Is Governor Bill Lee waving a Red Flag or a White Flag on Gun-Control?
Republican Governor Bill Lee of Tennessee asked for a Red Flag law. I’m not sure if the governor is working for the voters or surrendering to the press. There is no solid definition of what a Red Flag law really means and the Governor’s proposal seems to have shifted over time. In general, Red Flag laws allow the government to confiscate someone’s guns. Beyond that, the details vary. In this case it looks like the Governor is working harder to please the press than to make us safer.
The issue of red flag laws in Tennessee was driven into the spotlight when another murderer with mental health issues attacked the public. In this case, it was a woman who now dressed like a man who attacked a privately run Christian school in Nashville. Police responded quickly to shoot the murderer. The Covenant school was a gun free zone so there were no armed defenders at the scene when the attack started. The 28 year old murderer killed three 9-year-old children and three adults before police officers stopped her.
Our children’s safety at school is a concern to almost everyone. It is certainly a concern of a Governor who needs a soundbite answer to questions from the press. The concern that I have is that most of the public safety laws passed in haste are actually ineffective and harmful. A firearm purchase waiting period sounds good. It lets the governor say he “did something to protect the children”. Mandatory waiting periods simply don’t stop mass murderers, though waiting periods often leave a domestic abuse victim disarmed.
Mass murderers are obsessed, but mass-murders are not acts of emotional impulse. Mass-murderers usually plan their attacks in detail over several years. The murderer in Nashville wrote a lengthy manifesto. She bought seven firearms over time. Passing a waiting period bill lets the governor say he did something and the press would never question if waiting periods actually protect our children.
The murderer’s parents were worried about her mental health. They did not want the murderer to have firearms because they thought she was a danger to herself or to others. I can not find records that show the murderer’s parents, or anyone else, asked for the murderer to be confined for a mental health evaluation. That confinement usually requires the agreement of a mental health expert, and often requires a concurring opinion. This murderer exhibited violent and suicidal ideation. It is an open question if doctors would have, or could have, forced the murderer into treatment or confinement.
It is an easy political solution to “arrest the guns” so that the voters feel like politicians have addressed the issue of public violence. Red Flag laws were originally procedures in civil court where someone goes before a judge and claims that a gun owner is a threat. The list of who can ask for a Red Flag law has expanded over time. The hearing is usually conducted without the gun owner being present or even informed of the legal proceeding. The standard of evidence is low, and it is trivially easy to meet the preponderance of evidence when the judge only hears one side of the case. A judge is then asked issue an order confiscating the guns. Since this is a civil proceeding and the gun owner hasn’t committed a crime, the usual requirement that the defendant have competent legal counsel doesn’t apply. The gun owner has to pay for their own legal bills or forfeit their firearms.
As you can imagine, these confiscation laws are often abused in cases of divorce, custody battles, and revenge lawfare. Governor Lee says his law will be different. That may be true or it may not. Perhaps the gun-confiscation law will require due process and proper legal representation. The problem I have is that mass-murder isn’t a gun problem. Arresting a crazy person’s guns still leaves the crazy person on the street. A mass murderer recently killed eight people at a bus stop by driving over the victims with his car. A few years ago, a terrorist in New York murdered eight people on a bike path when he ran them down with a rented truck. The worst attack on a school in US history wasn’t with firearms. Disarming honest gun owners does more harm than good, and I want us to do more than pass a soundbite solution.
California is proud of its extreme gun-control laws. California passed red flag laws years go. California has mandatory waiting periods and requires that people be over 21 years of age to purchase some firearms. California also led the nation in mass-shootings, but the mainstream press will never mention that.
The good news is that mass-murderers already showed us how to protect our children. The murderer’s journals and manifestos told us what to do. These murderers feel like failures. They are determined to kill and gain infamy. They almost always attack gun-free zones so they will only face disarmed victims. When the murderers make a mistake and an armed citizen is present, the armed citizen stops the mass murderer over half the time.
The good news is that we’ve never had a mass murderer attack a school that has a publicly announced program of armed school staff. That is true in general, and in this case in particular. The Nashville police chief said that the murderer avoided other targets and chose the Covenant School because it was undefended.
I hope Governor Lee and the Tennessee legislature will do what is best for us and our children. A bill to allow volunteer school staff to go armed is sitting in the Tennessee legislature. That real solution isn’t what the press wants to hear.
