It’s getting increasingly difficult to determine whether congressional Democrats and their party’s current crop of presidential candidates are actively trying to antagonize America’s great middle or are just trolling those of us who care about and value the right to keep and bear arms. Then again, come to think of it, there’s no reason they couldn’t be actively trying to do both.
Last week saw an obscure former congressman from west Texas trying to resuscitate his failing presidential campaign via the liberal use of on-air f-bombs and threats to confiscate some of Americans’ favorite firearms.
“Beto” succeeded in getting lots of ink and electrons spilled in his direction, though many — even some in his own party — think that all he really accomplished was killing off the always-bogus “No one wants to take your guns,” narrative while simultaneously energizing gun owners who aren’t particularly inspired by the smoke signals emanating from the White House these days.
To the extent that Beto’s little display — and the cheers he got from his fellow candidates — finally ends the charade that Democrats don’t really want to see a fully disarmed civilian populace, we should all be grateful. That kind of clarity is refreshing and, ultimately, useful.
One of the disturbing signs emanating from Congress and the White House is the reported support “red flag” laws are getting after the recent spate of shootings in Texas and Ohio. While there are a lot of questions as to the effectiveness of red flag laws in preventing actual crimes, there’s little dispute about their total disregard for the due process rights of gun owners who are targeted.
The ostensible reason for red flag laws is, of course, to prevent crimes by removing firearms from individuals who are adjudged to be a danger to themselves or others. And you know who tend to possess firearms and have present an unambiguous threat to those around them? Why, gang members, of course.
So if some jurisdictions are going to have red flag laws on the books, why not use them to yank the heaters from some of society’s most violent and criminally-predisposed individuals?
Well, as the Washington Examiner reported over the weekend, when Congressional Dems were drafting the federal bill they’re currently pushing to incent state to enact their own red flag laws, they balked at applying the statute to known criminals.
Colorado Republican Ken Buck offered up an amendment designed to disarm known criminals.
Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee amended the measure during a Wednesday mark-up to authorize the federal government to issue extreme risk protection orders in some instances, but they rejected an amendment that would have red-flagged anyone who law enforcement lists as a gang member.
Buck said,
My amendment is quite simple. It would allow the issuance of a red flag order against anyone whose name appears in a gang database if there was probable cause to include that individual in the database.
But Democrats couldn’t quite stomach the thought of grabbing guns from people known to commit a significant percentage of America’s violent crimes and most of the criminal instances of “gun violence.”
Democrats objected with reasons that sounded very familiar to Republicans.
GOP lawmakers have staunchly opposed “No Fly, No Buy” proposals Democrats have tried to pass in the House in recent years because the lists flag the wrong people.
Like the no-fly lists, which have erroneously flagged many innocent individuals as terrorists (including the late Sen. Ted Kennedy), the gang databases are often inaccurate, Democrats said.
Just to recap the Democrats’ logic here, governmental agencies are competent enough empower them to violate the due process rights of people suspected of possibly committing a crime in the future…but they’re not nearly proficient enough to finger known gang members and grab their guns.
Buck pointed out his amendment requires law enforcement to limit red-flagging to only those with probable cause to be included on the list, which is a stricter criteria.
Democrats kept objecting, arguing someone could be misidentified as gang members simply for writing “13” on a piece of paper and having it wrongly identified as an MS-13 gang sign.
“Maybe you are just doodling because it is the 13th of June,” Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler of New York said.
The jaw-dropping double standard in play didn’t go un-noticed.
“It’s amazing to me,” (Georgia Republican Doug) Collins said. “We had a large blow-up on the floor of this House just a couple years ago about the ‘No Fly, No Buy’ list, which was shown to have issues, but at that point, nobody from the other side brought this is as a concern, and now we are bringing it as a concern,” Collins said.
“If we can’t bring this list up, even with due process put in, then don’t ever bring the ‘No Fly, No Buy’ list up again.”
