The Problem With Red Flag Laws

 

One of the things in the new gun legislation being proposed is Red Flag laws. Red flag laws authorize law enforcement to confiscate all firearms from an individual if they (law enforcement) suspect the gun owner is mentally ill or percieved to be a threat to someone or to the community. This confiscation would be done without due process based on only the law enforcement agency's disgression. This is wrong.

Last year, parents concerned about curricula in public schools began speaking out at public school board meetings. The main issue for parents was gender identity issues and graphic sexual content being taught to children in public schools, most particularly elementary school children. Many meetings got heated when school board leaders refused to allow parents to speak their minds. A few meetings had incidents of violence with at least one father being arrested after refusing to leave a meeting, and some threats were made in anger.

At some point the National School Board Association wrote a six page letter to the Department of Education calling protesters domestic terrorists and accusing them of hate crimes. The letter was given to the Justice Department. Attorney General Merrick Garland, while not actually validating the labels publicly, ordered the FBI and U.S. Attorneys nationwide to investigate protesting parents and "find ways they can work to prevent violence and threats.

If a parent is labeled a domestic terrorist by the Justice Department for speaking angrily to a school board, red flag laws would allow law enforcement to confiscate any firearms they might own and it would be up to the individual to get them back through court proceedings. In other words... guilty, without charges or trial, until they can prove otherwise, which is unconstitutional.

Red flag laws would also allow law enforcement to confiscate weapons from an individual whom someone else (family member, ex-spouse, angry neighbor, etc.) reports as being mentally unstable... again, without due process.

I have no issue with firearms being taken away (temporarily) from a demonstrably mentally ill person if mental health professionals and judges are willing to put their names on documentation saying a person's firearms need to be temporarily removed because the person has legally been declared mentally unstable and a threat to himself/herself and/or others. Some will disagree with me but that's at least a legal baseline that has been established, allowing for due process to proceed.

Many people in this country already believe that most law enforcement officials  abuse their power daily yet they would allow law enforcement to apply red flag laws at their discretion. That defies logic.

McConaughey's Impassioned White House Speech - My Thoughts

My two cents, for what it's worth.

Matthew McConaughhey was born and raised in Uvalde, Texas. He likely knows some of the victims' families. I don't doubt his sincerity in the words he spoke at the White House the other day. I know how I'd feel if it was my hometown. That said - I agree with him on some things and disagree with others.

He called for more effective mental health treatment. I agree. He called for securing our schools. I agree. He called for resisting sensationalized media coverage. I agree. He called for restoring family values. I agree.

He called for raising the purchase age for rifles to 21. That wouldn't effect me personally but if they're going to do that they need to raise the age for the draft and the age for voting to 21 as well. At 18 you can't smoke but you can die for your country. You can't drink a beer but you can vote for your countries leaders. You can't buy a handgun but you can buy a car. If you raise the legal age for some things raise it across the board. Make everything 21.

Some Democrats want the voting age lowered to 16. You can destroy an entire country with voters who have no idea what they're doing. That obvious today. Scientists say the brain isn't fully developed until age 21. Yet we send 18 year olds to fight wars. If this new bill becomes law a 20 year old kid returning from a war won't be able to own a gun for personal protection.

Mcconaughhey called for Red Flag laws. I have issues with those unless they are carefully worded to avoid abuse. Red Flag laws allow authorities to confiscate firearms from an individual or household when they or someone else suspects mental illness to be present. They ignore due process or even medical diagnosis and documentation of a problem. If a judge and a mental health professional aren't willing to sign a legal document saying a person's firearms need to be removed for safety reasons then confiscation of those weapons is unconstitutional. Do we really want to give law enforcement the power to make that decision on their own?

McConaughhey called for "more responsible gun ownership." He didn't elaborate on what he meant by that but didn't call for more "gun control," banishment of certain weapons or magazines, or more laws restricting the rights of law abiding citizens, except for the age thing. I'm all for responsible gun ownership. Let's face it - school shooters aren't exactly responsible gun owners.

