Osceola County, Florida — By now, everybody in the country knows what a Red Flag or Emergency Risk Protection Order is.
A Red Flag order allows for a citizen’s guns to be confiscated by the police and held for varying amounts of time if somebody in their life thinks they might be a threat to themselves or others.
Some versions of this law leave the definition of who can request a Red Flag order so broad that any ex-roommate who didn’t like that you listened to country music can file one.
Once they’re filed, an “ex-parte” hearing is called . . . that means you aren’t there to defend yourself in court. After all, you haven’t been legally charged with or even accused of a crime, so you don’t get the right to defend yourself!
Once your guns have been confiscated and you weren’t able to defend yourself against the shadow accusations from an unnamed accuser, it’s unclear exactly how you’ll get our guns back.
In some states, a Red Flag order takes your guns away for over a year.
Due process is so old fashioned!
This is 2019!
But enough about the incredible abuse opportunities that Red Flags represent.
News came out of Florida this week of a man, Jonathan Carpenter, who got a letter in the mail from the Florida Dept Of Agriculture and Consumer Services informing him that his concealed carry permit had been suspended.
Why? For “acts of domestic violence or acts of repeat violations.”
Jonathan headed to his sheriff’s department, filled out form after form, and eventually discovered that the State has messed up.
His name matched another man’s and that man was being Red Flagged.
The other guy’s former landlady was upset at him and considered him a threat.
Never mind that the bad Jonathan’s physical description was radically different from the Red Flagged Johnathan.
Or that the good Jonathan had never lived at the rental property or ever heard of the landlady in his life.
But since there were no charges and no trial and no evidence and no due process and the injunction had been issued, Jonathan Carpenter had to hand over his weapons.
That’s right.
At this very moment, an innocent man whose local sheriff knows is not the intended target of the landlady’s complaint has been forced to turn in all his weapons.
When will he get them back?
Only once the landlady has testified *in court* that this Johnathan Carpenter isn’t the one she meant to Red Flag.
But this nightmare won’t be over yet! Once she does that, then Johnathan still has to petition the court to have his guns returned.
Is your blood boiling yet?
Jonathan Carpenter won’t get his guns back until at least next month and will have to pay the court costs for these hearings.
This is an outrage!
This is exactly what gun owners have said would happen, and it’s happened already, when Red Flag laws are just being implemented.
This man essentially must pay to prove his own innocence, in a country where the legal system is supposed to protect him from this sort of tyranny!
What happens if he or his family face a threat in the coming weeks?
Can his family sue the State of Florida for disarming him unjustly if any harm comes to them between now and then?
The gun grabbers are dancing for joy while our rights are flushed down the toilet.
Send this story to your representatives, both Republican and Democrat.
Ask them if this is the America they want to leave for their Grandchildren.
Because it sure as hell isn’t the America we received from our ancestors, and we’ll be damned if we let these gutless politicians sell our rights away in our lifetime.