“Don’t ever bring it up again because there is no due process on that list.”
It’s nice that congressional Democrats give gang members more benefit of the doubt than they afford average law-abiding Americans when their Second, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment rights are at stake.
If the left didn’t have double standards, they wouldn’t have any standards at all…
Heard many times before, but always worth repeating.
“…If the left didn’t have double standards, they wouldn’t have any standards at all…”
Dig deeper and ask why their constituents support such behavior?
Woman asks: How do you write women so well?
Writer replies: I think of a man and take away reason and accountability.
The DNC(Leftist/Feminist) Party is built upon taking away reason and accountability,
“What are the chances a liberal Judge would be attacked for something s/he supposedly did at a frat party 40 years ago? The Left has lost its mind, but we already knew that”-Henry Makow, in reference to Brett Kavanaugh
This isn’t a matter of double standards. That is simply a symptom of what is transpiring. The left want to destroy this country, pure and simple. They are attacking the Constitution on all fronts. There is another civil war on the horizon and it will be 2nd Amendment rights against an oppressive government, the exact reason that the Founders included the 2nd Amendment to begin with.
One thing I’d like to know about the proposed bill is whether the initial ex parte order would authorize police to enter the subject’s home in order to search for and seize firearms. If not, the whole thing sounds rather toothless, and I can’t imagine the law staying that way for long. If so, then Democrats have just invented a general-purpose end-run around the 4th Amendment search warrant requirement. Such a “red flag” order would be obtainable on a lower burden of proof and without the need to even speculate about an underlying crime. Then, while ostensibly searching for firearms, any evidence of unrelated crimes becomes admissible as incidental to a lawful search.
Have “Red Flag Laws” survived any court challenges? Seeing as they violate multiple clauses of the constitution (1st, 2nd, 4th, 6th, 14th, and maybe others), striking them down seems like, for any judge that is remotely honest or competent, a no-brainer.
I think what they really want is to allow a red flag to stop a new gun purchase. This isn’t a terrible thing in and of itself. The devil is in the details. How long , what level of proof , how easy is it to get removed etc.
I would be fine with a 30-60 NICs hold being possible with some due process. BUT there needs to be a restriction that it automatically is removed absent a court finding the person dangerous , the subject is notified , it’s a actionable civilly and criminally if there was fraud and that you can only do it to the same person once every couple of years. This would prevent it being used as a harassment tool.
Also we should stage in the law that abuses of this procedure are NOT protected by absolute or qualified immunity. So if a cop or judge violates your rights he can be sued. .
Having a purchase delayed for 30-60 minutes for a NICS hold would be a pain, but if everybody thinks it would make a difference we could try it temporarily, I suppose. Mostly, my choice would be that if a NICS check cannot reliably get a full answer it the time allotted in the original law, the taxpayer should pay for more assets/personnel, rather than delaying the result. Because I would expect that if the hold went beyond the current 3 days, the NICS apparatus would promptly be completely defunded.
We are too quick to put all the blame on democrats for this. The article is about a democratic objection (from one member of the party, not necessarily from the party itself) that is identical to an objection republicans have made in the past. But more importantly, there are republicans (possibly RINOs) who are also behind the push for red-flag laws. (Trump, for one.)
I trust no party with the constitution. Keeping them balanced and denying any one party control over all three branches of government is the best way to protect our rights.
Ummm…they regularly have “gang gun sweeps” in Chiraq. And there’s a helluva lot of gangscum. BTW run by Dims Dan…this is nothing.
FWW,
Did not know about gun sweeps in Chicago. Good illustration of how gun control does NOT prevent the bad guys from obtaining guns.
Also how “gang gun sweeps” have precious little effect, given the dozens of gang murders in a given month.
“…Democrats give gang members more benefit of the doubt than they afford average law-abiding Americans…”
Well, they can’t go around antagonizing their voter base now, can they?
This is *beautiful*. Just gorgeous. I just can’t stop *snickering*.
