Last week the House approved a "red flag" bill that would allow families, police, and others to ask federal courts to order the removal of firearms from people perceived to be at extreme risk of harming themselves or others. The removal would be carried out without the owner having a chance to object. Nineteen states and the District of Columbia currently have such laws in place.
The bill passed on a mostly party-line vote of 224-202. Louisiana Republican Congressman Mike Johnson voted against it and warned that it would allow the courts to take guns away from people "without notice and without even the right to appear in the hearing to defend themselves in court."
Mike Hammond, legislative council to Gun Owners of America, adds that red flag laws can be fatal.
"That's happened in Ferndale, Maryland with Gary Willis, a 62-year-old black man whose aunt and uncle didn't like his politics," Hammond notes. "Unbeknownst to him, and without his ability to have anything to say, the police arrived I think at 5:17 in the morning. After a brief encounter, the police shot him to death."
The Second Amendment advocate asserts this is against the American way.
"It's very similar to what the Nazis did after Kristallnacht," Hammond references. "Without any hearing that you participate in, just because of the snitch who doesn't like you, basically a police SWAT team raids your house in the middle of the night and starts confiscating your property with no due process whatsoever."
But Hammond believes the bill has little chance of getting the 61 votes necessary to overcome a Senate filibuster.
