If a person is really a danger to himself or others, confiscating guns isn’t much of a solution. There are so many other ways for disturbed people to cause harm. But advocates of “red flag” laws want people to believe that simply taking away someone’s legally-owned guns means the problem is solved.
Last week, the Biden administration announced it was using part of the $1.8 trillion massive spending bill passed after last year’s election to give $231 million to states that enact red-flag laws and push other gun-control policies. After last week’s mass public shooting at Michigan State University, gun-control advocates from Michael Bloomberg’s Moms Demand Action were again touting red-flag laws as the solution. Michigan legislators also see the attack as a chance to pass the law.
The law doesn’t respect the right to due process. Judges take away a person’s guns without a hearing based on only a mere written complaint. But the laws also don’t even make people safer.
It’s easy enough for people to do something crazy with a motor vehicle, but none of the red-flag laws address taking away a person’s ability to drive. Last week, a 62-year-old man ran over people with a U-Haul truck on a Brooklyn sidewalk, killing one and injuring eight others. The man was described as having had a mental health crisis.
Until 2018, the Crime Prevention Research Center tried keeping a list of vehicle attacks worldwide. The worst recent vehicle attack occurred in France on July 14, 2016, when 86 were killed and 430 wounded. That attack was much more deadly than
