I hope there was a very good reason.....

[Waldo]

I agree that you should not resist a cop. But once they take your guns, getting them back is neither simple or cheap. From what I am reading the man only had one gun. Suppose he was like many on this forum and had several. They might need a truck to take all of them. I had a co-worker that had his guns confiscated in Maryland. It was totally unjustified and it took him several years and thousands of dollars to get them back. He told me how the police handcuffed him and made him watch while they searched his house and threw all of his guns on the sidewalk in front of his house. Laughing at him the whole time. He said they were all damaged and rusted when he got them back. I do not remember all of the details but I know it started when his father got sick and he called an ambulance. One of the fireman saw a box on his porch. It was an old army surplus grenade box. It was missing the lid and his father had been using it for storage. He was sitting in the hospital with his father when the police came for him. He is dead now, but his view of the police was never the same. Just something to think about when your neighbor sends the police to your door and you watch them throw your registered magnum out the window. That is one reason why I moved out of Maryland.

 

[susieqz]

eventually, confiscation will be tried in many places.
i'm real sorry now that i open carry.

 

[Nevada Ed]

A year or so back, in Reno Nev., there was a call placed to thePD
that a man was causing a disturbance.

When they got to the scene, a man in camo was standing on the sidewalk
with a shotgun in his hands with folks and small children all around.

I have no idea what the call was about or what he did, but I remember
the tv news stating that the officers asked him to put down the shotgun and he refused.
He was hit by 19 bullets.

Not all people can think straight or act normal, 100% of the time.
Red Flags mean that a yellow one is not good enough............

 

[DWalt]

Note that the "Red Flag" laws can hold many pitfalls for an otherwise innocent gun owner. They basically suspend one's constitutional rights without due process.

 

[wingriderz]

The guy should not have come to door in this case with a gun. He should have hide them and say .Guns what Guns. Sad but may have still been breathing

 

[DWalt]

Not knowing the exact circumstances in the Maryland case, I can't say who was more to blame for the shooting.

 

[TTSH]

Note that the "Red Flag" laws can hold many pitfalls for an otherwise innocent gun owner. They basically suspend one's constitutional rights without due process.

"The details behind the issuance of a confiscation order against Willis have not been reported. All that is known is that a niece said one of her aunts requested the order."

Pretty scary stuff. I wonder if the "details" will ever be released.

"Maryland’s red flag law took effect October 1 and law enforcement predicts over 1,300 confiscation orders will be issued by the end of the year."

That's an awful lot of confiscation orders.

 

[ladder13]

LE has been put in an awful situation by those who passed these flawed laws.

 

[Golddollar]

Note that the "Red Flag" laws can hold many pitfalls for an otherwise innocent gun owner. They basically suspend one's constitutional rights without due process.

Including due process! The whole upshot of these laws is that the person who is the object of the proceeding doesn't even know it is going on until the cops show up at his door demanding his valuable property that he supposedly has the right to possess as guaranteed by the Bill of Rights.

 

[Cardboard_killer]

"All that is known is that a niece said one of her aunts requested the order."

Wouldn't that mean one of his sisters?

 

[Cardboard_killer]

Including due process!

That's a question for the courts to decide. Has there been any success in challenging them in court?

Courts are where we get due process defined.

 

[brjr51]

Make no mistake about what and where these “red flag” laws are about or where they’re headed. And it ain’t good.

That’s all I have to say about that.

 

[TTSH]

Wouldn't that mean one of his sisters?

Or a sister-in-law.

 

[Golddollar]

What happens if the police show up at the door of the subject of the confiscation proceeding, and he says, "Gentlemen, I never heard anything about this. Call my lawyer at 555-555-5555, and have a good day", and then proceeds to close the door?

 

[DWalt]

In the light of the recent CA club mass shooting, there is a flurry of activity going on now to promote passage very strong national "Red Flag" laws, and the NRA is taking the heat for not going along, and also opposing bans of large capacity magazines. I am not in principle opposed to some form of a "Red Flag" law, but it would have to require far more than someone's unsubstantiated opinion of sanity before the SWAT teams can show up on anyone's doorstep to confiscate his guns. And apparently that is what happened in MD. I see these "Red Flag" laws as potentially becoming the greatest and most dangerous threat to gun ownership. Let's say you and your next-door neighbor aren't getting along for some reason, and assume he knows or suspects you own a gun. All he has to do to get his revenge is pick up the phone and call the cops to make big trouble for you. And that's exactly the kind of action that the "Red Flag" laws will promote without some much stronger safeguards than the "guilt without proof" standards which appear to exist in MD.

