discuss...

 

[lane]

I agree. This could end up like a lot of the sexual misconduct/me too, that's going around today. Once tagged right or wrong you're screwed.

 

[Jmfox3]

Irrespective of the rules you must rely upon good people acting rationally. In this case we had some associates of batshit-crazy-jackass acting rationally but local and federal law enforcement acting irrationally well over 41 times.

We need rational people with guns and a mechanism to keep them out of the hands of

batshit-crazy-jackass​

. ​

Today we have too many people that have lost sight of the fundamental bonds of what it means to be a member of a community and, frankly, not enough people who want to run irrational actors out of the community...start with Sheriff Israel. That man should be run out of town in front of screaming mob with torches and pitchforks.