A few years ago there was a movie called “Minority Report” wherein technology had been “connected” to three people with clairvoyant abilities. These three people were able to “see” the future, and could predict when a person was going to commit a murder.
I really didn’t understand why, but when the entire mechanism was working and the three predictors made a prediction, the name of the perpetrator was engraved on a wooden ball (instead of displayed on a screen?) which rolled down a tray into the office of the “thought police” (not what they were called in the movie, but similar).
Then, in that future time everyone’s place of residence could be known immediately by the police, and a team was dispatched to arrest the person whose name appeared on the wooden ball for “crimes they were about to commit.” Even though at that very instant and up to that instant there had been no crime committed– just the perceived crime which was predicted and believed to about to happen in the near future.
Now back to the 21st century.
A man and his wife or girlfriend, or maybe two brothers, or two sisters, or two people, have an argument. Tempers flare, words are said, and the two part company. One of them gets a bit carried away with thinking what might happen, and remembers the other person use to have a handgun, or a rifle, or some kind of shotgun, a firearm of some kind.
“How mad were they?” “Do I dare go back and try to apologize?” “I’m going to get even with them.” “He’s not going to talk to me that way!” “She’s lost her mind!” “He’s got to control that temper.”
And the imagination grows into fear, or anger, or revenge-seeking.
So the cops are called. They only get one side of the story, but that’s all they need. They go to his or her house, knock on the door, and invite themselves in. Once in, they do a thorough search of the premises for any type of firearm, and upon finding such, they immediately confiscate them. They have no search warrant, no filed charges, no affidavit from a witness, no probable cause, no crime committed, only the emotional (or vengeful) statement of one person with whom they had argued earlier.
That is the way the “red flag” gun laws work. It destroys Constitutional protections against illegal search and seizure (4th Amendment) and the right to due process (14th Amendment). It’s a way to defeat the 2nd Amendment, the right of citizens to own guns.
It’s based not on a crime committed, but on the fear of a crime being committed. There is no way to predict what a person is going to do or not do 100 percent of the time. That said, the Parkland, FL shooter had done a lot of things prior to his attack which law enforcement ignored. The so-called “red flags” were there, but no one acted on them to investigate Cruz, including a post on YouTube saying he wanted to be a “professional school shooter.”
Yet many states have enacted red flag laws. In the opinion of noted constitutional law expert Jacob Sullum, the standard underpinning all such laws are deeply suspect; ranging from “anybody’s guess” to “inherently vague.”
Considering the significant evidence that already had been available to law enforcement officials at the state, local and federal level, the Parkland shooter posed an imminent risk, and …firearms laws had likely had been violated, …and existing laws provided sufficient basis on which authorities legally could have taken steps to stop him. (But they didn’t)
With regard to more recent tragedies, evidence seems to support the premise that evidence available at the time would not have been sufficient to stop the murderous rampages.
The truth is no more gun laws will stop shootings. Only if all guns every where in the world would magically disappear would shootings stop. Taking legal gun ownership away from law-abiding citizens will NOT keep criminals from having guns. It just won’t. Anyone who believes such is living in a fantasy world. Or Chicago.
People say “there are just too many guns.” There are too many cars, too; they kill people every day, but we don’t hear politicians or activists calling for banning cars. London has banned knives, since now after guns have been banned, frequent murders are committed by knives.
We hear politicians talk about “buy back” plans. New Zealand tried that; it didn’t work, and isn’t working. People are not going to take a fourth of what a gun is worth just because the government suggests it. The state of New Jersey banned all “high-capacity” magazines, and asked for them to be turned in.
Not one was turned in.
No matter how cliché it sounds, guns don’t kill people, people kill people. If they don’t’ have a gun, they use a knife; if they don’t have a knife, they use a screwdriver, or a baseball bat, or a tire iron, or a crowbar, or a car, or a rental truck, or an airplane. Even their bare hands.
In the Prophecy of Daniel it says “…the wicked people will continue to be wicked.”
Law-abiding citizens have the right to protect themselves and their families. When laws are made that do not support this necessary tenant of Freedom, our Freedom has been compromised.
THE RIGHT RENDITION 