We Need To Fight Red Flag Laws Head On, Not Hide
BY Herschel Smith
5 years, 5 months ago
Philip Van Cleave, writing at Ammoland.
AmmoLand News’ pundit John Farnam recently wrote a thought-provoking article on how gun owners should behave in states that have adopted “Red Flag” laws, where your guns can be confiscated for an arbitrary amount of time-based on someone else’s word that you are a danger to yourself or others.
Under Red Flag laws your “due process” won’t come for weeks or months after they have already confiscated all your firearms, with no actual crime having been committed. And how does one even PROVE that they are not dangerous? And if a person is truly dangerous, why don’t the Red Flag laws make any attempt to have the “dangerous” person taken into custody or to get them help?
Red Flag laws violate the the following Amendments to the Constitution:
- 2nd (right to keep and bear arms)
- 4th (protection against unreasonable search and seizures)
- 5th (right to due process, just compensation, self-incrimination)
- and 6th (right to confront accusers, cross-examine witnesses, have a public defender).
John and I are looking at this situation from two different angles. John’s advice is meant to keep gun owners from being victims of Red Flag laws by having them stay under the radar. That is a laudable goal meant to save as many gun owners as possible from falling in the unconstitutional Red Flag web. John suggests hiding your gun ownership to as high a degree as possible. Only people with a need to know should know.
[ … ]
Red Fag laws are not about saving lives. They are about gun confiscation, plain and simple. While keeping a low profile will reduce your chances of becoming a victim, you will still never know if that 4 am knock on the door is coming anyhow.
I think we have to go in the other direction. We need to go on the offensive. We need to remind our fellow Americans, and politicians, that there are over 80 million of us and we are NOT going to go quietly into the night. In fact, we are not going to go anywhere
Well, this is an interesting commentary and worth discussing in my opinion.
For me that horse left the barn years ago. I chose not to blog anonymously, so I’m not “gray man.” I haven’t told anyone exactly what I have or where, or whether I even have any firearms, but my opinion is plain and simple for everyone to read. Google and PageRank are powerful.
So apparently Farnham argues essentially for being gray man. The first rule of gun club is that you never talk about gun club. The second rule is when in doubt, refer to the first rule.
Van Cleave is arguing for the opposite. Where do my readers stand?
On May 15, 2019 at 11:00 pm, DAN III said:
Mr. Smith,
I have been a student of Mr. Farnam. He is an excellent trainer. One of few is any who runs a “hot” range. His many published “Quips” I am a fan of. However, in this Red Flag mark of domestic communism, I am in total agreement with you Mr. Smith.
On May 15, 2019 at 11:01 pm, DAN III said:
Mr. Smith,
I have been a student of Mr. Farnam. He is an excellent trainer. One of few, if any trainers, who runs a “hot” range. His many published “Quips” I am a fan of. However, in this Red Flag mark of domestic communism, I am in total agreement with you Mr. Smith.
On May 16, 2019 at 3:58 am, Nemo said:
I know both individuals. My strong preference in this case is for Phil.
On May 16, 2019 at 6:10 am, Bill said:
With respect to Mr. Farnum, who in many other respects is greater than I, in this I disagree with him. His objective is to preserve individuals. Mine is to preserve the Constitution.
Many Amendments and clauses of the Constitution are dead letters, and they got that way starting with one small exception -in practice- setting a precedent. From there, the lawyerly camel shoved his nose (followed by the rest of him) into the tent.
When I was a young troop in uniform there were discussions about what exactly constituted an “illegal order”. Opinions were legion, but the one example nearly everyone agreed upon was an order to disarm the public. It was implicitly understood that was the beginning of a decent into extra-constitutional tyranny, and dead against our oath.
If red flag laws, and the confiscation that comes from them (this monkey court excuse for legal constitutionality) are to be winked at, and suffered quietly while “waiting for the process to work”, then we already live in a Police State.
The Rule of Law is vital to Civilization. But the trappings of the Rule of Law have been used before now to clothe Police States. This exercise of raw power on the part of the State -without any Constitutional authority- is just such a deception. Acquiescence to it will lead to greater depredations, and the final death of the Constitutional Republic we swear to uphold.
