By CASEY HARPER | THE CENTER SQUARE
The majority of Republican and Independent voters think “red flag” gun laws that allow judges to confiscate individuals’ firearms can be abused for political reasons, according to a new poll.
Convention of States Action, along with the Trafalgar Group, released polling data Wednesday that shows that 72.2% of Republicans and 52.3% of Independents “believe that ‘red flag’ gun control laws that are designed to temporarily take guns away from individuals have the potential to be abused by local authorities and government officials to disarm their political opponents and/or citizens who disagree with them.”
Only 16.4% of Democrats agreed. Overall, 46.7% of all surveyed said there was potential for abuse while 30.8% said there was no potential for abuse of the laws.
“Americans want real, workable solutions to the mass shootings we are seeing in this nation, but it’s obvious that they don’t see the proposed ‘red flag’ laws as the answer,” said Mark Meckler, president of Convention of States Action. “More and more Americans are coming to the conclusion that the government abuses any power it’s given, and they are responding accordingly.”
The poll is timely since the U.S. Senate voted late Tuesday to advance a round of gun control measures that included support from 14 Republicans.
Among those voting for the bill that allows states to enact red flag laws was Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski.
The bill included mental health and safety funding, but most attention has gone to gun control restrictions that Democrats have reupped their support for since the tragic shootings in Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo, New York.
Notably, the senators agreed to provide funding for states to implement red flag laws under another name, calling them “crisis intervention” orders, which allow judges to intervene to “ensure deadly weapons are kept out of the hands of individuals whom a court has determined to be a significant danger to themselves or others.”
“Today, we finalized bipartisan, commonsense legislation to protect America’s children, keep our schools safe, and reduce the threat of violence across our country,” the leaders of the negotiations, Sens. Chris Murphy, D-Conn.; John Cornyn, R-Texas; Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., and Thom Tillis, R-N.C. said in a joint statement. “Our legislation will save lives and will not infringe on any law-abiding American’s Second Amendment rights. We look forward to earning broad, bipartisan support and passing our commonsense legislation into law.”
The House passed a round of its own gun control measures earlier this month, including red flag provisions in the Federal Extreme Risk Protection Order Act. How many of those House provisions will make it into the final legislation agreed upon by both chambers remains to be seen.
Critics have made the argument laid out in the poll, saying that activists or rogue individuals could inappropriately report others for a variety of personal or political reasons, having their guns confiscated and leaving the gun owner to navigate a difficult, bureaucratic process to have their firearms returned.
“I oppose the Senate gun control bill released today because I oppose all efforts to infringe on the Second Amendment rights of my constituents with ‘red flag’ gun confiscation,” U.S. Rep. Mary Miller, R-Ill., wrote on Twitter. “The leftists pushing gun confiscation policies have created a crime wave with their ‘woke’ soft-on-crime and open southern border policies. If they cared about public safety, they would secure the border and these leftist DAs would prosecute criminals instead of releasing them.”
The poll surveyed more than 1,000 likely 2022 voters June 16th through June 19th.
This story first appeared at The Center Square and is reprinted with permission.
I feel foolish for supporting red flag laws and only now seeing the potential for abuse. They are going to be different in every state. Hopefully, it will be easy to make a true and thorough report on anyone who is a valid threat. But the laws should require the highest standards of proof to actually take someone’s guns away. It CAN’T be one report, reviewed by one bureaucrat, followed by one hearing in front of a busy judge!
Just use the recent tight as nails standard used by the FISA court. (kidding)
This should be overturned on legal challenge assuming that SCOTUS hears a case and hasn’t been completely compromised by blackmail, threats, or globalist agents.
Significant numbers of citizens will see their inalienable second amendment rights violated until such a case makes it to the US Supreme Court. Gun owners will be stripped of property and never see it again even if SCOTUS acknowledges the second amendment.
Many interests aligned with those behind the World Economic Forum are moving to strip rights and disarm populations in line with The Great Reset and the 2030 agenda which will usher in a new world order complete with authoritarian systems of population control.
Just out of curiousity, what is your position on Tort Reform?
Lisa is helping the Globalists to chip away at our 2A constitutional rights. An inalienable right. A right that cannot be infringed upon. Lisa is a lying loser and we must end her senate career!!!
Why didn’t they just stop at using closer background checks for the 18-21 age group? Because they currently don’t get juvenile records with a background check. Couldn’t they just do that?
Yes, I can answer my own question. But the simple answer is NO, THEY WILL GO AS FAR AS THEY CAN!
Cue the leftists claiming “that will never happen” when history is replete with examples.\.
