Thread: Seizing guns before someone can commit violence: Texas’ modification

Seizing guns before someone can commit violence: Texas’ modification

by Simon Williams
Monday, February 19th 2018



Five states have passed a gun control law, commonly referred to as the “red flag law,” that some say could’ve prevented Wednesday’s shooting in Parkland, Fla. That list could be growing.


EL PASO, Texas (KFOX14) — Five states have passed a gun control law, commonly referred to as the “red flag law,” that some say could’ve prevented Wednesday’s shooting in Parkland, Fla. That list could be growing.

The law, more formally known as an “Extreme Risk Protection Order,” allows family members and police to go to a judge and request the removal of guns from a person until they’re no longer deemed dangerous.

California, Washington, Oregon, Indiana, and Connecticut have passed the law, and Texas has a similar modification.

In the Lone Star State, a person can’t posses a gun if they’ve been diagnosed as suffering from a psychiatric disorder, entered a plea of not guilty by insanity, require continuous medical treatment, or have been diagnosed within the last 5 years with being dependent to alcohol or a controlled substance.

Some argue that the “red flag law,” could’ve prevented Wednesday’s mass school shooting in Parkland, Fla.

New reports say the suspected shooter, Nikolas Cruz, killed squirrels with a pellet gun, posted on Instagram about guns and killing animals, and had been treated at a mental health clinic.

In opposition, the National Rifle Association (NRA) said in a statement that the law “strips the accused of their second amendment rights.”

Florida’s GOP senator, Mark Rubio, has received criticism from the support he received from the NRA, but Sunday morning he said that state legislators should “absolutely” consider enacting the law.

He told the Miami CBS affiliate that it’s an example of a state law that could’ve prevented the shooting.

Lawmakers in 18 other states, including Florida, have proposed similar measures.

http://kfoxtv.com/news/local/seizing...s-modification

Trump backs effort to improve gun background checks

TRUMP TO HOLD 'LISTENING SESSION' WITH SURVIVORS OF FLORIDA SCHOOL SHOOTING

BY CHANTAL DA SILVA ON 2/19/18 AT 6:27 AM

President Donald Trump has said he will meet with high school students who survived last week's school shooting in Parkland, Florida, which killed 17 people.

The White House announced Sunday that Trump plans to host a "listening session" with students and teachers from the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Thursday.

The discussion is expected to be followed by a meeting with state and local officials to discuss school safety. The White House did not provide any further details on the planned talks.


President Donald Trump offered his prayers and condolences to the families of victims of the Parkland, Florida school shooting in an address at the White house on February 15.WIN MCNAMEE/GETTY

The move comes as students from the school announced plans to march on Washington on March 17 to demand better gun control, calling on people across the U.S. to join them by hosting marches in their own cities.

"People are saying that it's not time to talk about gun control. And we can respect that, (but) here's a time: March 24 in every single city," student Cameron Kasky said.

It is unclear how many students and teachers are expected to meet with the U.S. leader, but many survivors of the shooting have hit out at the president, calling on him to take action on gun control instead of offering his condolences.

One student, Emma Gonzalez, was one of several survivors to criticize the president, delivering a passionate speech at a rally in support of gun control in Fort Lauderdale over the weekend.

"If the president wants to come up to me and tell me to my face that it was a terrible tragedy and how it should never have happened, and maintain telling us how nothing is going to be done about it, I'm going to happily ask him how much money he received from the National Rifle Association," Gonzalez said, adding: "I already know—$30 million."

Read more: Florida kids will march on Washington to shame adult politicians

Another student hit out at the president after he offered his "prayers and condolences" to families of the victims of the high school shooting, saying: "I don't want your condolences, you ****ing piece of shit."

"My friends and teachers were shot. Multiple of my fellow classmates are dead," tweeted the student, identified only by her first name Sarah. "Do something instead of sending prayers. Prayers won't fix this. But gun control will prevent it from happening again."

Trump visited injured victims of the school shooting and their families on Friday and also met with first responders to thank them for their work.

In an address delivered from the White House, the U.S. leader said the "entire nation, with one heavy heart, is praying for the victims and their families."

He said: "To every parent, teacher, and child who is hurting so badly, we are here for you—whatever you need, whatever we can do, to ease your pain," adding: "No child, no teacher, should ever be in danger in an American school. No parent should ever have to fear for their sons and daughters when they kiss them goodbye in the morning."

