The Statistics of Red Flag Laws

Within 10 years this will be in almost every state. Everyone needs to apply operational security rules. If anyone asks do you own a gun the answer is no. For those of you with kids, you need to explain this to them. It is no one's business except your own. Of course, this is all theoretical on my part since all my guns were lost in that horrible boating accident.

SharpDog said:

Within 10 years this will be in almost every state. Everyone needs to apply operational security rules. If anyone asks do you own a gun the answer is no. For those of you with kids, you need to explain this to them. It is no one's business except your own.

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This is good advice. However, you can see what's happening here. By forcing gun owners to "hide their light under a bushel," so to speak, the antis are accomplishing one of their goals, which is to de-legitimize the gun culture and drive it underground. How are we going to recruit the next generation of shooters and gun owners if we are too fearful to identify ourselves as such?

As a gun collector, one of my joys is showing my collection to friends. I guess I have to stop doing that. Which begs the question, why am I collecting in the first place?

AlexanderA said:

This is good advice. However, you can see what's happening here. By forcing gun owners to "hide their light under a bushel," so to speak, the antis are accomplishing one of their goals, which is to de-legitimize the gun culture and drive it underground. How are we going to recruit the next generation of shooters and gun owners if we are too fearful to identify ourselves as such?

As a gun collector, one of my joys is showing my collection to friends. I guess I have to stop doing that. Which begs the question, why am I collecting in the first place?

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I collect because I have some sort of perverted pride in ownership.... 'Oh, I have one of those'. I never show off my weapons except to my very closest friends (and pics on this blog of my weapons that were lost in that horrible boating incident).

SharpDog said:

Within 10 years this will be in almost every state. Everyone needs to apply operational security rules. If anyone asks do you own a gun the answer is no. For those of you with kids, you need to explain this to them. It is no one's business except your own. Of course, this is all theoretical on my part since all my guns were lost in that horrible boating accident.

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I understand your reasoning for this, I really do. I don’t like people to know about my stuff and I certainly don’t show it off. But, if you are too fearful to get out and train or use your weapon then we have already lost. Please do not herald this as good advice. If we are all to do this then we might as well go ahead and turn all of our stuff over. A tool that cannot he used is not a tool. What you are proposing is exactly what they want as AlexanderA said so eloquently.

SharpDog said:

Within 10 years this will be in almost every state. Everyone needs to apply operational security rules. If anyone asks do you own a gun the answer is no. For those of you with kids, you need to explain this to them. It is no one's business except your own. Of course, this is all theoretical on my part since all my guns were lost in that horrible boating accident.

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My Dr is a big supporter of 2A.
He told me straight out,it you are ever asked about firearms in any physicians office, tell them you don't own any.

Planning to lie and hide and live in the shadows makes you the bad guy easily ostracized and defeated.

At some point that lie will be a crime. When saying no is fraud or some other crime will you still lie, or will you tell them where some of those evil guns they need to remove from society are located?

In fact one of the biggest recent changes in federal cases is many people that they would have been unable to prove a case against in court in prior decades are instead found guilty of lying to investigators and punished almost as severely as if they actually could have proven what they were investigating.
While at the same time the 5th Amendment has been reinterpreted over time to mean you have less and less right to be silent, and don't even have the right to be silent if given immunity.

So it is not a far stretch to see a time when owning is persecuted, more so in regions and locations least favorable to firearms, and lying is illegal, and being silent is illegal.
We are in fact going down that path now.
Some states require you to report a firearm lost or stolen with 24-72 hours or be guilty of a crime. Reporting it lost or stolen if not lost or stolen is filing a false report and a crime. Not having reported it lost or stolen if told to surrender or give it up is a crime, having it is a crime, and not having it a crime.
That is why the only real solution for anyone to really retain ownership of firearms is to have firearms off the books, which is also something they want to make illegal and have made illegal or put a stop to further creation or acquisition of in several states. It is directly connected to the drive for universal background checks.
They want to know where each and every firearm is, and they will slowly remove them from society class by class as well as create prohibited persons and increase what makes someone a prohibited person to remove them at will at the individual level along the way.

Listen to you preaching to me.
First off,what firearms that I have or don't have in my home are my business.

