Opinion
Virginia – -(AmmoLand.com)- 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.
I look at hiding gun ownership as giving the gun controllers exactly what they want – gun owners going quietly into the night.
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:
- We must educate others, every chance we get. Too many people, including many gun owners, have fallen for the soundbites that seem reasonable on the surface, but are lies and misrepresentations of the real effects of Red Flag laws. Many people simply don’t know the truth. The Virginia Citizens Defense League has a flyer we encourage gun owners to print out and give away at gun shows and other events, and to give to reporters, family, friends, and coworkers – anyone that will take one. Feel free to steal the concept and create your own flyer, if you wish, or just use ours: vcdl.org/resources/PDF/RED_FLAG_laws_flyer.pdf
- We need to write letters to the editor of our local papers and certainly never let a pro-Red Flag letter or editorial go unchallenged.
- We need to call talk-radio shows and discuss the dangers that Red Flag laws bring to our way of life.
- We need to educate politicians. If that fails, then we need to organize protests outside their local offices, which will hopefully be picked up by local news to spread the word even further.
- We need to make it a priority to vote out of office any politician who supports Red Flag laws.
- Gun owners in states with Red Flag laws need to work tirelessly to get those laws repealed.
All that said, John’s article provided some advice which is good under all conditions: Don’t make enemies if you can reasonably avoid it. Be a polite, civil, pleasant, courteous person. Don’t inject yourself into other people’s business.
The ongoing war against gun ownership, and most of our other American values continues to escalate daily and we have no choice but to meet it head on and to defeat it. Our opponents want to divide us and we can’t let that happen. If you own a gun, regardless of whether it is a handgun, rifle, or shotgun, or regardless if it is for self-defense, target shooting, collecting, or hunting, or regardless if you think a gun-control law, such as a Red Flag law, won’t affect you personally, we must ALL stand unified in protecting ALL of our gun rights. 80 million of us, standing as one, makes us an unstoppable force and the gun controllers know it.
Philip Van Cleave
President
Virginia Citizens Defense League
About Virginia Citizens Defense League, Inc. (VCDL):
Virginia Citizens Defense League, Inc. (VCDL). VCDL is an all-volunteer, non-partisan grassroots organization dedicated to defending the human rights of all Virginians. The Right to Keep and Bear Arms is a fundamental human right.
For more information, visit: www.vcdl.org.
As much as I hate this idea for my own selfish reasons, there is only 1 effective way to fight red flag laws right now. The way it has to be done is all firearm and ammunition manufacturers need to agree to cease selling any of their products in EVERY State that passes red flag laws. That includes not supplying law enforcement from those States as well. I’m from Ohio and after the latest active shooting incident, our governor is pressing extremely hard to pass red flag litigation. I would happily endure a freeze out to make my State government… Read more »
Mr. Van Cleave:
Great article in response to the “run and hide” one. Your flyer is terrific also. Please make sure to send one to RINO Senator Lindsey Graham from SC.
The old expression holds: “The squeaky wheel gets the grease”. Otherwise known as silence is consent.
Finally, someone saying something similar to what I I’ve been saying to others, including two state assembly persons, about the dangers lurking in the RF laws. However, do any pro gun groups have pockets deep enough, the interest, the courage, and the will to battle for the many years it may take to finally defeat this spreading menace.
To fight red flag laws and supporters of red flag laws, id say we have to fight n.r.a. Too
Mr. Van Cleave,
Your VCDL flyer is ‘very good’.
It would be ‘excellent’, I believe, and even more effective, if it included the constitutional violations you mentioned in your article…
“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).”
Moderated again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
How true on all points, why not use these Red Flag laws against the ones passing these laws, as they are proving that they are a threat to themselves as well as to others, put them in a position to prove their mental stability, it may not effect them the way gun owners but pull the 5 AM raids on them the way that they do on legal gun owners, that in my mind is a start, we only have to make the call!!!!!!
When I first heard about these “Red Flag” laws, I told a friend that it sounds like something we heard about the U.S.S.R. back in the 60s. There were so many stories about how the citizens of the U.S.S.R. had no rights, had no voice, had no input in their daily lives and were only puppets of the oppressive government. My how the times have changed. Virtually all the stories we heard are now taking place here in the U.S.A. It was a slow process, like the frog in the pot of boiling water analogy, but here we are today.… Read more »
The article while addressing misuses of the public trust by self serving servants when enacting EPROs, misses one vital encroachment upon our Rights, that being the First Amendment. Applying the premise “Nothing happens by accident in politics”, we can readily see then the outrageous statements by these servants, such as Swalwell and Harris are meant to, and have in many cases achieved their wanting responses by law abiding firearm owners, to-wit: “ pry my gun from my cold dead hands” or “you want a civil war”, or “come for my guns and it will be a bloodbath”, etc etc. These… Read more »
Interestingly, in my post in response to Mr. Farnam’s commentary, I stated many of the points Mr. Van Cleave made in his rebuttal to Mr. Farnam. Mr. Van Cleave, in his well-written rebuttal, went deeper into detail and also covered the violations of our enumerated rights. We are fortunate to have the tireless Mr. Van Cleave on our side supporting our inalienable RKBA.