 

[Watchdog]

Not gonna get into the "was this necessary" discussion...

Good idea. The whole subject of ERPOs is being beaten to death, anyway. It's not gonna do any good trying to second guess the courts or the cops.

 

[Absalom]

I guess some folks won’t be stopped from worrying about worst-case confiscation scenarios.

But this simplistic scenario about a neighbor or someone who doesn’t like you reporting you to the police and getting your guns confiscated without due process is about as realistic as those fears of people who don‘t post their full serial numbers because they think someone will call the police with that serial and report the gun stolen, and the cops will come running and confiscate their gun.

The authorized petitioners, who vary by state but are limited to family and certain people with direct contact like for example doctors, have to convince a judge and provide specific evidence for the order to be granted, and there are pretty stiff perjury penalties for the petitioners if it turns out they swore to false information.

Does that guarantee these orders can‘t be abused in certain cases? No, but any suspicions of a wider gun confiscation scheme seem overblown. If it happens, fight it in court. Nobody who resists by violence is any kind of 2A hero.

 

[Golddollar]

Let's consider how this process would work in a perfect world. No aspersions are being cast on the impartiality, competence, honesty, political views and/or diligence of the parties involved:

The District Attorney of the county receives a complaint that Joe Q. Gunowner, who has a small but high quality gun collection, is acting strangely and the complainant feels Joe Q. Gunowner is a danger to the community. The District Attorney promptly does his due diligence and determines that the complainant is squarely within the limited universe of persons entitled under the "Red Flag" statute to make such a complaint.

The District Attorney dutifully requests a hearing about Joe Q. Gunowner in the county court of record. Present in the courtroom are the judge, the District Attorney and the complainant, together with the court clerk, bailiff and court reporter. The District Attorney puts the complainant on the stand, the court clerk swears the complainant in, and the District Attorney proceeds to question the complainant, who states under oath that Joe Q. Gunowner is a scary person and a gunowner, therefore a danger to the community. As a courtesy to the judge, the District Attorney already has an order drafted for the judge to sign, declaring that Joe Q. Gunowner is a danger to the community and ordering all of his guns to be confiscated by the police.

Now through this whole proceeding, we have present in the courtroom the District Attorney and the judge, both employees of the state. Who is there to represent Joe Q. Gunowner? A) The Public Defender's Office - No, because there is no allegation that a crime has even been committed; B) Legal Services Corporation - No, because anybody who could afford a nice quality gun collection would have too much in assets to qualify for assistance by the Legal Services Corporation; C) a sharp, local private attorney - No, because until the police show up at his door to confiscate his guns, Joe Q. Gunowner doesn't have a clue that he has been the object of the court proceeding just described, which also apply with A & B, and needs to have a lawyer to represent his interests.

I reiterate, this is a perfect world scenario.

 

[DWalt]

There is an old maxim which sort of goes like this - "Just because you are paranoid doesn't mean that somebody is not out to get you." And that is true in spades when it comes to any gun-related regulation.

 

[rwsmith]

I posted recently.....

If the original post represented the Maryland statute at all fairly, which is unlikely, then there is little similarity to the failed Utah statute!

As filed the Utah bill contained numerous safeguards favoring the citizen. An allegation by anyone not directly connected to the individual could not prevail in having that persons guns seized. It really appeared to be very logical and well thought out legislation!

Your first point is exactly correct! In the vast majority of cases if an individual confronted by police would simply COMPLY! You might not like it, but if the officer is wrong you do have recourse, as long as you cooperated! And any case where a citizen has ended up dead, the vast majority have taken actions themselves which caused this outcome!

One reason this grabbed my attention was that about 2 weeks ago I started a thread about the Utah proposal, also and thought myself that it was one of the most well thought-out proposals that I heard. But it does step on the 2A and I can see somebody making a case to 'red flag' somebody just to draw attention in the ensuing stink. I wonder if the ACLU would defend my rights?