There's something that I don't understand about the so-called "red flag laws." After the gun-grabbers have come and knocked on my door to steal my lawfully owned property and there is a gunfight with some of them and me laying there dead, does the next wave of gun-grabbers still get to confiscate the legally owned property of my heirs? Since I will be dead, is the illegal warrent to seize the property which I had previously legally owned good for anything? Or will my heirs have to fight the gun-grabbers in court for them? Thanks ahead of time for your thoughts.

Listen to you preaching to me.
First off,what firearms that I have or don't have in my home are my business.

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Until I pass a law making that illegal. At which point you receive a visit from the local swat team.

Since I will be dead, is the illegal warrent to seize the property which I had previously legally owned good for anything? Or will my heirs have to fight the gun-grabbers in court for them? Thanks ahead of time for your thoughts.

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Oh no you see what happens is the crime you committed resulted in fines and fees, and they will be astronomical figures, and your seized property will be partially used to pay that fine. The property already in custody, including seized cash, guns and other things will be used towards paying the fine, but since the fine is so high probably won't even cover it. So you see they are actually being nice to not go after further property or seize even more of your estate and leave that for your heirs to inherit.
If they can be portrayed to have been part of a crime they become a valuable asset to seize under asset forfeiture too.
Reminds me of when the ATF got that shipment of Leatherman multitools inscribed with 'Always Think Forfeiture' as a play on their acronym.


I recall an incident in Southern California where they actually demolished a home of a guy heavily into firearms and weapons that made booby traps around their property.
Even though it did not appear there was traps in the home, the fact that the guy was known to make them caused them to declare it to be too dangerous to clear the home which had gun powder and other things clearly visible to the robot and the law enforcement that went in the home. The local law enforcement were afraid of the traps and determined that was the only safe way to clear the property. Needless to say the owner ceased to have that asset too, and also would not have been able to leverage the equity of their home to pay legal costs for their charges too, insuring they were more easily defeated in court as that is how many people pay six figure legal costs for serious cases in order to even have an adequate voice in court.
I recall another guy had his home red tagged and declared unfit habitation essentially bringing its value to almost nothing because he was found to have a tunnel with weapons in it when the fire department came to deal with a small fire. The home was not really dangerous and the tunnel appeared small and well built, but because the tunnel was built without a permit they said it undermined the structure and made it too dangerous and the whole home needed to be red tagged. So since the local government gets the discretion to determine that, they chose to determine it needed to go.
He also wouldn't have been fighting his legal bills with that home's equity.

Oh and if planning a standoff, burning down the house if you do too good of a job holding off the SWAT team is typical strategy. They will just keep launching incendiary gas grenades designed to burn hot and be hard to touch or pickup in an outdoor environment into the house until it catches on fire. At which point you will burn to death, die of smoke inhalation, surrender, or they will shoot you as you try to put out the fire.

You can't win hiding and being defensive. All fights are won through offense. When the fight is brought to you then you have already lost.

These "red flag laws" will stand or fall depending on the kind of publicity that incidents of their application engender. If people that are proven threats to society are caught up in them, the laws will gain support. But if a number of innocent people are SWATed or even killed, support for the laws will plummet. But how many gun owners would volunteer to be martyrs for the cause? Getting oneself killed to prove how bad these laws are, is not a viable strategy.

And doesn't being involved in a SWAT incident in which the person did not simply surrender prove they were in fact dangerous to themselves and others and should have been disarmed anyways?
Those who take a stand against being disarmed prove how important the government's ability to disarm is. In this case even when a crime that would prohibit them has not even been committed.

Quite interesting that a right designed partially to deter tyranny can be removed if you worry the 'tyrant'.
Prohibited persons will be the downfall of the 2nd Amendment, particularly as gun owners fall over themselves in support of it to distance themselves from criminals and have the 'holier than thou' moral high ground.

Most big changes in such things with widespread opposition were changed as a result of civil disobedience.
Let us take a brief look at a couple similar malum prohibitum laws overturned:
People didn't obey prohibition on a wide scale, many were killed or became criminals but it led to the repeal of prohibition.
People have not been obeying marijuana laws, and now it has become legal under many states and will be in the near future federally as well.
When someone doesn't obey a gun law? "Crucify them! They are the enemy we are good, cleave them from the rest and persecute them to the fullest." Our martyrs accomplish nothing because they are not martyrs, they are criminals the firearm community distances themselves from.

