U.S. Taxpayers Funding "Red Flag" Gun Confiscation Orders
By NRA-ILA. Mar 21, 2023
Texans are paying for so-called "Red Flag” gun confiscation orders in New York. North Carolinians are bankrolling Extreme Risk Protective Orders (ERPOs) in New Jersey. Louisianans are footing the bill for gun confiscation orders in Maryland.
Thanks to the 2022 federal gun control omnibus bill, titled the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA), taxpayers in pro-gun jurisdictions are now financing anti-gun jurisdictions' efforts to strip Second Amendment rights without due process.
The BSCA, in part, provided grant funding through the Department of Justice's Byrne State Crisis Intervention Program (SCIP) for states to implement their ERPO laws – also known as "Red Flag” or gun confiscation orders. Currently, nineteen states and Washington, D.C., have red flag laws on their books – while a host of pro-gun states, citing due process concerns, have outright rejected the concept entirely.
Firearm owners oppose ERPOs because they provide a mechanism to strip law-abiding Americans of their Second Amendment rights in a civil procedure without adequate due process of law. These laws typically permit the government to seize a person's firearms and extinguish their Second Amendment rights ex parte meaning the confiscation order is issued without prior notice and a hearing for the person to rebut the allegations against them. The first time a person finds out that they are the subject of such an order may be when law enforcement shows up at their front door to confiscate their firearms. And even if the person later has an opportunity to tell his or her side of the story at a hearing, the damage to the person's rights and reputation is done the moment the guns are removed. .....