No White Flag on Red Flag Laws

Guest Post by Kurt Schlichter

Red flag laws? No.

I get that people don’t like the idea of scumbags murdering kids. I don’t either, which is why I want criminals prosecuted and cops in schools. And I understand the appeal of a process to take away the guns from people we would all agree are bad but who have not yet actually gone and become felons or certifiable crazies. I have friends who argue for these laws, confident that our rights will be protected by due process. But I do not share their faith; if the last few years has taught us anything it is not to put our trust in institutions to do their constitutional duty when it conflicts with their political preferences.

But even if a fair process could be established, the idea of red flag laws is entirely based upon a flawed premise. The premise is that you can just take a right away because you think it’s a good idea. It’s hard to see the due process when someone being processed has done nothing wrong. That’s key – if they have done something wrong, there are already constitutionally sound ways to restrain them.

You don’t get to take people rights without convicting them of a crime, or showing they are nuts and need to be in the booby-hatch. There’s no special exception to the Constitution because ten invertebrate Republican senators want to “do something.” We already have well-established and constitutional ways of “doing something.” If someone is a convicted felon, he’s banned from having a gun. If someone is making threats, get a restraining order or, better yet, arrest him.

If someone is crazy, then channel that old Van Halen album and 5150 him. But the Founders would look upon you if you told them “Hey, we think it’s cool to strip people of their sacred rights because someone complains about them and a judge is too scared to actually demand real evidence and risk letting him keep his rights,” and they would say, “Taketh ye head from inside your rear endeth, for thou art a fool.”

Red flag laws are ripe for abuse. You can tell because the left is slobbering to get them enacted. Do Dems arrest the myriad scumbags wandering the streets of Democrat cities? Do they prosecute them? No, and these animals commit an Uvalde every few days. If Dems cared about “gun crime,” they would arrest, charge, and lock-up gun criminals, but they don’t. They care about thought crimes – yours.

These laws might be used to disarm a few nutballs, sure, but they will also be used against us when we dissent too much. We’ve seen how they use the power of government against political opponents like us – IRS targeting, FBI entrapment, selective prosecutions, to name a few – and why the hell would we give them a new weapon when they have abused the ones they already have in the service of the regime?

Oh, but see, there are police and judges who will ensure this is all done fairly and is never, ever, part of some political vendetta. Chet, my unicorn, is totally confident that the ruling caste will start respecting our rights as soon as we grant it this power to summarily take them away.

Why the hell would we ever put our civil rights in the hands of a dual track justice system where our train is always the one getting derailed? Gosh, in a society where meth enthusiast Hunter Biden poses with a gat and is not arrested, where Nancy Pelosi’s (understandably) drunk hubby walks away from a DUI accident scot free, where Trump supporters who were mostly peaceful languish in dungeons as judges rubber-stamp the flouting of their right to a speedy trial, where Peter Navarro gets chained up while Eric Holder does not, are we supposed to believe that we can rely on the justice system to treat us conservatives fairly when some lib complains to the Red Flag Forces that we are thinking unapproved thoughts?

And that will happen – you know it will happen, just as you know we will be harassed and oppressed, because we already have been. And exactly what has the judicial system done to convince us that this new power is one they won’t dare abuse? John Cornyn, the empty suit behind this terrible idea, used to be a Texas Supreme Court justice. He’s probably pretty confident in the judicial system, and why not? It works great for him. But for us? No. This is an invitation to oppression. And that’s why our enemies love it.

Haven’t you heard? The big threat to America, according to Grandpa Badfinger’s AG, is “white supremacy,” and guess what they call all of you conservatives? Who is the judge who is going to give one of those back his guns?

Sorry, you can’t trust the judiciary to do the right thing. If you want a real confidence builder, look at all those stories of people fighting for years to get back money taken by the authorities because of civil asset forfeiture laws. Due process is still a process, due or not. How many years and how many tens of thousands of dollars do you want to spend to “win” back your right to keep and bear arms after having done nothing wrong?

The 10 treacherous Republicans behind this betrayal act as though the Second Amendment is nice in theory but not to be taken seriously in practice. Except that’s entirely wrong. It’s critical to our conception of being a free people. I talk about guns and how they are an essential component of citizenship a lot my upcoming non-fiction book We’ll Be Back: The Fall and Rise of America. And in it, I talk about how guns might be used to keep us free, in the remote and regrettable scenario where the systems of a free society fail utterly and force was left the people’s only option besides submission to tyranny. Uh oh, call the Flag Force!

I’m with the Founders. An armed population is a citizenry. A disarmed population is a gaggle of serfs, if not future gulag dwellers. When you take a gun you do not just take a hunk of metal. You take what makes a citizen free. Of course, that’s the point for the Democrats, and the credulous Republican dopes are only too eager to go along. Their stubborn belief that the norms are still normal is going to ensure that the norms are gone forever.

Uh oh, scary! Do I get red flagged now because of my unapproved thoughts?

If the flatulent sap who allegedly awkwardly copulated with a Chi Com agent (gotta admire her selfless sacrifice for her motherland, though) is any indicator, the purpose of this Minority Report crap is exactly that. Hot Box Eric wanted to red flag that scary threat to the peace Ben Shapiro for observing that when tyranny descends, you can run or you can fight – something that is indisputably true. Leave it to Congressman Dim Get-Sum to break the fourth wall and spoil the plot for the audience.

So, how did John Cornyn react to this and our other concerns about his collaboration with the Dems? He didn’t – he was too busy strutting around like a ridiculous peacock enjoying the little bit of limelight Cocaine Mitch let him borrow. Cornyn – again, a former state judge who is not exactly building up our confidence in the wisdom of state judges – is hoping to replace the murder Turtle as Senate GOP leader someday. His competitor is John Thune, who would be well-advised to become the face of “Hell no!” in contrast to his opponent’s decision to become the face of “Thank you, sir, may I have another.”

Also, Thune has a cool Marvel villain name going for him in addition to (not yet) having sold out the GOP base for some sucking-up by the WaPo.

Again, I understand the superficial appeal of red flag laws. And there are good people I respect who are infatuated with them. They tell themselves that the constitutional issues can be resolved, that there can be due process that will prevent the abuses that the Democrats fully intend to inflict – the pinkos will tell you they do if you just listen. But my friends are wrong. They are wrong in their faith in the institutions to protect our rights.

They are wrong in ignoring how the process is the punishment, how years stripped of your rights and spending tens or thousands of dollars just to get back what never should have been taken in the first place is not victory. And they are wrong in their belief that the Constitution allows this in any case. What other right do you have to appeal to some judge – who, if not outright biased against guns, will worry about the blowback if the accused gets his rights back and commits a crime – to regain them when you have committed no crime and you are not demonstrably insane?

None.

There’s no red flag process for free speech, nor for a free press, nor to practice your religion, nor for any other right. And the Second Amendment is not a second-class right, subject to infringement at the whim of the government. Because if it can be, it has ceased to become a right at all.

No red flag laws. And Senator Cornyn and the rest of you, stop waving the white flag before we in the base raise the black flag at the ballot box.

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