U.S.A. –-(Ammoland.com)-The gun world was once again lit on fire at a miscommunication by the largest concealed carry insurance companies in the country.
The USCCA is the leading provider of concealed carry insurance. The purpose of the insurance is to provide legal service in case a gun owner is forced to defend themselves against an attacker. The USCCA will cover all legal bills from criminal and civil prosecution.
On Monday morning a USCCA member contacted them through Facebook to state their dissatisfaction that the USCCA coverage didn’t include fighting against extreme risk protection orders (ERPO)that are better known as “red flag” laws.
An ERPO is a court order that is issued in a judge in a secret hearing to confiscate the targets guns. All it takes is a family member, or roommate to say you are a danger to yourself or others. These have been controversial since the target of the ERPO are not aware that there is even a hearing. Civil liberties activist claim that these orders and unconstitutional because of the lack of due process.
The USCCA social care advisor responded with the scripted response: “If you are not presenting to be a danger to yourself or others and are acting lawfully, there should be no reason to be concerned that your firearms would be temporarily confiscated from you.”
“This law does not promote ‘gun-grabbing’ but more so keeping firearms out of the hands of people that may be potentially dangerous.”
The social care supervisor approved the canned response, but it went against the official stance of the USCCA on ERPOs. It was a decision by a single employee. The USCCA told AmmoLand that they had counseled the employee and are taking steps to reaffirm their stance internally.
The company’s official stance is that they are against “red flag laws”, the founder and president of the USCCA, Tim Schmidt, took responsibility for the mixup. He acknowledged that the statement was akin to saying “Hey, if you’ve got nothing to hide, then you should be fine with giving up your fourth amendment rights.”
In a video released by the USCCA Schmidt chalked up the mishap to a failure in training. He vowed to make sure that the 24 full-time staff monitoring social media have the correct information.
Schmidt went on the record in January of 2018 stating that he personally believed that ERPOs are unconstitutional. He called them “anti-freedom tactics to seize guns.” He also believes that the majority of ERPOs excutived are unfounded.
In the August 2017 edition of the USCCA official magazine, “Concealed Carry,” the company officially came out against “red flag” laws. With all the history of the USCCA opposition to ERPOs, it isn’t entirely clear on the supervisor came up with the statement.
The USCCA for their part is working on integrating protections against ERPOs into future membership agreements. Schmidt points out that the USCCA Legal Defense Foundation will be there to help out gun owners “who find themselves in the crosshairs of unmeritorious prosecution.”
Schmidt states that he understands the frustration of the USCCA membership over the statement, but has asked those people to look at the history of the USCCA as a whole.
About John Crump
John is a NRA instructor and a constitutional activist. He is the former CEO of Veritas Firearms, LLC and is the co-host of The Patriot News Podcast which can be found at www.blogtalkradio.com/patriotnews. John has written extensively on the patriot movement including 3%’ers, Oath Keepers, and Militias. In addition to the Patriot movement, John has written about firearms, interviewed people of all walks of life, and on the Constitution. John lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and sons and is currently working on a book on leftist deplatforming methods and can be followed on Twitter at @crumpyss, on Facebook at realjohncrump, or at www.crumpy.com.
On August 31, 2018, I was the victim of an ERPO in the state of Florida. This is in spite of the fact that I am a law abiding citizen with no past crimnal record. I have been an avid gun collector for the past 20 years as well as a respected physician who has faithfully and diligently served his community for the past 34 years. I have never been sanctioned or disciplined by any medical or federal institution throughout my entire career. Nevertheless, I was handcuffed and beaten by the police and suffered the indignity of being Baker acted… Read more »
@Andres J. Tamayo, M.D., F.A.C.C., You are in position to become a multi-multi-millionair. Keep up the fight and then go national, with your story.
Ridiculous!! This is an outrageous trampling of Constitutional rights. We really need national activism against this. It is 90 percent misguided, which is a draconian abuse of citizens, just because of someone with a bone to pick. I call BS!
Doc, i am disgusted at the way you were treated by the police and by their unwillingness to accept the courts decision, TWICE!
If you need any help at all please reply.
Regards,
John BJohn Befer
I think further verification of USCCA’s stance is absolutely necessary, because if this ERPO plague spreads, we are going to need the kind of aggressive representation that USCCA purports to provide.
My personal opinion, from past experience in management, tells me the so-called “spokesperson” for USCCA probably knows very little about the ERPO issue, and as Crump noted, shot out a typical canned response. It’s why customer service reps are often not up to speed on their own company, and a waste of effort in trying to get true information or assistance.
I have been a member of the USCCA since 2011 and after reading an article about red flag laws a few weeks ago, I contacted them and they told me the same thing, that our Defense Shield did not cover paying for attorneys if my guns were to be confiscated by execution of a red flag warrant. Of course I was really mad and let them know that I was going to look for another membership that does cover it.
The first thing that Tim should have announced to people is that the “supervisor” that made that ignorant toxic statement has been severed from the organization. Then, restate their position with some actions to back it up.
I wonder if Tim Schmidt fired the libtard snowflake supervisor responsible for this mess. Tim should also be concerned how such a person was able to get promoted to supervisor, as apparently the USCCA has been infiltrated.
The headline and tagline for the photo have a typo. They should read USCCA, not USSCA.
Good catch
This guy needs a proofreader, period! Plenty of other goofups in this and other articles of his make for annoyances in reading his stuff and don’t contribute to his credibility.
Grammer poluce are in full force. I guess it is a terrible faux pas to make a spelling or grammatical error.
USCCA is “working on protections against ERPOs”, would indicate the members dissatisfaction is warranted. Moreover, the USCCA supervisor who posted the egregious response fails to understand how the judicial system is manipulated daily by litigants with an agenda (grudge) and ERPOs are ripe for such abuse, especially when accountability for filing a false report (which is subjective and hard to prove) amounts to a slap on the wrist, in comparison to the life altering (mental, physical and financially) negative exposure suffered by an accused. I do applaud Schmidt’s stance opposing ERPOs. Unfortunately, it would seem insurance or a paid service… Read more »