No Evidence That “Red Flag” Laws Are Working In Washington – IOTW Report

No Evidence That “Red Flag” Laws Are Working In Washington

Bearing Arms-

Back in 2016, votes in Washington State approved a “red flag” firearms seizure law, also called an Extreme Risk Protection Order. Five years later, there’s no evidence that the law has had any beneficial effect on violent crime or suicides, but that’s not stopping local media outlets from doing their best to spin the law as a valuable tool for law enforcement.

The Seattle Times has weighed in with a lengthy piece designed to advance the narrative that “red flag” laws are incredibly useful, though there’s no real evidence to back up their claims.

8 Comments on No Evidence That “Red Flag” Laws Are Working In Washington

  1. …about suicides…

    …I saw quite a many, few I would term as serious. Skipping over accidental successes, here’s 2.

    The girl who lightly scratched her arm with a rusty nail and told everyone in the house about it after a loud scream?

    Attention seeker. Not serious.

    The k9 cop who said nothing to nobody, went home alone, wrote a note for someone to take care of his dog that he secured in a different room, then ate his service weapon?

    Serious.

    …if you ACTUALLY want to kill yourself, you WILL. It’s not hard, and no gun required. I don’t write about successes, don’t want more blood on my hands, but guns are actually minor players from what I’ve seen.

    These orders don’t do nothing against that ..

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  2. “laws can be used to strip someone of their gun rights based on unproven allegations”
    Simply having the law on the books for the future, causes a problem. What if they decide anyone with a CCP is an “Extreme Risk”. No knock warrants in the middle of the night.
    Taking guns from all Americans is pretty high on their todo list.

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  3. Since Florida put armed Guardians in public schools a few years ago, I don’t believe there have been any active shooter situations on those campuses.

    Boron: excellent question. I haven’t seen any stats on that but they do happen. During my LEO days I worked one. The guy didn’t leave a note per se but he did a whole lot of weird stuff the 24 hours or so before he did it so that was our finding. Typically if there’s no note, statement, or other obvious “flag”, it will be chalked up as a crash or accident.

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