Happens all the time with, e.g., allegations of abusive treatment of pets. Animal control authorities can impound your pets if they (the authorities) believe you’re treating them (the pets) cruelly or abusively. Nothing needs to be proved against you for the authorities to be able to remove the pets from your control.
Of course, the removal is only temporary pending investigation and proving or failing to prove a case, and I would expect similar constraints on authority’s powers to apply in the case of gun impoundment too.
In the short term, however, the authorities have a duty to weigh your rights as a property/pet owner against the risk that you genuinely pose a threat of serious harm. I don’t have a problem with that.
Laws permitting gun ownership are rife with abuse too, of course; in many cases, very dangerous and destructive abuse. But those abuses we’re just expected to put up with.
I’m in favor of a vigorous civil liberties program pushing back against abuse of red-flag laws, but given the massive ongoing abuse of gun ownership in this country, ISTM that red-flag laws are currently one of our best bets to alleviate the problem. As Thing.Fish notes, temporarily taking away someone’s guns on the basis of a mistaken allegation, although unjust, is better than temporarily incarcerating someone on the same basis.
And if we really want to do something to control the massive ongoing abuses of gun ownership in the US, we’re going to have to accept the existence of some laws that occasionally result in situations that are temporarily unjust to some innocent gun owners.
Lord knows the gun owners have enthusiastically advocated for laws that all too often result in situations that are unjust to other innocent people. Often permanently so.
I thought you were a police officer? Confiscat[ing] someone[']s property over unsubstantiated claims is a routine aspect of police work in many jurisdictions (I congratulate you if this was not an issue where you served, but it us a very serious issue elsewhere)
Oh hell. I have a friend whose child died suddenly and unexpectedly of some kind of seizure, and child protective services took their other child away until the autopsy cleared them of having harmed the dead child. They were in shock and in grief and their child was dragged off into foster care. It was horrible and unjust. And it was also the right thing for the authorities to do.
So, search warrants are unjustifiable? They’re used to gather evidence which may be used to prove a claim against an accused person. If you have to wait for a conviction, then search warrants can only be used after conviction?
How about we apply a similar level of scrutiny to red flag seizures as police are required to use when they snatch human beings off the street and put them in a cell?
It’s not, but it is only necessary if the item is being appropriated for public use. My understanding that guns taken for red flag laws are not going to be for public use.
Red Flag laws are not for public use. But banning is ‘for the public good’, and therefore for ‘public use’. So if someone legally owns something and the government decides to take it for the good of society, the just compensation must be provided. Buy-back programs are voluntary, and someone may choose to surrender a $1,500 firearm for a $25 gift card; but taking of property unrelated to a crime without just compensation would violate the 5th Amendment.
If certain guns are illegal, possessing them IS related to a crime, just like possessing cocaine. Or should we pay coke dealers fair market value for any coke we seize?
It’s a luxury item that’s not worth the cost of an attorney. In a society where police kill people for a parking violation, I doubt it will get much attention.
It’s sometimes hard to tell what someone’s point is when they just pop up and quote part of an amendment as though that makes their point for them.
I’m still not sure what your point is, nor what it was in reply to, nor whether you think that you actually made a good point at all.
So, tackle the first, red flag laws do not take away guns permanently, so there is no reason that they would need to be compensated for. If it is found that there is good reason to take them away permanently, then maybe. OTOH, Let’s say I rob a bank with a gun. I own a whole bunch of other guns as well. When I get out of jail, do I get those guns back or get compensated for them? They weren’t used in the commission of a crime.
And to tackle the second, who said anything about banning? Was that in response to an actual post in this thread, or was it just a random non-sequitur that you chose to throw in for some reason? In any case, if something were to be banned, it would be nice for the govt to offer a buy-back program, but I don’t see as how it would be constitutionally required. If you possess a banned gun, then you are in illegal possession of it. Possessing it would be a crime, so there would be no need to compensate for it.
I don’t think that your “for the public good” = “for public use” holds up. They don’t mean the same thing, at all.
If something is banned, and it is not for the public good, then what is the reason for banning it?
I did not connect banning and red flag laws. They are separate issues. Red Flag would take guns away (ostensibly) temporarily, for good cause. Banning, which has nothing to do with red flag laws, take property when no crime has been committed.
But it’s an ex post facto crime.
Anyway, I started this thread to discuss the raising of the age to purchase a semi-automatic rifle to 21; not to start Yet Another Gun Control thread. I’m guilty of hijacking my own thread. If anyone wants to talk about banning, I think we should do it in a differenc thread.