Wednesday, September 18, 2019

Dana Loesch Proves, Once Again, Why Red Flag Laws Are Dangerous


Extreme Risk Protection Orders (ERPOs), commonly referred to as red flag laws, have been all the talk in Washington. Politicians on both sides of the aisle seem to think red flag laws are the answers to the mass shootings taking place in our country.

The House Judiciary Committee proved once again that they don't understand or value the Constitution. They green lighted ERPOs, despite many Second Amendment advocates concerns over the lack of due process.

Talk radio host and pro-gun activist Dana Loesch compiled a Twitter thread giving Americans 10 reasons why we should all be against this move.

1) #RedFlagLaws are an inversion of “innocent until proven guilty.” The standard of evidence is low and while state laws vary, many different people, not just family, can report you.

2) You don't have to be in the room (and advance notice isn't required) for the petition to be granted meaning you must wait to defend yourself. Most laws provide no penalty for abuse and no state law allows for civil cause of action against false accusers.

3) Time varies as to how long until respondents can have their day in court. A study conducted on Indiana's law, which said 14 day wait, revealed that the average wait was 9 months. Rights delayed are rights denied.

4) @davekopel , who has done excellent research on this, has noted that of the four states with the oldest gun confiscation laws, Connecticut, Indiana, California, and Washington, no research has revealed any statistical reduction in crime. #RedFlagLaws

(Also still No. 4) Furthermore, Kopel notes that nearly 1/3 of such orders are improperly issued against innocent people.

5) No advance notice is given ahead of serving a #RedFlag order. That worked out horribly for Maryland resident Gary Willis, who was shot and killed when answering his door early morning before the sun was up. This puts LEO in a HORRIBLE position of enforcing these orders.

6) Counsel is not provided (Blumenthal draft does, it's of little solace considering), meaning you could be like FL man Jonathan Carpenter, who is waging an expensive court battle to clear his name and reclaim his property because his name was too similar to a drug dealer's.

Florida resident Jonathan Carpenter's case is a prime example of red flag laws gone wrong. A woman filed a complaint against a drug dealer with the same name. Police came knocking on Carpenter's door, confiscated his firearms and then he had to go to court to prove they had the wrong person. It wasn't until he showed up in court, the plaintiff saw him and told cops they had the wrong person, that Carpenter was allowed to get his guns back.

7) We aren't arresting people, we're arresting guns. State laws ignore the very reason the petition was granted in the first place: danger resulting in violence or mental instability. No mental evaluations given, no charges for a crime.

8) How will confiscated firearms be stored? Local police will be tasked with figuring out storage and bearing the cost of any liability or insurance -- at a time when some struggle with budgets to afford body cams.

9) This isn't just about the 2nd Amendment. It doesn't matter if you're a "gun nut" or even own guns. The deconstruction of due process calls into question your 5th and 14th Amendment rights, too.

10) Lastly (not really, but I'm sticking to 10), if there is enough evidence to strip you of your rights THERE IS ENOUGH EVIDENCE TO CHARGE YOU or commit you. There are NUMEROUS other options to start fixing this problem WITHOUT sacrificing due process.

The biggest issue our nation has is the lack of law enforcement. Yes, we have cops, the FBI, the CIA, ICE but what we're missing is adequately enforcing every single law that's on the book.

Anti-gunners want to strip more rights guaranteed to us by the Second Amendment but they're not looking at the flaws that already exist, the biggest one being with background checks. The National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) isn't a completely wholesome system. Assuming a criminal decides to go through the "legal process" of purchasing a firearm, there's a chance that he or she may be given the green light when really they're a prohibited possessor. That's not something that will be fixed by adding another law. It's something that's fixed by enforcing the law and requiring every government agency, at every level, to provide their convictions to the National Crime Information Center (NCIC), which oversees NICS.

The other issue is to stop letting people off with a slap on the wrist. If the court thinks you're mentally unfit or unstable enough to take away your firearms, there's a pretty good chance they have enough evidence to convict you of a crime. Right?

