Tallahassee, Florida — In a recent article published in Florida, details emerged about exactly how many gun owners have been disarmed by the passing of Red Flag laws in March of 2018.
The article is full of extreme examples of mentally ill people, designed to make the reader think that all Red Flag gun confiscations are obviously necessary.
Of course, no other alternative to Red Flags is offered as a possible solution.
No mention is made of the fact that most of these cases could be handled by the Baker Act, which would allow a dangerous person to be evaluated for mental competency and institutionalized against their will if a family member or police offer thought they were a threat to themselves.
No mention is made that Red Flag laws don’t allow the accused to face their accuser or defend themselves against the accusation.
No mention that police in Florida ignored 39 phone calls that Nicholas Cruz seemed to be a threat—and could have been Baker Acted—before he shot up the high school in Parkland, Florida in early 2018.
It’s clear that this propaganda piece marches in lock step with the leftist gun control agenda.
But between the lies, er, lines, there is some shocking data that gun owners will want to hear.
They’ve Likely Taken Nearly 20,000 Guns
Since March of 2018, more than 2,654 people have been disarmed by law enforcement in the state of Florida, alone.
Data indicated that the guns total in the multiple thousands.
There is no statewide database of how many guns have been collected.
There are some numbers, though, and it’s not a small number.
In Connecticut, for example, the average Red Flag gun confiscation order produces seven guns. If you run those averages—granted they’re from Connecticut—and apply them to the number of those red flagged in Florida, it’s a staggering sum.
If the numbers were comparable, it would be 18,578 guns.
Comments from police in Florida would seem to indicate that the average could be that high.
“It’s either one [gun] or a ton,” says Mike Schmid, attorney for the Tampa Police Department. One gun owner Red Flagged in Pinellas lost 57. A man in Hillsborough had 85 taken. In Pinellas county alone, police confiscated 791 guns and nearly 150,000 rounds of ammo.
What Happened To ‘Rare?’
This destroys the leftists refrain that Red Flags will be rare, and only used for the most extreme cases of mental illness.
And it only makes sense that police and judges would overreact and err on the side of disarming citizens.
After all of the media surrounding a mass shooting, nobody wants to be the person who didn’t approve a Red Flag order that could have stopped a shooter.
So no matter how flimsy the evidence, and despite the lack of due process, Red Flag gun confiscation is growing by the day.
So now in Florida, judges have decided that there are thousands of people who are so dangerous that they might hurt other people and our solution is to take their guns away.
Not their cars, steak knives, baseball bats, or any other object you can hurt people with.
The court doesn’t follow up to be sure they don’t have access to guns via family or friends or by stealing them from a neighbor. They don’t confiscate their swords so they don’t kill their mothers.
Nope, the guns themselves were the problem, and now that the government has them, it’s all a-okay.
Red Flags will be rare.
Only for extreme cases. It’s for safety and their own well-being. There will be a standard of proof required.
All lies from the left to push gun confiscation.