According to Buzzfeed News, Graham is now taking the next step in drafting legislation that would expand police powers to confiscate firearms.
These laws allow judges to seize an individual’s guns without due process just for being a perceived “threat”.
Despite providing little in terms of specifics, Graham claimed that he would be working on the bill’s content during the week of April 8, 2019.
Over the past year, states have led the way in passing gun control, with red flag laws being the flagship legislation gun controllers have rallied around.
The federal government has trailed behind, although it did pass Fix-NICS, which expanded the current national database system, and the Justice Department did ban bump stocks by bureaucratic fiat.
With Lindsey Graham getting behind red flag gun confiscation, the federal government is likely going to embark on a significant push towards gun control. Graham’s bill would provide federal grants to states with red flag gun confiscation laws on the books.
The South Carolina Senator told Buzzfeed, “I’m seeking to incentivize states to produce extreme risk protective order legislation that has ample due process but also is meaningful in protecting the public from somebody who is dangerous.”
No Compromise gun rights organizations like Gun Owners of America have stood strong against Graham’s efforts to push red flag gun confiscation laws.
BLP reported on GOA Legislative Counsel Michael Hammond’s opposition to red flag gun confiscation orders.
In Hammond’s view the Graham-Blumenthal proposal would have pro-gun states subsidizing anti-gun states to carry out gun confiscation.
There are 14 such states. And except for Florida, which was cowed into gun confiscation by a near-riot of Parkland kids, and a 1999 Indiana statute, the remaining 13 states are the bluest, most anti-gun states in the country. Thus, S. 7 and S. 506 would be a massive transfer of an unspecified number of tax dollars from Republican pro-Second Amendment states — to states that are moving heaven and earth to destroy the Second Amendment.
Dudley Brown, the President of the National Association for Gun Rights, sees red flag laws as an invitation for potential law enforcement abuse:
They [Law enforcement] can literally come to your house at 2 in the morning. Yes, they can knock on the door. Sometimes they don’t knock. Sometimes they use a battering ram to open the door.
Despite warnings from pro-gun activists, the D.C. political class insists on pushing red flag laws forward.