I have friends, brothers-in-arms, who are LEOs, and I have a family. I have absolutely no wish to fight the one, or to leave the other bereft. However, having donned the nations uniform, I have before now faced the reality that there are things MORE IMPORTANT than my own near & dear, even more important than my own survival.
In accordance with the principals I was taught, and that I have lived by, this issue; red flag confiscation at the government’s whim, is a hill worth dying on. Those that willingly enforce it have willfully made themselves enemies of the Constitution. MY choice is made: I will not abide while my country is destroyed from within. Though they suffer for it, my loved ones will see a man stand for what is right.
This I’ll Defend.
On May 16, 2019 at 6:51 am, Matt said:
I see no reason to hide. There is nothing, I repeat nothing, wrong with owning and carrying guns. One of the leftists tactics is cultural in that they want to demonize the practice and turn the masses against those that do. Hiding only gives them more power.
As far as “red flag laws” they need to be fought. On all fronts if necessary. Unfortunately, I fear that the only thing that will stop them is enough loss on the side of govt. when people refuse to comply.
On May 16, 2019 at 8:59 am, George said:
The powers that be are field testing their plans to disarm the public. So far they are not seeing any real opposition. They use 4th gen warfare tactics to demonize gun owners like Matt said. They already have as many as half the states on board or sympathetic to their cause.
All that is required is a scaling up of the propaganda machine while expanding the definitions of people who are “dangerous”. Eventually the dangerous people list will include anyone the PTB want to include, reading this blog for example.
So the plan is in place and will be expanded exponentially at the whim of the state. The gray man plan may work for some for awhile. It will become harder and harder as time goes on, as the list of the “dangerous” grows. In the end we will all have a decision to make.
On May 16, 2019 at 9:08 am, Bob said:
Gun culture is necessary to keep gun control away. If we all are secretive about our guns, then what kind of gun culture can we have? Hiding our guns from almost everyone is as good as burying them to avoid confiscation.
On May 16, 2019 at 11:07 am, billrla said:
It is your thoughts that the proponents of red-flag laws want to control, not your guns.
While “going gray” sounds appealing on the level of the individual, it is a recipe for disaster at the level of the group.
On May 16, 2019 at 11:24 am, Towser said:
As a naturally private person, I do not, as a rule, advertise my gun ownership nor my support for my rights as guaranteed by the constitution. That said, I’m not going to hide either, as if this would do any good.
Those who have usurped their so-called authority from we, the people, will continue to chip away at any freedoms we enjoy. The red flag laws are their most overt attempt yet to remove our ability to protect ourselves by attrition. As their basic premise is to remove weapons from those too dangerous to posses them, they are invoking a self-fulling prophecy because eventually they will stumble upon those willing to resist their efforts by force.
There are those who are already tracking our every move. We cannot really hide from them without exceptional measures and then there is no guarantee. At best we can either rise up in refusal in substantial numbers, forcing them to back down for the time being or we can continue to sit, patiently waiting for our doors to burst open.
On May 16, 2019 at 8:49 pm, Fred said:
Sir,
This is what I sent to the Judiciary Committee of the TN Senate when they were considering a REPUBLICAN written and sponsored Red Law. I used my real name, complete address, daily use email, the same one I use to post here. This is a brief extract:
“Are you going to have Police train up, gear up, and gun up to go against their neighbors, breaking down doors Fallujah style, to confiscate weapons from people who have committed no crime? Respectfully Senators, have you lost your cotton pickin’ minds? ”
I’ve met my Fed Reps Blackburn and Burchett face to face and asked about guns, Burchett specifically about Red Flag laws. I had met my prior Fed Senator and communicated using my real name and full address with my prior fed congressman. I’ve met my state reps, my sheriff, and several other state and local reps, some who are and some of whom aren’t mine. And when I meet the Mayor, and I will, I plan to ask him very pointedly if he will send his police to break down doors in support of State or Fed Red Flag laws.
And one more time just for the record; Washington DC needs to be burned to the ground and everybody there hanged from the neck until dead.
Fred Tippens.