Matthew McConaughhey grew up in Texas and has moved his family from California to Texas in recent years. I would bet he owns guns himself. He's not wanting his or anyone's guns taken away. He just wants to stop the carnage. As do we all.

Joe Biden Is Lying About Guns

 

On Thursday, the President of the United States got on national TV and lied to your faces. Calling for a ban on "assault weapons" (a misnomer label created by the left-wing media and left-wing politicians) and large capacity magazines, Biden said the assault weapons ban "greatly reduced mass shootings" and the at when it was allowed to expire "mass shootings tripled." He went on to say that 9mm ammunition is "high caliber ammunition that will blow a lung out of the body." He insists he was told that by an ER physician.

None of those first three things have any merit. Simple research shows that during the weapons/magazine ban mass shootings stayed steady at an average of 17 per year. Sure, that's a lot. But banning "weapons of war," (so called by people who know nothing about firearms) did not reduce mass shootings eve a little bit. And when the ban expired mass shootings increased... to an average of 19 per year. Hardly triple. It's a blatant lie meant to play on the emotions of the American people. And it seems to be working.

A 9mm bullet is a small caliber round that can be fired by a pistol or a rifle. It has less mass than a .38 caliber bullet and far less than a .44 or .45. It is not really a high velocity round, such as a .223, but can pass completely through the body if it's a jacketed round. It leaves a small hole, about the size of a pencil eraser, both front and back. And while it can easily perforated a lung it cannot and will not remove a lung from the body. That is impossible. Even a .223 round, the most common AR-15 round, does not do that. And no honest ER doctor would ever say it does. If a doctor actually said this to Biden, which I highly doubt, he was telling Biden what he wanted to hear.

During my career I was on four different special operations teams and trained regularly with M-16 rifles, 9mm rifles and 9mm pistols. I am very familiar  with their operation and with what each bullet can do. Joe Biden is a liar. He lies intentionally in an attempt to push his anti-gun agenda forward.

If you're going to make a sound decision about gun control at least educate yourself to the truth about guns instead of simply taking the word of politicians and the media as truth. Informed decisions are always best.

Democrat Congressman: We Will Take Your Weapons of War

Congressman Mondaire Jones (D-NY) said recently on the House floor that they will pass legislation to get "weapons of war out of our communities." He further stated "You will not stop us in the House and you will not stop us in the Senate. If you filibuster we will abolish it. If the Supreme Court objects we will add (justices) to it. We will do whatever it takes to end gun violence... whatever it takes."

When asked to define a weapon of war he said "Semiautomatic weapons." When he was told that would include most guns in the United States his response was "semiautomatic does not include handguns," then refused to answer any more questions.

Really? Semiautomatic does not include handguns? Another example of a Democrat who knows nothing about firearms wanting to take yours away.

In other news, part of the latest gun control legislation is said to contain gun storage rules that include all guns being secured, unloaded, in a secure gun safe. Empty magazines must be stored separately and ammunition must be securely stored in a separate room. Those rules effectively eliminate home defense with a firearm unless one can get the perpetrator to wait for a minute or two while you gather all components necessary to shoot an intruder. I doubt the intruder will agree with that but hey... you can always beg.

I don't know any gun owner, who owns guns for home protection, who is going to do this. So how does the government enforce It? Will they be sending federal agents on compliance teams to your homes with warrants to enter the premises and verify you're following the rules? And if you're not, will they have confiscation authority? Will they be heavily armed in case someone resists? If not, how else would they enforce the law?

If this happens will this still be the United States of America?

Cars Are Deadly - Let's Ban Them

According to FBI and CDC statistics, mass shootings with AR-15s in the United States cause less than 100 deaths per year. The total number killed with all rifles is just over 300. The proposed solution? Ban AR-15s and the magazine's. Don't let anyone have them. Problem solved, right?

FBI statistics show more people are beaten to death every year than are shot with rifles of any kind, around 1000.

