Now comes word that the White House earmarked three-quarters of a billion dollars to fund “training and technical assistance” to those “responsible for implementing laws designed to keep guns out of the hands of people who pose a threat to themselves or others.”
The proposal, of course, is couched in language that makes it appear to be a benign effort to protect the vulnerable. But as gun rights opponents continually demonstrate, there is a wide gap between rhetoric and reality.
There is very little due process afforded individuals targeted by these so-called “red flag” programs, and their legal recourse is quite limited. This means that those falsely accused are stripped of their constitutional rights without the protections afforded to all law-abiding citizens.
Now the administration will create the National Extreme Risk Protection Order (ERPO) Resource Center.
Its stated purpose will be to assist law enforcement, prosecutors, judges, community organizations, behavioral health professionals and a wide variety of others. In practice, it will almost certainly be charged with narrowing gun rights and eliminating due process.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) couched the new agency in terms that would be more appealing, but civil libertarians are not fooled. The DOJ wrote, “ERPO laws, which are modeled off domestic violence protection orders, create a civil process allowing law enforcement, family members (in most states), and medical professionals or other groups (in some states) to petition a court to temporarily prohibit someone at risk of harming themselves or others from purchasing and possessing firearms for the duration of the order.”
The announcement was given Saturday by Vice President Kamala Harris (D) in a controversial visit to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida. This was the site of the 2018 tragedy in which an individual used a legally purchased firearm to murder 17 people.
Along with revealing the ERPO initiative, Harris also encouraged state legislatures to enact new red flag laws.
Accompanying Harris’ Florida excursion was a statement by Attorney General Merrick Garland.
“The launch of the National Extreme Risk Protection Order Resource Center will provide our partners across the country with valuable resources to keep firearms out of the hands of individuals who pose a threat to themselves or others. The establishment of the center is the latest example of the Justice Department’s work to use every tool provided by the landmark Bipartisan Safer Communities Act to protect communities from gun violence.”
To be clear, it is important to keep weapons out of the hands of those who are at a high risk to render harm to themselves or others. But this is a mission that is fraught with opportunities to be misused, and safeguards must be in place.
For example, the targeted individual must be afforded ample opportunity to defend themselves with legal representation. Constitutionally mandated due process must not be thrown aside on the grounds of a single accusation.
And there must be ample opportunity for the person to secure their personal property once again when the situation passes.
Opponents of the effort quickly blasted the move as yet another encroachment of Second Amendment rights. It is well documented that the DOJ in its current form has little regard for the sanctity of gun ownership and will go well out of its way to suppress this freedom.
If political leaders are chagrined at the immediate backlash to their proposal, they only have themselves to blame.
After all, it is their recent track record that their opponents rely on to determine that they are not to be trusted to keep their word.
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