The Perils of “Red Flag” Laws

(Aug. 9, 2019) — In the aftermath of the El Paso and Dayton killings there is talk of “Red Flag” laws allowing family members or even friends and neighbors to “report” people they personally deem to be “dangerous” and have their guns seized by police (the State).   This is an EXTREMELY dangerous concept!

It flies directly in the face of American Jurisprudence.   Under a Red Flag Law, anyone could report anyone for any reason and have a judge order the disarming of said person, all without ANY opportunity for the accused to defend himself/herself prior to having their guns seized.   The accused is never told who his/her accuser is or what the accusation is.   The accused then has to spend thousands of dollars on an attorney and petition the Court to get their guns back.   This takes weeks or even months.   Then, in court, the accused has to prove a negative, that the unnamed accuser is wrong and the accusations are false.   Good luck with that, especially when the accused is never told who the accuser is or what the specific accusations are.

The problem with getting a court to reinstate a person’s Constitutional rights in this scenario is that judges will take the path of least resistance almost every time.   During my career in law enforcement I watched judges repeatedly tell litigants that, while the litigant had clearly done nothing wrong, the Court was going to “err on the side of caution” (their favorite phrase) and hold the litigant responsible anyway, ordering expensive and time-consuming “counseling,” simply because the litigant could not “prove a negative” in court and without the opportunity to confront the unnamed accuser, all in direct violation of the Constitutional right to be confronted by the accuser.  Say what?!   If this sounds crazy, it is, but it’s happening more than you know.

It smacks of Communist East Germany where no one trusted anyone, and everyone lived in fear of being “reported” by anyone for even the most innocent of deeds or comments.

Be afraid, very afraid.