New York & Colorado Red Flag Laws Make Big News This Week
Back in 1999, Connecticut passed the first “red flag” law in the country. A quarter of a century later, red flag laws are on the books in 20 states and the District of Columbia. Advocates of the law say it's a valuable tool law enforcement can use to take guns away from people before they harm themselves or someone else. Critics say the laws violate the civil rights of Americans by depriving them of due process and their right to self-defense protected by the Second Amendment.
This week, the red flag laws of two states made the news in different ways.
Changes to Colorado Red Flag Law—
Colorado made the news again for passing several of the gun control bills proposed by its progressive Democratic legislature. Among the bills that made the cut was SB23-170, which amended elements of the state's existing Red Flag law, what Colorado calls an “Extreme Risk Protection Order Petition”.
Under the current law,
“a family or household member and a law enforcement officer or agency can petition for an extreme risk protection order. The bill expands the list of who can petition for an extreme risk protection order to include licensed medical care providers, licensed mental health-care providers, licensed educators, and district attorneys.“
What may be even worse is that SB23-170,
“requires the office of gun violence prevention to expend funds annually on a public education campaign regarding the availability of, and the process for requesting, an extreme risk protection order.”
If you're a gun owner in Colorado, the government is going to spend your money to convince fellow Coloradans that violating American's civil rights is totally cool.
Colorado also passed SB23-169 and SB23-168. The first bill raised the minimum age to purchase any firearm from 18 to 21 years old. Colorado thinks you're old enough to die for your country, but not old enough to defend your family against the violent criminals its activist DAs have refused to hold accountable for their crimes. The second bill violates the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA), and allows victims to sue gun manufacturers. This is just a scheme of leftists to destroy firearm manufacturers, and try to hold them accountable for criminals who use their product illegally in a crime.
Gun owners continue to lose ground and it looks like that will not change anytime soon.
Judge Rules on Constitutionality of New York's Red Flag Law—
It seems since the 2022 United States Supreme Court ruing against New York in NYSR&PA v. Bruen, the courts continue beating down New York's unconstitutional gun laws.
Yesterday New York Supreme Court Judge Craig Stephen Brown ruled that the state's Red Flag violates the individual's civil rights and is therefore unconstitutional. In his statement, Judge Brown writes:
“Without the requirement of any input from a medical or mental health expert, the Court is required to make a determination of whether “the respondent is likely to engage in behavior that would result in serious harm to himself, herself, or others in…section 9.39 of the mental hygiene law.” Under Mental Hygiene Law, a person’s liberty rights cannot be curtailed unless a physician opines that a person is suffering from a condition “likely to result in serious harm.” Further, in order to extend any such curtailment of liberty beyond 48 hours, a second doctor’s opinion must be obtained and such opinion must be consistent with the first doctor’s opinion.”
“Absent from New York’s Red Flag Law is any provision whatsoever requiring even a single medical or mental health expert opinion providing a basis for the order to be issued. New York’s Red Flag Law, as currently written, lacks sufficient statutory guardrails to protect a citizen’s Second Amendment Constitutional right to bear arms.”
You can read the entire ruling here. In New York, the State Appellate Court is higher than the State Supreme Court, so you can bet the anti-gunners are working on an appeal of this ruling.
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Do you trust these red flag laws that require a medical persons input before a judge can make a decision? Do you trust a profession that only has a goal of making money by pushing as many drugs into you as possible just to make money from more drugs to counteract side affects?
You seem to be confusing M.D.’s with pharmaceutical companies.
No he is not. TOO many docs get kickbacks FROM the pharm companies to push as many drugs as they can. So, no, I do not trust a large % of docs. Have also heard to many ppl tell of them saying one thing, then when they look at their records what was put down was quite a bit different and put to show it in a more condemning way, NOT anyway they had mentioned it.