This is why the Leftists will never pass a law really targeted towards incarcerating prohibited persons. It will expose their own naked racism…
How much money do you think the drug dealers and gangs donate to Democrats ?
It’s more like a protection racket, actually.
“That’s a real nice Chicago alderman position you have there. Be a real shame if something bad were to happen to it…”
WHAT could POSSIBLY go wrong??
Schools across New York began the academic year with a new tool intended to prevent student suicides and violence: the ability to ask a court to remove a troubled person’s access to firearms. New York is the first to empower schools to petition a court themselves for such an order, rather than go through local law enforcement….
I’m pretty sure NO liberal/socialist school teacher would even ENTERTAIN the thought of polling his/her/it’s classroom to try to find out which kids live in households where firearms are kept, and then finding or developing a reason to question the childs state of mind (do they subject a suspected troubled child to a psychological screening or is it just a subjective determination in the teachers PROFESSIONAL opinion…
And they say : crime doesn’t pay :,,, If you’re a gangbanger , crook, thief, thug, or illegal, or a bum, any kind of drag on society, including politicians, according to the Democrats you automatically have way more rights than a boring tax paying good upstanding citizen. I say red flag this 🖕🏿
So says Leftard moron Jerrold Nadler, C-N.Y.,red flag/GVPO/GVRO will be found to be un Constitutional when they make there way thru the courts,until then Leftards are have a free for all infringing on “We The Peoples” rights.
The Democrats don’t want to alienate they’re voter base.
Geoff, I want apologize. I didn’t mean to plagiarize. BTW, better watch that screen name. They’ll want to red flag you.
No worries. 😉
I’m in no way implying anyone harm her, I just want nature to pick up the pace and allow her so shuffle off this ‘mortal coil’ as soon as possible…
Yeah, the name’s getting a little morbid at this point. Not so sure of the story behind it, but it’s an eyebrow raiser, for sure.
At this point, the thought “poor Ruthie” comes to mind.
I believe the handle falls nicely under ‘sic semper tyrannis’. Ruthie chose to be a tyrant in a black robe. Ruthie chose to support the destruction of the Constitution and liberty along with it. When I think of the tyrant RBG, as with all tyrants,
… no fucks given.
Ahhhhh!!!!! Now I get it. Our dear ‘ol RBG!
Geez, all this time I thought Ruthie was Geoff’s wife. I thought Geoff was kind of a comedic sicko all this time.
Okay, okay…sometimes it takes me a while, lol.
Haz,
“Ahhhhh!!!!! Now I get it. Our dear ‘ol RBG!”
Almost wet my pants over this. 🙂
They need to disarm the white christian male population. They already took care of, disarmed, the blacks. And white big city atheists don’t have and don’t want guns. Criminals of any color will always have guns. And the democrats will call on this gun criminal class during election time.
Christ T in KY,
This is cynicism, right?
Big city atheist here. Not white though, so maybe that’s the deciding factor?
Personally, I just want everybody to leave me alone. In return, I’ll leave you alone. Frankly, the Christians and other religious folk are doing a decent job at that. Some LDS elders chatted me up on the walk back from the bus stop the other day, but true to form, they were polite about it and went away when I said I wasn’t interested. The progressives are determined to live my life for me, and it’s getting ridiculous. Not even getting to guns, plastic bag bans, straw bans, all sorts of petty regulations…
That proves the Dems are un-American and plain evil both> There will be people who own no weapons who will be victims of red flag laws so why is going after gang members so egregious? Especially since most of them illegally own their guns? Any gun owner who votes Democratic in 2020 will either reside in a cemetery or have rocks for brains.
It’s safer to disarm a law abiding guy who had a disagreement with someone which went off the rails then gang members who kill people for soort.
liar liar pants on fire. – Beto Mussolini O’Dorke – involved in accident and fled scene. Involved in groups that hated and threatened death to kids. He can not be trusted in any public office. He should start a ministry get a tent and get out of town. Or he could qualify to sell for the Fuller Brush Co. Maybe a used car salesman
Test.
