Land Of The Free, Home Of The… Guilty, If You’re A Gun Owner

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When I was a child, we were taught basic civics and such ideas that America was the land of the free and the home of the brave. The way that U.S. citizens handed the difficulties of life both here and overseas during WWI and WWII deserve our admiration. There was no doubt that our grandparents and great grandparents were brave people who (for the most part) wanted to pass on a legacy of freedom to us.

But this day and age is different. We have so many people (and, sadly, not just ignorant young people) who have no clue what either courage or freedom are. They suspect people of being dangerous for simply owning a firearm, and one of their key weapons of choice in this fight against gun owners is red flag laws.

Essentially, red flag laws are promoted by cowards who want to trade freedom for security and get neither. Why do they get neither? Jacob Sullum explains:

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Responding to the mass shootings that took 22 lives in El Paso and nine in Dayton over the weekend, President Donald Trump said it should be easier to confiscate people’s guns when they are deemed a threat to others. That prescription may or may not prevent any murders, but it will certainly hurt many innocent Americans by depriving them of their Second Amendment rights.

“We must make sure that those judged to pose a grave risk to public safety do not have access to firearms, and that, if they do, those firearms can be taken through rapid due process,” the president said on Monday. “That is why I have called for ‘red flag’ laws, also known as extreme risk protection orders.”

Seventeen states and the District of Columbia have adopted such laws, most of them since the February 2018 massacre at a high school in Parkland, Florida. Although preventing mass shootings is the goal emphasized by advocates of red flag laws, data from Indiana and Connecticut, the first two states to enact them, show they are mainly used to protect people from their own suicidal impulses.

The evidence on whether they succeed in doing that is mixed, and so far there’s no firm evidence that red flag laws prevent homicide. One thing is clear: Taking away people’s guns based on predictions of what they might do with them raises thorny due process issues.

Despite the talk of “extreme” or “grave” risks, red flag laws typically refer to a “significant” risk, and what that means is anybody’s guess. Given the imagined stakes, judges tend to err on the side of granting orders that bar people from possessing guns.

Let’s be clear: red flag laws have no firm evidence of preventing people using guns to injure or kill other people, so they fail at what they are supposed to be accomplishing.

But that’s the way of cowards and those who wish to be slaves to a nanny government: they freely give away their own rights and want to take away the rights of other for the illusion of safety, and all they accomplish is getting more people killed. Our grandparents and great grandparents knew that.

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8 COMMENTS

  1. Anyone can say anything about you and there goes your 2nd Amendment rights and the authority’s are very reluctant to return your weapons , after due process …
    If not certainly against any return …

  2. We need to hire lawyers and sue, sue, sue in every state that has laws like this. I have no doubt that there will be plenty of sue-able cases of abuse in short order, if there aren’t already.

  3. Red Flag laws do have some value based on some recent incidents. However, unless decisions are made by well knowlegeable medical people, we run the risk of disgruntled people using red flag claims to be vindictive of “enemies”. As such, I oppose such red flag laws.

  4. Giving up liberty for a fleeting bit of safety serves one purpose and only one purpose: trading the individual criminal for the worst kind of criminal: a criminal government.

  5. From Sea to Sea nothing but lunatics every where you look! We can blame this hysteria entirely on our glorious mainstream media. They are definitely the main antagonist driving the lunatics today.

  6. It is very unconstitutional and they will not get away with it. I for one will not give up any gun I own. Not even my Red Ryder these demoncrats have double standards it’s ok for them to have guns. That should be the first ones to go after. Look it has been proven most of these shooters are Democrats. What does that tell you people! Time to stand are ground against this corrupt government we have here these idiots break the laws of this country everyday. Now it is time for that shit to stop. To all demoncrats this is America if you don’t like it here get the hell out. We The People will not stand for tyrants such as yourselves any longer so do America a favor get out and go we’re they have socialism because we won’t have that here in America.

  7. Slippery Slope
    1st “Red Flag” laws
    2nd “Universal registration” Federal
    3rd “Mag Capacity” ban
    4th ” Gun Type” (ie: AR15 … any semi auto) ban
    5th Gun confiscation (aka: Australia)
    6th Goodbye Constitution Hello Police State
    * If you allow this to happen, then all the patriots who have died for this country since it’s inception have died
    in vein.

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