Zoogster said:

Prohibited persons will be the downfall of the 2nd Amendment, particularly as gun owners fall over themselves in support of it to distance themselves from criminals and have the 'holier than thou' moral high ground.

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Yes, and the categories of prohibited persons keep expanding. Soon, even if you yourself are the most upstanding citizen, if you have a "prohibited person" in your household (such as a spouse or child), the taint will rub off on you, and you too will find yourself prohibited.

The antigunners are approaching this from both ends: they are vilifying the guns (such as by the current crusade against "assault weapons"), but at the same time they are vilifying the gun owners (through ""red flag" laws and other disqualifications). If they can't ban guns, they will ban gun ownership; if they can't ban ownership, they will ban guns. They have this all figured out.

Nothing new here. Same old "fight" as usual. All that can be done to fend off the antis is the same thing we've been doing. Support the NRA/ILA, be involved and introduce new shooters to the sport, cross your fingers come election time.

In Wisconsin we have had domestic violence laws for quite some time. Are these not red flag laws?
A lot of us have been living with red flag laws for a while now. How has that effected you?
Domestic violence laws or the different name of Red flag laws are one and the same. IMHO.

GAF said:

Domestic violence laws or the different name of Red flag laws are one and the same.

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No, "red flag" laws are quite different from Lautenberg Amendment-type disqualification. A Lautenberg Amendment disqualification is permanent, and results from a domestic violence conviction, obviously after due process. "Red flag" seizures are (supposedly) temporary, and can result from mere allegations of "instability." At least a domestic violence disqualification is cut-and-dried, and is reflected on the Form 4473. A "red flag" situation gets you far more into Kafkaesque territory.

Another interesting "statistic" is that areas where a suicide hot line was implemented, suicides INCREASED. I'm a retired psychologist and worked for 40+ years in hospitals, community mental health centers and private practice. I've spent 1000s of hours on the phone, in conferences, reading books, training therapists and police officers, and many other endeavors to address the problem of suicide. With this wealth of experience, it is clear to me that "red flag" laws will have NO impact at all on suicide rates. People who support such heavy-handed home invasions are powered by the mantra "if it can save one life, it will be worth it". These same people are unimpressed by the very real fact, supported by numerous studies, that border walls save hundreds of lives. Which makes you wonder what actually motivates proponents of "red flag laws". Your thoughts?

Bad laws without multiple judicial review!

https://www.abcactionnews.com/news/...der-guns-months-after-new-gun-law-took-effect

Since the Parkland shooting. The county I live in has the most thanks to Sheriff Bob.

While close to the Red Flag law, this person was charged and jailed for months based solely on a off the cuff comment meant to be humorous. .

When if finally got to the jury, he was found Not guilty in a matter of minutes. So now how does he get that time and expense back?

Courthouse insiders said the jury took longer to eat their court-provided lunch than reach a verdict, which was issued on the anniversary of the shooting at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., where a former student killed 17 students and school staff.

https://www.unionleader.com/news/cr...cle_14e98531-bd12-55f7-b93f-da0b51478ea2.html

My question is; is merely posting to this or another gun forum as an enthusiast evidence for the judge in a red-flag state that I can’t be trusted with firearms???

berettaprofessor said:

My question is; is merely posting to this or another gun forum as an enthusiast evidence for the judge in a red-flag state that I can’t be trusted with firearms???

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It hasn't come to that yet, but it might eventually. So, wanting to own a gun is evidence that you're crazy; therefore, being crazy, you can't have one. Sounds like the perfect Catch-22 to me.

AlexanderA said:

This is good advice. However, you can see what's happening here. By forcing gun owners to "hide their light under a bushel," so to speak, the antis are accomplishing one of their goals, which is to de-legitimize the gun culture and drive it underground. How are we going to recruit the next generation of shooters and gun owners if we are too fearful to identify ourselves as such?

As a gun collector, one of my joys is showing my collection to friends. I guess I have to stop doing that. Which begs the question, why am I collecting in the first place?

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I suppose a lot of people just collect for their own enjoyment.


Think about people who buy famous stolen art, they know only they can enjoy it.

I wish that we could follow the OP's example and focus on providing and discussing more examples of concrete evidence regarding the effectiveness of red flag laws.

I haven't done any work in this area, but perhaps other members here have....?