SOURCE


9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Many, Many, years ago I was falsely arrested, the cops illegally searched my home. One cop picked out one of the weapons he liked from my gun rack. the entire house was searched without a warrant. I met the cops out side and the front door was closed. when I was released and the gun ordered returned. the cop that took it , before he gave it back, he broke the piston that made the rifle shoot on semi automatic and had his name scratched in the bluing of the receiver.

Trilisser said...

Why wasn't he prosecuted for misuse of authority?

Anonymous said...

Seems to me it would be the perfect time to "red flag" the politicians who carry in gun free zones, or the politicians and anti-gun advocates who blatantly lie, belligerently spewing hate against gun owners and/or creating civil unrest in the communities while falsely accusing the NRA....
If anyone can be accused merely on a whim; a jilted girlfriend turns in her ex, a person in the store with a raised bump under his shirt (flashlight and knife?) gets reported as being a threat, or if you happen to cut off someone on the street and they hatefully report you because of your pro-gun sticker on the window, why should liberals be immune from the suspicions which they raise by their over emotional contempt for the good character of the self-controlled gun owner?? their anger, hateful attacks and racist disregard for truth, seems to be more of a threat to the tranquillity of the communities than law abiding gun owners would be.
Seems there should be opportunity here...

Truecrimson said...

"what we're missing is adequately enforcing every single law that's on the book."

Be careful what you wish for. In Pennsylvania in 2014 the state police started enforcing the laws on those rejected on a background check. Now if you are denied on a background check and do not appeal you will be arrested, charged, and prosecuted.

What we have discovered is that the vast majority of those caught up in this are ordinary law abiding people who had some minor interaction with law enforcement or the mental health system in their past, often in their youth. The state police treat a VOLUNTARY MENTAL HEALTH OBSERVATION as if it is an involuntary commitment. The state DUI and drug laws have changed over the decades such that if you have ever had a DUI in Pennsylvania a lawyer who specializes in gun law will have to get your official paperwork to get the specific charges, disposition, and dates, and will have to consult 5 different law books to figure it out.

The state police don't bother with trying to figure it out or decide if you have cleaned up your act in the decades since a college DUI or mental health observation. You get charged and then have to either defend yourself at great expense or take a plea deal. Most people ending up taking the plea deal, which means that they are then certainly convicted felons and prohibited persons.

Since PA has it's own separate form and process for handguns if you were denied for a handgun purchase, which is the majority of these cases, you are facing 2 felonies.

cmeat said...

'"what we're missing is adequately enforcing every single law that's on the book."'

"Be careful what you wish for."

the former does not preclude reducing and eliminating many of the onerous and bewildering statutes on the books. striking one (or more) for every one that is added seems a fair start.

Frdmftr said...

Posted on the U.S.A-G's site: To U.S. Attorney-General William Barr: If you are qualified to be Attorney-General you should know this and your oath of office requires you to adhere to it without fail: 1. The federal government is not delegated the Constitutional subject matter authority to even license firearm dealers. 2. Not one federal gun control law is Constitutionally-authorized or legally enforceable. 3. The right to keep and bear arms is a RIGHT, not a revocable government-issued privilege for which government permission must be granted. 4. There is no subject matter authority delegated to the federal government to require U.S. citizens to ask government permission to exercise a RIGHT the peaceable exercise of which violates no one’s rights. 5. No background check has ever prevented a crime or criminal access to a firearm and was never intended to: Background checks in the absence of probable cause of criminal wrongdoing are intended to sucker citizens into waiving their 2nd, 4th, 5th, 9th, and 10th Amendment rights to obtain revocable permission government has no lawful authority to issue or deny. 6. Records pertaining to citizens and kept on government servers are NOT public records and access to them is prohibited absent probable cause of criminal wrongdoing. 7. Background checks compelled in the absence of probable cause of criminal wrongdoing attested to by warrant are a violation of our 4th Amendment-protected right against search and seizure. 8. Requiring a citizen to ask permission to exercise a RIGHT over which government has no lawful authority is a TAKING of the right. 9. The TAKING of a right without DUE PROCESS of warrant, indictment or information, prosecution, criminal court (jury) trial and conviction of a criminal act is a violation of our 5th Amendment-protected RIGHT TO DUE PROCESS. 10. Requiring a citizen to GIVE UP A RIGHT in order to EXERCISE A RIGHT is a violation of the rights involved as well as a violation of our 9th Amendment-protected rights. 11. Violating a citizen’s right to be secure from the federal exercise of power NOT DELEGATED is a violation of our 10th Amendment. 12. Violating a citizen’s right to be secure from the exercise or enforcement of State power PROHIBITED TO THE STATES by the enumerated Bill of Rights is a violation of our 10th Amendment.