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I will bet every dollar in my wallet there is not a single person alive on the planet today that does not have at least one friend that has either a. tried to do something like this, or b. been a victim of something like this. There is a reason why doxxing has become a part of the day to day language.
One takeaway: If you are having mental health concerns, you’d better keep that to yourself and not seek help if you want to keep your rights.
It’s inevitable as Murkowski siding with Democrats and Dunleavy caving under pressure.
Read the proposed bill. There are some good things in it besides Red Flag laws.
‘https://www.cornyn.senate.gov/sites/default/files/bipartisan_safer_communities_act_text%20%281%29.pdf
This is a States Rights issue, Senator Murkowski’s vote provides funding to States that want to enact Red Flag laws. It is up to Alaska, disparaging Senator Murkowski, Governor Dunleavy, or anyone else is for something that is up to voters is ridiculous
Lisa has armed guards posted at our home 24/7. Her greatest fear:. Fellow Alaskans.
Seen it. My training partner In the police academy got a restraining order from his wife, who didn’t want him to be a cop. He got Lautenberged and served to surrender his guns. He asked if I would give them a good home till he got the RO quashed, which cost him thousands in legal danegeld. Being in crapifornia, we couldn’t get the transfer done in time, before the sheriff’s guys came to visit.
ALL Senators and Representatives(State and Federal)that vote for any further gun laws before addressing Voting and Election Fraud at every level need to be replaced with people that understand that they work FOR the people. It appears that almost all of them don’t understand that concept. Our votes and our firearms are the only things standing between us and tyranny. These are the most important issues we face today
Pretty confident that mental health treatment can be weaponized against us as well as red flag
We should thank Senator Murkowski and the hard-working folks of GOP Inc. for taking time out from castrating children, starting a war with Russia, destroying America’s economy, borders, language, and culture… in order to help Democrats confiscate guns from law-abiding Americans.
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It’s okay to have guns if you’re Taliban or Ukrainian. Senator Murkowski and the hard-working folks of GOP Inc. helped give $125B worth of guns to the Taliban and to the Ukrainians.
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But they don’t trust Americans to have guns so they helped pass a red flag law but gave no one time to read it because, as John Cornyn said, “…the senate can’t pass this bill soon enough”.
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Remember the good old national 55 mph speed limit days, when states had to enforce the 55 mph speed limit if they wanted their federal highway money?
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Well, this law includes nearly a billion dollars to bribe the states to “implement and manage” red flag laws which let authorities seize firearms from people who committed no crimes.
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That violates due process and it’s unconstitutional, but Senator Murkowski and the hard-working folks of GOP Inc. are all for it.
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What prevents state and local governments in Alaska from enforcing red flag laws with weak or no due process protections just so they can get their mental health and safety grants?
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Certainly in Alaska, where state and municipal election systems are corrupted beyond repair, the answer is nothing.
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Maybe a hotshot lawyer can successfully argue the law is illegal, unconstitutional:
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By tying grant money to red flag enforcement which requires arbitrary suspension of due process, are certain lawmakers acting outside the scope of their official duties by using taxpayer money under color of law, to extort state and local governments into depriving Americans of their fundamental Constitutional rights?
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By tying grant money to red flag enforcement which requires arbitrary suspension of due process, are certain lawmakers acting outside the scope of their official duties by using taxpayer money to bribe state and local governments into depriving Americans of their civil rights?
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If the verdict is yes to one or both questions, are these lawmakers violating RICO law?
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As a Fox News host so eloquently said, “No wonder they want to disarm you. You can’t have guns because they no longer trust you and they no longer trust you because they know they’ve betrayed you. This is how democracy dies, not in darkness, but in plain sight, live on C-SPAN.”
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Is this how democracy dies, because Americans are more afraid of losing their stuff than their freedom?
Stunning how many people don’t understand or care this is a Constitutional issue.
The fact so many people don’t or won’t get this is exactly why we are where we are. Losing our Constitutional rights.
The red flag law is a broad net and can be weaponized. If you complain about teachers indoctrinating your kids, you will be considered a terrorist and there go your guns.
The federal bureau of incompetence can’t do their job now so what’s more laws going to do?
So-called “red flag laws” are as abusive, evil and illegitimate as so-called “civil asset forfeiture” laws, aka state-sanctioned theft. They presume guilt before innocence, and fly in the face of hundreds of years of Anglo-Saxon legal precedent. But they do open the door to more profoundly invasion and expansive governmental coercion, which is why every swamp creature in DC, and every useful idiot on the so-called left, loves them.
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