Source: Politics<\/p>\n
CHICAGO \u2014 Illinois state Rep. Bob Morgan was getting ready to join the July 4th Parade in Highland Park, Ill., when one of his staffers yelled, \u201cgunshots!\u201d He got his wife and children to safety. Then he ran two blocks, toward where the shots rang out.<\/p>\n
What he found was a grim scene that\u2019s played out in many cities in recent years: A mass shooting had left seven people dead and 48 wounded at the parade in the northern Chicago community.<\/p>\n
Now he says he\u2019s determined to prevent future shootings, and he\u2019s taking his push to the statehouse, where he hopes to pass legislation next year to ban the sale of assault weapons, high-capacity magazines and devices designed to speed up the rate of fire.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have the challenge of time \u2014 not just the legislative calendar but every day that passes, we\u2019re going to see another gun death,\u201d Morgan, a Democrat, said in an interview. \u201cSo the urgency I feel is that every day I haven\u2019t passed this bill is another family dealing with the trauma of gun violence.\u201d<\/p>\n
The shooting was hardly the first in Illinois, which sees plenty on Chicago\u2019s South Side. But Highland Park drew national attention for having such a public display of violence on a major holiday and one of the highest death tolls of the year.<\/p>\n
Motivated by tragedy and a frustration with Congress, Democratic lawmakers in states that have recently experienced highly publicized mass shootings like Illinois, Michigan and Colorado are preparing their own gun safety agendas for the new year. At the top of the list: enacting or expanding \u201cred flag\u201d laws that allow courts to temporarily confiscate guns from someone deemed dangerous, and Illinois lawmakers may act as soon as next month.<\/p>\n
Nineteen states and the District of Columbia already have red flag laws \u2014 many in the aftermath of the 2018 Parkland shooting in Florida, where 17 students died and another 17 were injured. But many states are running into problems using the laws to prevent gun violence, sparking a new national push to redesign and implement them.<\/p>\n
\u201cPassing laws is half the equation and implementing them is the other half,\u201d said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, a nonprofit that advocates for reducing gun violence. \u201cWhat we\u2019ve seen in too many instances like in Buffalo, N.Y., and Highland Park, Ill., there were clear signs that a red flag law could have been used and prevented tragedy. The costs are too high to not focus on implementation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Also known as extreme risk protection orders, or ERPO, red flag laws are used by law enforcement to respond to potential threats, often in cases of domestic violence or suicide, and, possibly mass shootings. Police, family members and teachers can petition a court to take away a gun from a person for up to a year if they feel that person poses a danger to themselves or others.<\/p>\n
\u201cHopefully people who get behind ERPO see it as a way to get ahead of a tragedy before it happens,\u201d said Sean Holihan, state legislative director of Giffords, an anti-gun violence nonprofit founded by former Arizona Rep. Gabby Giffords, who was shot in 2011. \u201cAs long as we get them to understand people\u2019s due process rights are respected, we\u2019re just trying to prevent a tragedy, whether it\u2019s taking their own life or a mass shooting.\u201d<\/p>\n
These measures have emerged as a rare point of bipartisan agreement in the difficult debate over how to address the growing gun violence epidemic alongside Second Amendment rights.<\/p>\n
But opponents to red flag laws argue that the legal procedures for removing guns violates a person\u2019s due process rights and could be used as a tactic in domestic disputes. Republican critics and gun groups like the National Rifle Association have defeated proposed legislation in a number of GOP-controlled states like Arizona, Nebraska and Kentucky as recently as this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cEnacting a so-called red flag law or any additional gun control is not the answer for any of the problems that might be facing society,\u201d a Kentucky state representative told a local news outlet amid renewed efforts in the state to pass legislation<\/a>.<\/p>\n Some Kentucky Republicans have instead called for<\/a> arming school resource officers and addressing mental health.<\/p>\n Even among states that have enacted the measures, there are huge inconsistencies in how often these laws are used. And the practice can vary widely from county to county within the same state.<\/p>\n Some police officers and judges have relied heavily on these laws as a public safety tool. In Florida, where a GOP-controlled legislature passed a red flag law in 2018, orders were invoked more than 8,000 times. New Jersey, Washington, Maryland and Rhode Island are also held up as model examples.<\/p>\n But other states, like New Mexico, barely use their red flag rules. Just nine petitions for court orders allowing gun seizures<\/a> were filed in the two years following passage of a New Mexico law. Only five orders were approved.<\/p>\n Some point to enforcement gaps as missed opportunities to avoid a particular mass shooting.<\/p>\n In Colorado, the suspect in the Colorado Springs shooting last month appears to have been arrested last year after allegedly threatening family members with a bomb<\/a>. The suspect was not subject to the red flag law.<\/p>\n Democratic Gov. Jared Polis and state lawmakers have said they want to rewrite the law in the upcoming session, expanding who can file a red flag petition beyond law enforcement to potentially include district attorneys, the attorney general, teachers and social workers.<\/p>\n In New York, following a supermarket shooting in Buffalo, Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul issued an executive order directing state police to seek more red flag orders. The number of orders then more than doubled since the law went into effect in 2019, according to the governor\u2019s office<\/a>.<\/p>\n Hochul and the state attorney general\u2019s office also directed more than $4 million in funding to hire more state troopers and improve training to implement the law. Gun safety advocates and the Biden administration are working to provide similar extra resources across the country.<\/p>\n