On May 16, 2019 at 9:08 pm, Gryphon said:
It Always comes back to Math – How Many of them versus How Many of Us. These ‘laws’ are Designed and Intended for Selective Enforcement against those higher on the list of “Enemies of the State”. It is effectively Impossible to “Ban Guns” with any chance of Mass enforcement; however, as is currently Happening, INDIVIDUALS are Arrested (or Murdered) for ill-defined ‘gun crimes’. Consider This – the presence of Omnisurveillance throughout all facets of ‘government’ makes it relatively Easy to first Identify Gun Owners, and then tie Gun Ownership to Political Activities (like running this Blog) and perform a “Risk Analysis” to Decide where the (very) Limited Resources of the Stormtrooper Brigades (that’s Waffen-SS) in german) can be applied for the greatest Effect on the behavior of the Majority of “Law Abiding Citizens”.
Consider this, Herschel, as an Anti-Totalitarian Blogger, IF YOUR DOOR was Kicked In in the next 15 Minutes or so, HOW MANY of your Neighbors will take the Jackbooted Thugs under Fire from their Rear?
Yes, You are likely going to send one or more of them to Hel before You are Killed, but psychologically, the Enemy is somewhat prepared for this; it will take some Dozens, or Hundreds, of ‘Raids’ where thugpigs are Lost, before the bureaucracy (and the JBT’s) realize the Math is Against them.
In Contrast, were the JBT’s to come under Fire from their rear or Flank, how would their TTP’s deal with That? What sort of “Optics” does Armed Resistance create for the (((media))) that has to ‘spin’ the event for the sheeple?
On May 16, 2019 at 9:24 pm, Sunny said:
Gryphon is exactly right.
If you have good neighbors who think like you do, that would surely send a message to the JBT’s.
But you and I know that they will stand there and wonder what the crazy guy next door has done that the cops would come and shoot him down in his house. “if you would have just complied”.
I think it pays to know your neighbors better than just to say hello to.
sunny
On May 17, 2019 at 7:28 am, John Taylor said:
If you think you are “gray man”, I have some bad news for you. That ship sailed decades ago, and is a virtual impossibility in today’s surveillance era.
My father (R.I.P.) would say to first be a man doing God’s work, while at the same time be circumspect about it — no need to chest-thump necessarily, just be the “quiet man”. I treasure his wisdom and try to heed his advice.
On May 17, 2019 at 11:10 pm, =TW= said:
I reckon we’re all on somebody’s list by now. But it couldn’t hurt to maintain a low a profile- risk management, you know.
“Survival of the species is everybody’s business.”
On May 18, 2019 at 2:41 am, Antifederalist said:
I wouldn’t go around advertising the state of your arsenal, if any, any more than to say that you have a reasonable number of guns and a reasonable amount of ammunition. The government has been observing and upholding whatever parts of the Bill of Rights that it finds convenient to do so, which, as time goes on, is less and less. I suppose their general attitude is “Who’s going to enforce these limitations? When are they going to do so?” and as long as they can get away with it, they’ll do so.
“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.” http://www.blackpast.org/?q=1857-frederick-douglass-if-there-no-struggle-there-no-progress
On May 18, 2019 at 5:30 am, Dan said:
Yes…we need to fight ‘red flag laws’ for being the blatant assault on an enumerated right that they are. The problem is simple….though not easy
to achieve. We have to SUE to have them overturned……a VERY unlikely outcome as courts RARELY have taken a kind and supportive view of the Second Amendment. OR….we have to elect politicians who will REPEAL the existing laws and NOT pass new ones. Not exactly an easy chore either.
On May 18, 2019 at 7:41 pm, Gryphon said:
Dan – is Smoking that Stuff Legal in your A.O.? The possibility of “Voting our Way out of This” is Long Gone. BOTH political “Parties” are OWNED by the same (((money power))) and Trump signing that ‘bump stock Ban’ should have shown you that ALL politicians are now Enemies of the Republic.
The “Soap Box” is Controlled by the 6 (((corporations))) that are Owned by dual-citizen Traitors. This includes most of the ‘Internet Service Providers’.
The “Ballot Box” is Stuffed (and then Counted) by the (((bolshevik))) Traitors. “It’s Not Who Votes that Counts, It’s Who Counts the Votes.”
That Leaves the “Cartridge Box”, and the Fear of This is driving the Enemy to increasingly Desperate Measures of Repression of the People.