Thus your obsession with depriving American citizens of their fundamental and enumerated right to keep and bear arms is a flagrant and egregious violation of our 2nd, 4th, 5th, 9th, and 10th Amendment rights and We, the People, are absolutely NOT going to put up with it. We demand you immediately drop and rescind your proposed legislation depriving us of our rights: We are NOT going to become just another European-style satrapy where government issues privileges and calls them ‘rights,’ but retains the lawful power to take them away at its whim. This is America, the first nation in the history of the planet to establish the personal, individual, sovereign rights of the citizen superior to the arbitrary whims of hereditary and self-appointed warlords, and we will not allow it to be destroyed by your color of law. Please honor and obey your oath of office.

Anonymous said...

What I fail to understand is how can you be charged with a felony if you fill out a required form. Fill out the form correctly and truthfully to be approved or denied. What is the crime?

Anonymous said...

What I fear the most is with the current state of affairs concerning weapons of any kind the right to keep and bear arms is going to fall on the individual to protect their right. Trigger happy cops are the worst to confront. I have been told cops at the academy are brain washed to believe that every one is a threat waiting to kill them, when in doubt shoot. the problem is they are always in doubt. Right now the first cop ever to be charged is on trail for murder I said ever that may not be accurate but very rare. Shooting board reviews very rarely find fault. For our safety cops must be re educated. We have the right to carry, they do not have to like it but they had better get used to it. I personally have been threatened several times for no valid reason and I had a federal firearms license, I was a dealer. required to be armed when transporting inventory. Cop says I could kill you right now and nobody would care. License or no license that is not going to be tolerated again.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous Question answer. Get in to any court and pray it is not corrupt. The court system in this country has been so degraded it is difficult to find one that is not corrupt for one reason or another. Officers of the law are officers of the court. Most of the time an officer of the law would have to shoot a judge to get held accountable. I had a custody case for my youngest daughter. I had to get a pick up order in a different state. Federal law automatically interstates custody orders. A custody order from one state is required to be enforced by any other state. That federal law was signed December 28, 1978 and tightened over the years. @004 a judge stated "I don't care what the law requires, I'll do as I see fit". She violated 22 state and federal laws in one hearing. I bought an audio transcript of the hearing and filed an appeal. the appeals court could find no errors Every one of the law violations was documented. I listened to the audio transcript and most of my argument had been erased and only one of the judges error in herm own voice remained. the factual documentation proved my complaints. that states law says a judge of a district court is forbidden to impose jurisdiction, and she did. She claimed the out of state service did not comply with her states requirements, the federal law nixes that None of the parties were residents of that state, No original jurisdiction possible. That was the fourth state I had to track my ex wife down to. AND that judge was on probation for another case she screwed up. sadly courts I know of in at least five different states are extremely corrupt. It is a nation wide problem created by the US supreme court in 1803 when the rule of law was destroyed. It has been my experience that bad cops turn to being lawyers. One judge told me You know the law better than I do and most of the attorneys that practice in this court< I recommend you take the state bar exams and get a license, I refused I prefer to keep my integrity in tact.