The Left is the crazy…
….& psycho…
…ex-girlfriend keying your Jeep.
F-You TTAG censorship!
This just shows one again that the Dems and leftist’s don’t care about stopping crime and protecting American citizens, including children. We’re just collateral damage in their quest for power and their socialist utopia.Lately the mask has come off and shown the rest of America their goal has always been confiscation as we gun owners have always known.
Dems do not WANT to solve this problem. They want a talking point now, then more mass shootings in gun free zones, and then they will all start talking like Robert Francis.
Where are the republicans point to research like John Lott’s and pushing to end gun free zones, force states to have shall issue, and pass national reciprocity.
Those things will help. Red flag laws won’t. Anyone who wants to get a gun to commit an illegal act, will do so illegally.
If and when these laws are passed, it would behoove every honest individual to report every politician, public official, and yes, even police officers as “threats to the public order” and deserving of firearms confiscation. Let’s use their own (misguided) laws against them.
When there are multitudes of complaints about public officials and their threat to society, the “red flag” law will collapse on its face.
Not a bad idea!
Wry smile.
The plan is, the “public servants” involved will filter such accusations, so they never reach a court, simply die. It is just those accusations made against anyone conservative which will need emergency attention. Probably the simplest way to achieve all their goals is to simply make the complaints in-house, if it didn’t come from my office just ignore it. The whole idea is an incremental step toward tyranny, it has no other purpose, don’t be fooled.
Maybe POTG should take a page from the gangster book and start bribing our politicians.
America has the best politicians that money can buy. So get to buying, y’all.
So someone who doodles ’13’ is just doodling but someone who flashes the OK sign is a racist, alt-right, Nazi-loving white supremist? How about if they have doodled “MS13” on their body? By the way, the amendment offered did not, at least according to this article, have anything to do with anyone doodling. It was about those who police forces have placed on a gang database with probable cause. The local news will run an interview with either the Police Chief or Police Superintendent after a particularly bloody weekend and almost invariably the Chief/Superintendent will say ‘We know who they are. We have a list of 1,500/1,900 [depending on who is being interviewed] people who we know are causing the problem.’ So the gang bangers are known and nothing is done. What is worse is when the gb’s are arrested and charged with various crimes, including gun charges, they are quite frequently allowed out on minimal bail. Chicago has had cases of murderers being out on gun charges and wearing ankle monitors at the time of the killing. One of them was resourceful enough to modify the monitoring device not to reveal that he was in his car and driving where ever he wished.
DA in Boston wants to look the other way on many crimes “doesn’t want to fill up the courts”. Did that with some protesters who assaulted cops.
Might one make so bold as to note the following. Could it possibly be that Democrats have opted for a party wide suicide pact with this Gun Control and Red Flag Foolishness?
Maybe.
But it seems more a declaration of war.
Dare to dream…..
Should we just go ahead and ban hands and feet cuz they are more of a Epidemic than rifles of all types including those scary guns? Is beto coming for ur hands & feet too.. when he sees this>??
https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-2017/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-8.xls
These debates show the Left for who and what they are, liars and hypocrites. They state they wont ban guns and then call for it in their events. They state Red Flag Laws will not be used on innocent people then call out a Conservative official as being someone who needs to be Red Flagged for words he speaks that are not violent. Its Socialism plain and simple and it needs to be fought at every instance. Establishment RINOs will say to ignore it and be the better person and yet here we are dealing with what they said would never happen.
I see gun confiscation as something the left has identified as a pre-requsite for a broader agenda, which includes:
1. Loss of parental rights; the state will decide what is good for your children.
2. Mandated medical care; the state will enforce mandates pushed by Pharma and Big Med. “We will take your children if you do not comply”. Just read about another case of this last week.