An average of 10,500 people die every year in the United States from alcohol related traffic accidents and 43,000 total, including alcohol related, die in traffic accidents. What do we do about such "mass killing?" We take away the drunk driver's ability to drive by taking his/her operator's license and often putting them in prison. We sometimes charge the guilty party in a fatal accident even if they were not drinking. Know what we don't do? We don't ban the type of vehicle they were driving and prevent law-abiding citizens from owning that vehicle.

Why not? Motor vehicles are far more deadly than guns. They kill over 100 times the number of people killed by AR-15s every year. And anyone 18 or over can buy one of these dangerous weapons without parental consent or a background check. Yet no one is condemning vehicles. Why? "It's because the person driving is responsible, not the vehicle." Well, duh.

Banning AR-15s and magazines will not prevent shootings, single or mass. There are enough guns, legal and illegal, that a person bent on committing a heinous gun crime will find a way to acquire his/her gun of choice. The Sandy Hook shooter killed his mother and stole her guns. Where there is a will there is always a way.

Democrats, and now  some Republicans, are pushing "sensible gun control." But that sensible gun control includes banning certain weapons and magazines. And now Biden is dishonestly demonizing 9mm ammunition, telling everyone it's a "high caliber round," which is simply untrue. The only reason he would say this is to plant the idea that 9mm ammunition should be banned. And he has to lie about it because 9mm handguns are the most popular guns in the country and are used to kill up to 60 percent of victims killed by firearms. (FBI) That is not "sensible gun control."

Contrary to the left-wing narrative that gun violence can be directly blamed on guns and/or Republicans,  easy excuses that allow leftists to ignore the true causes of said violence, there are actually only two real reasons it occurs. Those reasons are 1) evil and 2) mental illness. People of all political persuasion and people who join hate groups have one or both of those afflictions if they decide to murder for their beliefs. Anyone who commits mass murder, whether the victims are adults, children, or a combination of both, are at the very least mentally ill. People who murder children are evil as well.

Here's the bottom line. A gun and/or a motor vehicle are no danger to anyone until they are operated by the wrong human hands. That's just fact. If you scream about AR-15s killing 100 people a year and blame the gun, but blame the drunk driver rather than the vehicle for 10,500 traffic deaths per year, you are a hypocrite of the worst kind.

Biden: A Nine Millimeter Is A High Caliber Round

 

Joe Biden's handlers are telling him that a 9mm bullet is a "high caliber round" that will"blow a lung clear out of the body." Anyone who knows anything about firearms knows that is absolutely false. So why is he saying it? That's an easy question to answer.

The 9mm semiautomatic handgun is the weapon of choice for most law-abiding Americans. It is the most common among those who carry concealed and, contrary to what the Biden administration and the media would have you believe, it is the weapon used the most in all shootings in the United States, school shootings included. (That information is not difficult to find.) Because it's the most common firearm Biden wants to outlaw it, or at least outlaw the ammunition. And before anyone says "He doesn't want to take your guns," understand what he said. He didn't talk about guns, he talked about how no one needs high caliber 9mm ammunition. He wants to make it impossible to buy 9mm rounds.

The Armalite Rifle Model #15 (AR-15) is sensationalized because of its appearance. (AR does not stand for "assault rifle.") It resembles a military weapon therefore the media labeled it an "assault rifle" even though it does not function like a military weapon. It functions like a semiautomatic handgun - pull the trigger and one bullet is discharged and another is fed into the chamber. One trigger pull, one bullet fired. A revolver puts a new round in front of the barrel with every trigger pull and can be fired just as quickly as a semiautomatic. And a person familiar and practiced with a speed loader can reload a revolver in just a few seconds.

Biden is declaring war on the Second Amendment in his own bumbling way. He has stated more than once that the Second Amendment "is not absolute." He aims to change or abolish it if he can. Even most Democrats are smart enough to understand the chaos that would ensue should Biden, or any President, attempt  outlaw firearms. Talk about civil unrest. But not to worry... Biden has nukes. He reminded us of that already.