Red Flag Laws - the pitfalls

RED FLAG LAWS

Sad to see so many conservatives - most notably sad to see Dan Crenshaw join in - have decided to jump on this idea of Red Flag Laws.  While on the face of it, such laws sound like reasonable proposals, there are numerous issues to be dealt with.

1.  What will be required to trigger the execution of a Red Flag complaint?

So far, I am not seeing any detailed language.  I have seen "Court Order" mentioned. But how is the process initiated?  Who can initiate it? IS there going to be a "report your neighbor" hotline?  What kind of investigation will be needed in order to get a "Court Order" for removal? How long will the whole process take?

Unless one has been living under a rock, they are probably aware of the use of SWATting by some individuals. For those who have not, per Wikipedia "Swatting is the harassment tactic of deceiving an emergency service into sending a police and emergency service response team to another person's address".  So, make a 911 call of a domestic disturbance or MWAG at a given address and the LE arrive with guns drawn. In the worst-case scenario, the home owner hears the commotion, suspects a home invasion in progress and answers the door with a gun in his hand (there have already been cases of LEOs shooting homeowners through their own front door).  The rest is an "Oh, well, so sorry" story we have seen before. Combine this idea with the progressive tactic of "doxxing" - again per Wikipedia "Internet-based practice of researching and broadcasting private or identifiable information about an individual or organization" and you will have progressive militants passing around identifying information on conservatives in their area so that such calls can be made.

How farfetched is it that progressives, especially AntiFA, will use these tactics to submit accusations against conservatives?  Not at all. They and progressives in general have already shown their willingness to use extreme measures in pursuit of their goals.

There will need to be many details worked out in order to protect the law-abiding from this sort of tactic.  We cannot, in attempting to protect innocent lives from crazy people, sacrifice law-abiding peaceful citizens. [Of course this is what those hoping to ban guns ultimately desire - since we do the same thing when we ban guns - punish the law-abiding for the act of the criminal].

2.  What provisions will be in place to punish those who knowingly make unfounded complaints or reports?

Given the above, there will be a need for swift and strong repercussions for false reports.  Of course, let's be honest; no proposed punishment for false reporting will be sufficient to make up for the death of a law-abiding gun owner. It is obvious that those who support this idea prefer to inconvenience and even unlawfully detain and disarm gun owners as a means to try to end the carnage.  Sadly, when it is clear it does not work, they will simply move on to the next dumb idea. On its face, it seems logical.  But when the inevitable scenarios above come to fruition, we will be trading deaths for deaths. But the progressives will not consider the law-abiding gun owner's death as tragic.

So what protections will be in place?  What consequences for false accusation? Unless draconian and swift, these laws will be nothing more than an invitation to attack gun owners and I am sure everyone who reports will have a sincere sense of "good faith" in their report.  Right!

3.  What provisions will be in place for reinstating unjustly removed rights from those who are found competent and stable?

Given that many reports will be false-positives, what provisions will be in place for rapid investigation, exoneration, and restoration of rights and property? For those who are lucky enough to survive the first encounter, when a SWAT team shows up at their door with a court order, who are then even more fortunate to be found competent to retain their rights and property (given that the underlying principle will likely be "guilty until proven innocent"), how will this be done in an expeditious manner?


4. Does this do more than just deal with the firearm?  What about the person or their issues?

Do such laws also mandate involuntary hospitalization? Are the same standards of "danger to self or others" taken into account?  Will we take away someone's firearms but send them home to hop in their car, pull out a machete or simply bludgeon someone to death? If the person is deemed too dysfunctional to possess firearms, what else can be done for them? Apparently these laws are only concerned with removing one possible too for violence, as if it is the firearm that contains the violence (which seems to describe many people's opinion).

5.  Most psychologists, if they are honest, will tell you how bad we are at accurately predicting violence.

We hear so many politicians, pundits, and police remark on the need for routine mental health evaluation in order to purchase a firearm. As a psychologist I will only note that we are really not at all good at predicting who will commit such acts of violence.  Violence, like all behavior, is an ever-shifting mix of person place and situation.  It is clear that, when presented with acts of violence like we saw this weekend, we quickly look at the background and say "Well that was obvious".  But in a prospective manner, such things are hard to predict and the histories of many mass/active killers may not be so dissimilar from others who will never commit such violence. We are likely to have many false-positives, and while it is better to have false-positives than fals4 negatives, we have to contend with all of the issues above.

Especially in these days of social media, many people display behavior and parts of themselves that they would not normally show and are likely to make comments they might not normally make, play a persona they wish they could be, but are not (Often referred to as "Internet tough guys"). Very few of those will ever act. Many people have thoughts and emotions that appear violent in nature, but whose behavior is not violent. We have seen several democrat candidates for POTUS remark with violent imagery and rhetoric, yet no one has thrown the red flag on them yet.

What the history and background of many of these cases tells us is that we need to address "normalcy bias." That is, when confronted with unusual actions or behaviors, people will put considerable mental effort into explaining it away, forcing it to fit into a picture of normalcy. The Dayton shooter had kill lists and rape lists and a long history of behavior that was threatening. The Parkland shooter had a long history of violence and threatening behavior.  Both, and many others of similar bent, were seen by others and feared by others, yet n no one did anything.  For some reason both, apparently were allowed to go their way, whether people found a way to explain it to themselves as "normal" or people simply were unwilling to risk taking the actions necessary to contain the threat.

Later, they find great comfort in blaming the firearm and anyone who owns one.