Trump has not made any calls for tighter gun restrictions in the wake of the recent shooting. He has, however, lashed out at former President Barack Obama and Democrats for failing to tighten U.S. gun laws while they were in power. He has also attacked the FBI, claiming the agency had missed signs the suspected gunman was troubled because it was "spending too much time trying to prove Russian collusion with the Trump campaign."

http://www.newsweek.com/trump-listen...hooting-810814

I don't know, that's getting a little murky to me.

Five states allow guns to be seized before someone can commit violence

by Lenny Bernstein February 16 Email the author

In the wake of massacres similar to Wednesday’s school shooting in Parkland, Fla., a small number of states have passed “red flag laws” that allow the seizure of guns before people can commit acts of violence.

California, Washington, Oregon, Indiana and Connecticut have statutes that can be used to temporarily take guns away from people a judge deems a threat to themselves or others. Lawmakers in 18 other states — including Florida — plus the District of Columbia have proposed similar measures.

At the federal level, Rep. Salud Carbajal (D-Calif.) and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) introduced legislation last May that would encourage states to adopt the approach.

Mental illness, escalating threats, substance abuse and domestic violence are among the circumstances in which a judge can order weapon restrictions under the statutes.

“This morning I heard the sheriff [in Parkland] lament the fact that he did not have the tools to remove the firearms from the shooter,”

Joshua Horwitz, executive director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, said Thursday. “Had he lived in one of those states where this law is in place, he would have had the tools, and this shooting may have been averted.”

The nation’s patchwork of federal and state gun laws mainly involves background checks and actions to prevent people who pose a threat from buying firearms. The approach of the red flag laws is to seize guns from people who have them and to restrict their access until they are no longer deemed dangerous.


Red flag laws map (Leah Binkovitz)

“We think of this as a new frontier,” said Jonas Oransky, deputy legal director of Everytown for Gun Safety, an advocacy group founded in 2014. “We don’t have a perfect system in this country, and we can’t stop every act of gun violence. This is a way for states to take some care and be somewhat nimble when there is a dangerous case.”
The laws allow family members or law enforcement officers to ask a judge for a “gun violence restraining order” or an “extreme risk protection order” against someone who behaves the way 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz, the alleged Florida gunman, did in recent years.

According to news reports, Cruz killed squirrels with a pellet gun, trained his dogs to attack a neighbor’s piglets, posted on Insta*gram about guns and killing animals and eventually threatened at least one teen. He showed signs of depression and had been treated at a mental health clinic.

Authorities say Cruz used an AR-15 assault-style rifle to kill 17 people and wound at least 15 others at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Wednesday. Cruz has been charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder.

In an Everytown study of mass shootings from 2009 to 2016, 42 percent of the attackers had shown warning signs of violent behavior. In most situations, however, the danger is suicide, not homicide.
When Duke University researchers looked at the application of Connecticut’s red flag law between 1999 and 2013, they found that police served 762 so-called “risk warrants” during that period and estimated that a gun suicide was prevented for every 10 to 20 seizures.

The police found guns in 99 percent of the cases in which they served the warrants, seizing an average of seven firearms from each person. Twenty-one people went on to commit suicide anyway, six by firearms.

Overall, suicides account for about 60 percent of gun deaths in the United States.

The National Alliance on Mental Illness has no formal position on red flag laws, according to Ron Honberg, a senior policy adviser for the organization, but hopes to see more states adopt them.
“It creates some mechanism to intervene at a particular point in time when a person may be in bad shape,” Honberg said. “Is it going to be 100 percent effective? No.”

In the three Western states with such laws, all adopted since 2014, a family member or law enforcement officer must petition a court about someone who appears to be a threat. Relatives often go to the police and ask them to do so, experts said.

A judge can quickly order the weapons surrendered if convinced of the threat. Within a few weeks, a full hearing is held on longer-term restrictions, which can last a year. Judges must allow people who want their weapons back to revisit the ruling.

In Connecticut, only law enforcement agents can ask for a risk warrant. And in Indiana, law enforcement can confiscate weapons without a judge’s order. The gun owner must ask the court to get the weapons returned.

States have long prohibited some convicted felons and people committed involuntarily from having firearms. At least seven states last year passed laws restricting access to guns for people convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence crimes, and three require that offenders turn their guns in.

