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Disclaimer: This piece is written in reaction to legislation which as of writing has not been passed and is still being negotiated, debated, voted upon etc. It will likely change multiple times passing back and forth between the house and senate, and I don’t know which form the final legislation will take. I may not be up to date with the latest form the bill has taken by the time I get this out and you read it.
As of writing it looks like the House approved “Red Flag” Bill will pass the senate with the support of ten senate Republicans who sided with the Democrats, and the tacit support of Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell, who could whip the vote and threaten to withhold support for for their preferred pork barrel spending… but isn’t and is merely not voting this way himself because he he represents Kentucky and doesn’t want to be primary’ed.
I’ve seen some confusion around the legislation on twitter, so I want to make it clear: This legislation not only provides grants and funding to states to pass their own red flag laws, as of writing it ALSO creates federal red flag laws that will allow federal law enforcement to go to a federal judge and get an emergency petition against anyone in the country. People in Texas, Wyoming, New Hampshire, Arkansas, Connecticut, Oregon, and Alaska, will have federal agents enforcing federal Red Flag takings against them, irrespective of their state’s individual stances on red flag laws. And the Congressional Budget Office is currently projecting 10,000 such enforcements annually, should the law pass.
But what are Red Flag enforcements? What are emergency petitions? Extreme risk protection orders?
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