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Sources-
- “https://www.dailywire.com/news/gov-bill-lee-calls-on-legislature-to-pass-red-flag-law-signs-exec-order-intensifying-gun-background-checks
- “https://www.dailywire.com/news/poll-most-tennesseans-want-authorities-focusing-on-dangerous-people-not-guns-as-governor-pushes-order-of-protection-law
- “https://tn.chalkbeat.org/2023/3/27/23658910/the-covenant-school-school-shootings-assault-weapons-metropolitan-nashville-police-department
- “https://tn.chalkbeat.org/2023/4/5/23671904/tennessee-arming-teachers-guns-school-shooting-nashville-covenant-legislature
- “https://crimeresearch.org/2023/03/nashville-covenant-school-shooting-was-in-yet-another-gun-free-zone/
- “https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/28/us/audrey-hale-nashville-school-shooting/index.html
- “https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/seven-waiting-bus-stop-texas-bordertown-killed-struck-vehicle-rcna83263
- “https://intellectualtakeout.org/2018/03/the-bath-school-massacre-the-worst-school-attack-in-u-s-history/
- “https://www.statista.com/statistics/811541/mass-shootings-in-the-us-by-state/
SlowFacts 
“to be confined for a mental health evaluation. That confinement usually requires the agreement of a mental health expert, and often requires a concurring opinion. This murderer exhibited violent and suicidal ideation. It is an open question if doctors would have, or could have, forced the murderer into treatment or confinement.”
We have a big problem with this in Pennsylvania. Not with it not being done, but with it being abused by the state. The Pennsylvania State Police (PSP) treat many inpatient mental health evaluations as prohibiting when they should not be.
Prior to 2014 anti gun groups would trot out the number of background check denials when the data came out each year and say “Look at all of these bad people who were stopped from getting a gun by background checks!” Of course we know that most of those denials are mistakes. Someone has the same name as someone else or there was some other error or issue. So the pro gun response would be “If all of these people were really prohibited persons, where are the prosecutions?” This went on for years and years.
In 2014 the PSP decided to give us exactly what we asked for. They began prosecuting all background check denials which were not successfully appealed. What we have seen is a whole lot of people who were taken in for a mental health evaluation in their youth or young adulthood, often voluntarily which is specifically not supposed to be prohibiting, and are subsequently in the PSP database as prohibited. We also see a lot of DUI and minor drug possessions from teens and young adults.
In almost every instance these people got themselves together and went on to bee good productive law abiding decent people. But then if they decide to buy a gun at some point in the distance future they are eaten by the system.
The usual process is underhanded as well. A person gets denied on their background check, and doesn’t file an appeal. Officer Friendly from the PSP calls them and asks them to come down to the barracks to sort it all out. Sort if out means you will be arrested, booked, fingerprinted, have your picture taken with little numbers, and then be released on your own recognizance with a court date.
At the court date Prosecutor or DA Nicelady will come to you before your hearing and promise to make it all go away if you just sign these papers. These papers are a guilty plea to a federal felony, and if your attempted purchase was a handgun there will be a state felony as well. She will not explicitly tell you that.
If you sign then you will really, for sure and forever be prohibited from owning or even touching a firearm or ammunition.
If you don’t sign then you have a fight on your hands that is going to cost you upwards of $10,000 and a bunch of your time. And you very well might lose.
I have talked to people who were taken in for an eval by their parents 30 or more years ago. The hospital they were taken to doesn’t even exist. It burned down, or was closed, or was acquired by other hospitals or health systems, sometimes several time. The records of their cases no longer exist and they can’t prove their innocence. But wait, you say, doesn’t the state have t rove their guilt? The states and courts view here is that they must have been guilty to be added to the PSP database. You have to prove that PSP was wrong.
I have talked to people who went in voluntarily but on the intake form the doctor checked the “involuntary” box.
Drug and gun laws have changed over the decades too. Noted PA gun lawyer Phil Kline has stated that if you have a DUI or miner drug offense he has to have the exact date and disposition of your case and consult 5 law books to figure out if you are prohibited. If a lawyer specializing in gun law has to do that, how accurate do you think PSP is about it?
And yet New York’s Red Flag law was not applied against the Publix grocery store shooter. The Virginia Tech shooter was under psychiatric care and was not put tin the system. the Southerland Springs Church shooter had mental issues, a domestic violence conviction, and a dishonorable discharge and was not put in the NICS system. The Parkland school shooter had many encounters with both mental health providers and law enforcement and was not in the NICS system.
Red Flag Laws, and enforcing the laws we have (another common trope I hear from our side) only stop people who do not need to be stopped and never stop the people who do.
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