3. Elimination of freedom of the press.
4. Elimination of free speech.
5. Controlling your consumption.
6. Restricting private property rights.
7. Constraining religious freedom.
8. Requiring only state approved propaganda to be taught in schools.
9. Promoting promiscuity through the schools.
10. Promoting gender dysphoria.
11. Mandating all public libraries host drag-queen story times.
Well, that last one might be a stretch, but they see taking our guns as a way of eliminating effective resistance.
Not a conspiracy theory. Just summarizing the news.
The last one isn’t a stretch. The Twilight Zone already arrived. But I think you already knew this and were just funnin’ with us. :
Sputter, sputter, choke, cough…cannot find words.
And parents take their little children…
My brain hurts.
Wake me up when the shooting starts.
What do you think would happen if an entire MS-13 group would be arrested on illegal weapons charges? The feds know that MS-13 would not take it lying down. Cops and prosecuting attorneys would be ambushed and killed. Their families would be put in danger. The law enforcement know this and that’s why they will first go after Joe Sixpack who has never killed anyone before, never been in serious trouble
with the law and doesn’t belong to a gang. You don’t go around bullying people that cane bully you right back.
How did Scientology get tax free status? By suing the individual IRS agents investigating them. And then making a deal with the IRS to make these troubles disappear.
A better question would be why they had to do more than apply for that tax-free status, IRS agents who think they have the unbridled power to decide for themselves what is or is not a religion? I am perfectly happy with the followers of the Great Flying Spaghetti Monster gaining tax free status, and I do not need our government goons dispatched to Utah again to kill Mormons for believing they had a right to freedom of religion. If you think that did not happen, use the Google, Luke!
If things are that bad, gub’t needs to announce they are turning their backs on the problem, and walk away. It wouldn’t take long before a few hundred thousand men (who actually knew how to use the guns they brought along) passed through town, taking the problem along when they left. Only thing stopping those men now is knowing there is a good chance the cops will suddenly recall their duty and put *them* in prison.
Larry, don’t forget that they can double down and hire foreign mercenary troops, deputize them and send them out to confiscate the guns. If they get desperate enough they might try anything to stay in power.
Maybe these Red Flag proponents should watch the Tom Cruise movie Minority Report — what comes around goes around…
Please show me a democratic run city or state that is a good place to live? No, really, do you want to live with crime, poverty, drugs, homelessness, high taxes and limited rights? It’s easy, just keep voting democrat. Prove me wrong.
It is as simple as this: Far more gang members, including those who are illegal aliens, vote for Democrats than Republicans.In fact, I wonder if even one has ever voted (R) unless by mistake; gangsters tend to be illiterate and/or non-English speaking. Why do you think that whenever a governor or state legislature is re-instating convicted felons’ voting rights it is ALWAYS a Dem one?
That is also a reason why they keep voting Dem even after they are dead.
I’m working on a post about inbred coastal idiots. News at 11!
Gang members won’t even NOTICE red flag laws.
Can anyone say ‘SWATTING’?
Gangs are not even in the Zip code of the proposed gun control regulations… Red Flag does not apply, who is going to call a cop and report some “unstable” MS-13 gang member and IF it did happen who is going to knock on his door and demand he turn in his gun(s)? Universal background checks won’t apply to gangs, how many gang members go their local FFL dealer to BUY that new Glock and when they give/sell/trade their guns thay are not going to run down to that same FFL and fill out the required paperwork… AR/AK buyback/confiscation… Gangs don’t care what the government does to ARs and AKs, they might have a few laying around but even so they won’t be in line to turn them in, you might see them at a buyback unloading a bunch of stolen shit if there is enough money involved, but the individiuals responsible for more gun related injury and death in one month than all AR/AK related injury and death in a year will continue their lives as if nothing ever happened.. and it actually didn’t at least not to them….
I’m completely nuts. FBI, put me on the No Fly List, take my guns, and electroshock me until I scream like the slaves my ancestors owned. – Beto
Totally credible.