Either a crime has been committed or it hasn’t. Anything else is ‘pre-crime’.
However, what makes this unique is it is not a blanket law. It is applied only to specific people based on their actions and threatening words.
And the key is this: It is only temporary, unless a solid case can be made regarding mental health. It’s akin to be ing arrested by the police. They can lock you up and take away your rights for a certain amount of time before they have to either charge you with a crime or let you go.
i.e. the state is already allowed to take away your rights for a short time even if you are never charged with a crime. And as is the case now, if they just do it willie nillie, they will have problems. It’s why it doesn’t happen often.
It’s also a little like that stop and frisk thing NYC had going for it. Sure, they harassed “innocent” people, but we all know who was really getting “harassed”, and that, yes, it WAS effective against crime.
Same thing here.
The guy in MD that was killed did not make any threats. It was a heated political discussion and his sister in law was frightened by how upset he was.
That process does a lot more than just take away firearms. That takes away the ability of the person to post on the internet, threaten people, use other dangerous weapons like their car or a knife, and it provides time for an actual determination of dangerousness. Of course the psychiatry community has shown that it is difficult to identify dangerous people, several recent mass murderers passed their psychiatrist's examinations.
If somebody is too dangerous to have a gun aren't they too dangerous to be, for example, flying a commercial jetliner?
The reason politicians want to focus on guns is that provides them a way to disarm the population without raising the concerns that are raised when you force someone into a mental hospital for 3 days. I suspect if you just proposed a 30 day ban on internet usage and video game playing along with the firearms seizures the Democrats would vote the bills down.
“It is applied only to specific people based on their actions and threatening words.”
Actually, none of the Red Flag laws enumerate specific crimes for which firearms can be seized. None. Liberal judges are free to say, “Well, you own guns and that’s enough to prove you are a violent nutcase to me.”
Not to mention, the person receives forced mental health evaluations, consulting, and must prove they are no longer a threat to get their gun back. They also have an arrest record, a criminal record (yes, Red Flag adjudications are a criminal proceeding).
By federal law a person can also no longer own firearms. Why? Because the of the Firearms Transaction Record Form 4473 question 11F: “Have you ever been adjudicated as a mental defective OR have you ever been committed to a mental institution?”
These Red Flag laws are the worst kind of legal tyranny. How can you prove you are innocent of a pre-crime or thought crime? The whole point of the law is to take away someone’s rights BEFORE they commit a crime.
If passed, these laws will become a routine part of divorce proceedings.
I can foresee a well funded campaign to scour the internet looking for posts or videos which the most “progressive” anti-gun judge might find alarming, and use those to target pro 2A people and organizations.
Moreover, if passed this bill guarantees that innocent people will die. When SWAT teams kick down the doors of armed people there will be mistakes made. Innocent people and some cops are sure to pay with their lives.