Posted on 01/25/2020 3:51:31 AM PST by Kaslin
Everyone wants to stop dangerous people from getting guns. To some the obvious solution is Red Flag laws, which take away the guns of people deemed dangerous to themselves or others. Wednesdays straight party line vote in Virginia Senate shows that these laws are more controversial than normally understood.
But the reasons for these differences get little coverage in the media. As the debate moves to the Virginia House of Delegates, it is important to understand they are so controversial is that there is a much better alternative already in place.
This alternative is commonly known as Baker Act statutes (Virginias is called the Emergency Custody Orders and Temporary Detention Orders), and they have been around in all states, most since the early 1970s. They allow police, doctors and family members to have someone typically held in most states and Virginia for a 72-hour mental health examination based upon a simple reasonableness test little more than a guess or a hunch.
These laws focus on mental illness, and they require that the individual be evaluated by mental-health-care experts. If a person cant afford a lawyer, a public defender is provided. While judges can involuntarily commit an individual they believe is a danger to themselves or others, there is a range of options they can take, with the threat that other options can be followed up with involuntary commitment.
However, instead of using these laws, 17 states have now adopted Red Flag laws, with 13 states passing them since the shootings at the high school in Parkland, Fla. While Red Flag laws are often discussed in terms of mental illness and they are most frequently used in connection with concerns about suicide, only one states law even mentions mental illness and none of the states requires that a mental-health expert be involved in evaluating the person.
And, unlike Baker Act statutes, these new laws dont offer safeguards, such as providing a lawyer for individuals who cant afford one. When faced with legal bills that can easily amount to $10,000 for a hearing, very few think that keeping a gun justifies that cost.
Under these laws, initial confiscations of firearms often require just a reasonable suspicion, which is little more than a guess or a hunch. Judges simply have a piece of paper in front of them with the complaint when they are first asked to take away a persons guns. When hearings occur weeks or a month later, about a third of these initial orders are overturned, but since few have legal representation, the actual error rate is undoubtedly much higher.
When people really pose a clear danger to themselves or others, confine them to a mental-health facility. Guns are only one way they can do harm, and if they are intent on hurting others or themselves they can find a way.
Red Flag laws can harm people who need help. Absent such laws, a person contemplating suicide might speak to a friend or family member and be dissuaded from that dire course of action. With the laws, they may fear that speaking out will result in a report to authorities and their ability to defend themselves or loved ones would be restricted.
Police officers often experience depression on the job. Would we be better off if they worried that sharing their feelings might mean having their guns taken from them and the loss of their jobs?
Abuses of targeting people are occurring. In Colorado, whose law just went into effect on January 1st, a mother of a teenage son who was shot and killed by a police officer has moved to have the officers guns seized.
Red Flag laws also let the government take firearms away from people arrested but not convicted of crimes. Even simple complaints without arrests have been enough. That is quite a change in peoples constitutional rights, and dont be surprised if courts eventually strike down such provisions. Gun-control advocates have resisted making this change explicit in the laws, presumably out of fear that it would create problems in the courts. Also, courts frequently take into account other factors such as gender and age in predicting the chances someone will commit a crime or commit suicide.
Despite all the costs, the evidence shows no benefits from Red Flag laws. Looking at data from 1970 through 2017, these laws havent reduced rates of murder, suicide, mass public shootings, robbery, aggravated assault, or burglary. Lives werent saved.
Given the civil rights protections that are built into Baker Act statutes, as well as the mental-health evaluation requirements, lets make use of these laws before enacting others that wont address the real issue. If more money is needed for facilities, put resources there instead of what it would take to set up Red Flag laws.
These red flag laws are an attack on the Constitution and personal rights and in no way intended to help ones health.
Center-right in the photograph is a flintlock pistol. Did police also empty kitchen drawers of knives (and forks)?
The red flag law in the People’s Republics of Maryland has already gotten someone killed.
The Virginia legislature IS the Red Flag. (Red as in Stalinist/Nazi Totalitarian)
At any given moment there are people roaming the streets who are a serious,and immediate,threat to themselves and/or others.It goes without saying that you don't want such people to have a firearm.But you also don't want them "on the loose" either.
Bottom line...those who are too unstable to have a firearm are also too unstable to be "free".IOW,do away with "red flag" laws and start enforcing the laws regarding involuntary commitment.
Red flag laws have nothing to do with safety...and they have *everything* to do with contempt for the 2nd Amendment and those who wish to exercise their rights under 2A.
“Red Flag” gun laws are unconstitutional.
They violate the Second, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the US Constitution.
To Wit:
Second — Right to keep and bear Arms
Fourth — Unreasonable search and seizure
Fifth — Due process of law; private property taken
Sixth — Right to be confronted with the witnesses against and Assistance of counsel (Miranda warning)
Fourteenth — . . . nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; . . .
Agree it’s an attack against whites. The drug gangs should be targeted but they would call that being racist. Nothing about the red flag law is about mental health.
Mr. Northam’s contributions would count as well.
It wasn’t engineered to be the best way to handle mental health issues. It was engineered to cause chaos in the gun debate. If you approach every progressive agenda from the viewpoint of them causing chaos the picture becomes clear.
Yup,
No one who can not be trusted to be armed should be running around loose.
Red Flag Law Legality/Efficacy - bump for later....
I say we go along with it and make Lying to the public by a Public Employee a Serious Mental Illness that requires Mandatory Red Flag Enforcement.
Quite so.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.