Horwitz and Oransky said the National Rifle Association and other members of the gun lobby have not put up much opposition to the statutes. “We would be happy if they came to the table and were supportive of those laws,” Oransky said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/nation...5e5_story.html

from Sept '17 - RI was not listed on prior post's map....
States move to restrict domestic abusers from carrying guns

by Katie Zezima September 21, 2017 Email the author


Nationwide, 27 states have passed laws curtailing access to guns by people convicted of domestic violence offenses or subject to protective orders, according to Everytown for Gun Safety.

Rhode Island this week became the seventh state this year to pass a law restricting access to guns for people convicted of domestic violence offenses. The state will prohibit the possession of guns by people convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence crimes and court-issued final protective orders, and it also will require such people to turn in any guns they already own.

“At last, victims of domestic abuse in Rhode Island will not have the constant fear of knowing that the person who abused them still has a gun,” state Rep. Teresa Tanzi (D) said.

Federal law prohibits anyone convicted of a misdemeanor or felony domestic violence charge or who is subject to a domestic violence protective order from possessing a firearm. But gun control advocates argue that federal laws are not strong enough and additional protections must be passed on the state level, in part because state laws are easier for local authorities to enforce.

The biggest issue, they say, is that the federal statute doesn’t provide a mechanism for those convicted of abuse charges to turn in the guns they already own. It is, they argue, essentially on the honor system.

“You’re prohibited from buying firearms, but you can go home and access the firearms you already have,” said Sarah Tofte, research director for Everytown for Gun Safety. The gun control group and its grassroots arm, Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, have worked on the legislation in Rhode Island and other states.

Of the seven states that passed laws curtailing the ability of those convicted of domestic violence to obtain firearms, at least three of them -- New Jersey, North Dakota and Rhode Island -- require those who are convicted to turn their guns over to police. Nationwide, 27 states have passed laws curtailing access to guns by people convicted of domestic violence offenses or subject to protective orders, according to Everytown. Of those, 17 states have laws in place requiring them to relinquish their guns.

[The persistent crime that connects mass shooters and terror suspects: Domestic violence]

Michael Siegel, a professor of community health sciences at the Boston University School of Public Health, published a study this week showing that states that require people with restraining orders to relinquish the firearms they already own have a 14 percent lower rate of intimate-partner gun-related homicides than states that don’t.

“It does make a difference,” Siegel said in an interview. “It’s not enough to just have a law that says if you’re in that category you can’t purchase a gun or are not allowed to carry a gun. You have to have some sort of procedure or mechanism to receive those guns once the person becomes prohibited.”

Siegel said his research shows that there are about 1,800 intimate-partner homicides in the United States each year; about half of those homicides involve guns.

Tofte and others say there is another problem with the federal law, an aspect that experts call the “boyfriend loophole.” It says that to have restricted access to firearms, the offense must have been committed by a current or former spouse, parent or guardian of the victim, or someone with whom the offender shares a child.

The law in Rhode Island was opposed by firearms groups and the National Rifle Association. In a Facebook post, the Rhode Island Firearms Owners’ League wrote the law “is not about taking away guns from violent domestic abusers since the current law already does this. However, the bill will take away guns from non-violent misdemeanor domestic violence offenders without a conviction.”

The NRA opposed the Rhode Island law, writing that it would “remove judicial discretion” and would lead to restraining orders in cases where there is no finding of guilt. The NRA also argued that existing federal and state laws are in place to ensure people convicted of abuse don’t access firearms.

“As we have repeatedly stated, domestic violence is an abhorrent crime, but this bill doesn’t protect domestic violence victims,” the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action wrote on its website. “… Anti-gun groups have co-opted domestic violence organizations simply to notch a victory that they can use as momentum for their larger gun ban agenda.”

The NRA takes stances on individual pieces of legislation, not broad trends, and doesn’t oppose all legislation surrounding domestic violence and firearms. The organization has sponsored legislation it said would protect victims of domestic violence by allowing for expedited concealed-carry permits for victims. Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) signed one into law and Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) vetoed another.

In North Dakota, Gov. Doug Burgum (R) signed a law in March stating that people who have a domestic violence conviction and are prohibited from having firearms must surrender their guns to the sheriff in their home county. If they do not, the law states, they could be arrested and have their firearms confiscated.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) signed a law prohibiting people convicted of domestic violence or subject to a restraining order from possessing firearms; it also requires them to relinquish their guns.

“Survivors of domestic violence will be safer than ever before,” Christie said, according to NJ.com.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/nation...carrying-guns/

I have a better idea, why don't you refuse to issue them a marriage license and if they're already married, revoke it.