Once again, in the wake of numerous shootings replicated by press reports, a fight is underway to suspend certain provisions of the Bill of Rights.
At their core, Red Flag Laws would allow an irate relative to suspend a gun owner’s Second, Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights. It would be as plain as calling a judge who says the gun owner is “dangerous.”
There was a debate after the Dayton shooting about whether suspending the pre-2013 shooter from high school for unsavory social media posts and behavior while underage would raise “suspicion.”
As with almost every other shooter, there are people who come forward after the fact who say they “knew” the guy was going to shoot.
However, as with virtually every other shooter, his gun could easily have been taken away if someone had tried to take advantage of the previously applicable regulations.
As it turns out, you can be charged with “making a threat” in Ohio, which the state treats as a crime, regardless of the suspect’s intent. If authorities didn’t want to charge the shooter under current law, they certainly wouldn’t have “red-flagged” him.
To plug the holes in their argument, firearm confiscation advocates suggest that a high school suspension and the juvenile’s conduct from eight years ago should be grounds for issuing a warning order.
A disproportionately high percentage of suspensions occur among minority students. A thoughtful analyst might be tempted to suggest that the days of Jim Crow (when officials enforced laws that disarmed African Americans by making “visits” in the middle of the night) have returned.
These anti-gun efforts are funded by billionaires who have no problem getting private security for themselves. The newest member of the club is the Laura and John Arnold Foundation. After giving away more than $1 billion to leftist causes, the Arnolds’ latest $50 million project is “researching the causes and solutions to gun violence…”
Along with billionaires Michael Bloomberg, Tom Steyer and George Soros, these privileged elites protect themselves with armed bodyguards. They do so while disarming the “little people” who need self-defense far more than those living behind elevated gates in leafy suburbs.
My brother was one of the “little people.” He was suspended from school when he was youthful. As a law-abiding adult, he kept a loaded gun in his nightstand. If he hadn’t, he could have died that night when a drug addict showed up at his bedside at 3 a.m.
People like John and Laura Arnold, Michael Bloomberg, George Soros, and Tom Steyer would disarm my brother; they have no problem protecting their own wealth and privilege with armed guards and elite police forces.
The 1 percent aren’t just trying to destroy our constitutional protections. They’ve also spent hundreds of millions trying to destroy the Republican Party. Despite this reality, there’s a growing belief among some Republicans that they can betray their base in 2020 and still win.
It would be a colossal mistake, comparable to George H. W. Bush’s broken “Read My Lips” promise. There is no faster way for Donald Trump to become a one-term president than by embracing President Barack Obama’s anti-gun agenda. And make no mistake: Republicans in Congress will suffer historic defeats from which they will never recover if they allow this to happen.
Many of the proposals the GOP is considering today are the same ones that were rejected by congressional Republicans in 2013. They were rewarded by voters in subsequent elections for their support of the Second Amendment.
Elites of both parties will continue to work overtime to destroy the Second Amendment. It is time to stand up and protect our constitutional rights before it is too tardy.
Michael Hammond is the former executive director of the Senate Steering Committee and was often referred to as the “101st Senator” during his time on Capitol Hill. He currently serves as general counsel for Gun Owners of America.
