CDFingers wrote: Wed Aug 07, 2024 6:17 pm
Hope is not a plan, but it's a strategy. VooDoo, I hear you about faith in a system, especially this one. That's why I wrote "properly written and applied" red flag laws.
Hope being a strategy rather than a plan, I hope that if I can see aspects of a system that are not working, so can others. So if I can devise a collection of local stakeholders who may decide about whether to inflict a red flag law on a guy--more than 90% are men--then so can others. Others may be able to write the legislation.
To me, a proper panel to decide about the issue should include doctors, law enforcement, the courts, family and friends, and any folks who complained about the guy--and lawyers, who gotta eat, too. They would decide at least two things. First, whether to take the guy's guns and put them in safekeeping. And second, the conditions under which the guns would be returned, if ever.
I agree that it's awful to contemplate taking the guns. 2A and so on. Yet we're also tasked by the Constitution to "promote the general welfare." Taking guns from certain people would do that. I agree with CT that it's possible the laws may be abused and used against minorities. That's why I put "properly written and applied."
I know I might piss off people by what I wrote. But there is no solid opposition to Red Flag laws beyond "it might be abused" and "muh rights." I would counter to say that if you don't want your guns taken, don't be a DV person, don't run around doing drive by's, and don't habitually misuse firearms. Personal responsibility is a thing.
I think this Club and others can work to draft ideas behind a solution that would be acceptable to everyone. A tall order, I know. But the existing system does not work either. "Do something" is insufficient, as is throwing up our hands and refusing to address the issue. A policy draft is better, more specific, and allows editing.
CDF
You dismiss concerns about "it might be abused" and "mah rights", as you put it, as if only Southern Whites care about that, thus it's not important.
Well, how about when a Black man says it? Still deride it? Remember, it's happened to us...and authority like that *HAS* been abused, along with a lot of other things aimed at us.
Were this the Star Trek universe, which is essentially a utopia, then perhaps I might be able to be convinced that our officials would actually do things fairly. But it's not that utopia. This is the 21st Century, in which our politicians, in both major Parties, are corrupt as hell. People focus on "domestic violence, domestic violence" as a rallying cry for gun control. It sounds great because opposing it is like opposing 9/11-style terrorism.
Problem: 9/11 resulted in what Richard Stallman, a progressive leftie and starter of the Free Software Movement, calls the "PAT RIOT" Act. Having read all 750+ pages of it, I am convinced that Stallman was right in his description. The "PAT RIOT" Act was, indeed, an egregious attack on our civil liberties. Seriously, folks, and if memory serves, only one person in the House voted against it. Virtually every Democrat and Republican voted for this monstrosity of a bill. Same with the Senate; both Democrats and Republicans, very nearly unanimous. Attacking our civil liberties and turning the United States into a police-surveillance state was definitely *NOT* the correct response to 9/11. Pulling over and arresting or detaining brown-skinned men at gunpoint for "DWB" in 9/11's aftermath, with the cops giving the excuse, "we're at war!", was *NOT* the correct response.
Same with these "Red Flag" laws. I see them as coming after *me*. Not the White person that almost all of you see when you look into the mirror. *ME*. Same with those who look like the half of my family who isn't White. My mother's got nothing to worry about. My surviving brother, on the other hand? Oh, yeah. My Black sisters, nieces, and nephews? Oh, yeah.
See, all it takes is a mere accusation...an allegation...and you've got the cops crawling all over you, news cameras filming your home, and your likeness plastered all over the media of being "accused" of something under a Red Flag law. Your good name is ruined...unless you've got resources like Bill Gates, Michael Bloomberg, and so on.
I remind you all of what happened to Brian Banks. I also remind you all of the also-innocent man that then-DA Kamala Harris locked up in prison for 6 and a half years. Both are Black. Neither had the resources to fight against an army of government lawyers in court. Both served time for crimes they didn't commit...just because of an allegation.
That's why I don't trust officials with having "Red Flag law" powers. It's because, unlike so many White people here, *I* could be next. You've got to think about that, too. Anybody who wants to disarm me, they're not a "friendly" at all.
