“Red Flag” Laws….

 For the record, I am not opposed to so-called “red flag” laws AS LONG AS they 1) protect the Constitutional rights of the lawful firearm owner under the Second, Fourth, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments (yes, protections from all four of these amendments are involved), and 2) contain provisions to ensure that they cannot be used by individuals who personally object to firearms ownership to deprive others of their Constitutional right to keep and bear arms.

I participate in a few online discussion forums; I have see many individuals post inquiries regarding how they can use these laws to generally disarm people because they personally object to firearms ownership.  I have also received phone calls in the course of my job selling firearms from such individuals, asking us not to sell to someone because the caller doesn’t like guns themselves.

On the other hand, I have stopped transactions because I believed, based on my interaction with a customer, that they posed a threat to themselves or others, and I have personally been involved with at least three situations in which bona fide concerns regarding a threat of suicide prompted us to take measures to insure that someone did not acquire a firearm from us - including notifying law enforcement.

Show me a “red flag” law that includes these protections and I will support it.

Gov. Whitmer Wants “Red Flag” Laws In Michigan….

Here’s what that means.

A family member is concerned that someone represents a danger to others or themselves.  They contact law enforcement - anonymously - and swear out a complaint.  The complaint and accompanying testimony/evidence goes to a judge, who then authorizes the confiscation of the accused’s firearms if he/she believes it is merited.  The accused loses their firearms, supposedly temporarily.

Looks good, right? 

Here’s the problem:

“No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws,” Fourteenth Amendment.

“No person shall be… deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law,” Fifth Amendment.

First, such laws are expressly prohibited under the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment: “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.”  The “red flag” law expressly abridges the right to due process and the immunity from a presumption of guilt.

Second, due process means the accused has the RIGHT to hear the accusations preferred against him, to confront his accusers, to present evidence in his own defense. BEFORE any confiscation - for ANY LENGTH OF TIME - can occur: 

“[N]or shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”  

“No person shall be… deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.

There is no provision made for due process.

Third, “red flag” laws deny the accused “…the equal protection of the laws.”

Regardless of the good the law seeks to achieve, “An unconstitutional act is not a law; it confers no rights; it imposes no duties; it affords no protection; it creates no office; it is in legal contemplation as inoperative as though it had never been passed,” U.S. Supreme Court

Norton v. Shelby County, 118 U.S. 425 (1886) Norton v. Shelby County 

Argued March 24-25, 1886

Decided May 10, 1886

118 U.S. 425

Active Shooters In San Bernardino - And The President Wastes No Time Politicizing The Event….

Active shooter incident in California, and the White House wastes no time politicizing the event. Here is the statement from the WH, broken down with my observations:

"Well, we don't know that much yet." 

Keep that in mind.

"It's still an active situation. FBI is on the ground offering assistance to local officials as they need it. It does appear that there are going to be some casualties. And you know, obviously our hearts go out to the victims and the families."

"The one thing we do know is that we have a pattern now of mass shootings in this country that has no parallel anywhere else in the world, and there's some steps we could take, not to eliminate every one of these mass shootings, but to improve the odds that they don't happen as frequently, common sense gun safety laws, stronger background checks and you know, for those who are concerned about terrorism of, you know, some may be aware of the fact that we have a no fly list where people can't get on planes but those same people who we don't allow to fly could go into a store right now in the united states and buy a firearm and there's nothing that we can do to stop them."

1, We know NOTHING about these people. Who are they? From where did they come? Are they sadists with a beef against the developmentally disabled? Are they terrorists? They attacked a facility that serves the developmentally disabled.

2, We know NOTHING about how they obtained their weapons. Were they purchased locally, in another state, stolen, smuggled in? Since we know nothing about them, how can the president presume that changing our law is going to have ANY impact? A criminal who desires weapons will find illegal ways to obtain them, and no law is going to change that.

3, He mentions terrorism, implicitly declaring this to be a terrorist attack, yet he continues to push for unvetted people to be allowed into the country, while treating citizens with Constitutional rights as closet criminals.

4, The list to which he refers, the "no fly" or "terrorist watch list", is unConstitutional. It contains more than ONE MILLION names. Most of those people have been added to it in violation of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments WITHOUT EVER HAVING BEEN CHARGED WITH OR CONVICTED OF ANY CRIME WHATSOEVER, merely on someone's suspicion, denying them their Constitutional RIGHT to due process. Since these people have been charged with nothing, had no opportunity to confront their accuser in open court as demanded by the Constitution, have been convicted of no crime, there is no legal basis to deny them their Second Amendment RIGHT to purchase a firearm.

"That's a law that needs to be changed, and so you know, my hope is that we're able to contain this particular shooting and, and we don't yet know what the motives of the shooters are, but what we do know is, is that there are steps we can take to make Americans safer and that we should come together in a bipartisan basis at every level of government to make these rare as opposed to normal."

Again, we have already established that we know nothing about these people, so again, the president cannot presume that using the "terrorist watch list" will stop anything. If anything needs to be changed, it is that the "terrorist watch list" needs to be eliminated. If someone truly poses a threat, then investigate them, charge them, convict them, and deal with them AS DEMANDED BY THE CONSTITUTION. As has already been well-established, a criminal who wants to obtain weapons will do so regardless of inclusion on some government list.

"We should never think that this is something that just happens in the ordinary course of events, because it doesn't happen with the same frequency in other countries."

This statement has already been thoroughly de-bunked. There are far more countries, particularly muslim countries, where such mass shootings are DAILY OCCURRENCES. Of course, that doesn't fit with the agenda.

Pray for the families effected by this tragedy. Pray for law enforcement as they work to round these animals up.

And stop politicizing tragedies. These are people - not political pawns or statements.

The "Terrorist Watch List" and Firearms Purchases….

It has become quite hip to call for denying people whose names appear on the federal terrorist watch list  their right to purchase firearms.  If the list had any validity, was based on anything other than supposition and conjecture, that demand would be reasonable.

But it's not.

There are currently over one million names on the terrorist watch list.  

That's right, one million.  

One million people whose names have been added because of SUSPECTED ties to terrorism.  Not because they have actually been charged or convicted of a crime, but because someone thinks they might be suspicious. 

And now people are screaming for these people to be prohibited from purchasing a firearm.

Here's the problem: we have this Constitutional thing called "due process." "No person shall … be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law," Fifth Amendment, US Constitution.

The Fourth Amendment clarifies what this means:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

There is no due process associated with the terrorist watch list.  One can be added to it for almost any reason without ever having been convicted, or even charged with, a crime of any sort. 

Prohibiting a person from purchasing a firearm who has never been charged or convicted of a crime but has been added to some secret list anyway is a violation of the Fifth Amendment, and equates to depriving them of their Constitutional rights. 

If someone is suspicious enough to be added to some secret list of possible terrorists, then do what the Constitution requires - charge them, prosecute them, PROVE THEIR GUILT IN OPEN COURT IN FRONT OF A JURY OF THEIR PEERS, and punish them.