Jess, it appears the red flag laws (which I'm not in favor of) don't work. But in your legal opinion, what can the FBI do before a crime is committed?
IMHO, We have enough gun laws. If they can't keep the guns out of the hands of looneys and criminals, They need to remove the punitive laws that restrict the rights of legal gun owners.
All police (FBI too) can only do what the law allows (thus my comment on due process). He was not apparently arrested for anything at that time. But was involuntary (or maybe voluntary) committed for evaluation at that time.
What I was getting at, was if they came pursuant to a mother's complaint that her son might try
suicide by cop (and that he had a new shotgun, which they took and never returned), and it resulted in a commitment.... was that perhaps during commitment and evaluation he was given a diagnosis which would prohibit him from owning or buying any more firearms (under existing laws). If he was diagnosed schizophrenic (for instance), they wouldn't need to use a red flag law, if existing.
Not that it does innocent victims any good, but us gun owners (should) always hope that any unlawful shootings are done with illegally owned or purchased firearms. Deflating the hoplophobes knee jerk calls for more gun control. IE, if that gun was illegally possessed, purchased, used under existing laws, you don't need more laws.
Murder and mayhem have been criminal statutes forever, and obviously laws don't stop criminals from doing criminal things.
I just find it interesting that in a number of cases in recent history, shooters (or other non-shooting maniacs) were visited by FBI sometime before their later misdeeds. Despite my current disdain for FBI, one must assume if they did nothing at the time, there was nothing they could do. Still....
Of course the argument that can never be disputed is: (ALL NEW) gun laws only affect law abiding citizens and they're 2d amendment rights. Criminals don't follow the laws, or they wouldn't be criminally shooting people. Show us a law that only affects criminals and not the law abiding (that doesn't already exist) and we can talk about it. The truth is, there are no more laws to pass only affecting criminals; the 10,000 we already have cover everything.
The
weapons of war mantra is complete BS. When the 2d was drafted, everyone had the same flintlock small arms, some with rifled barrels, and some without. The founding fathers absolutely intended the citizens to be in firearm equality with the State (military and police). ARs (or AKs, and all others) are carried by all military and police today (except they get to have the full autos we don't, without astronomical cost and burdensome permissions), and no one will give up his AR, until the G is prepared to bar them to all military and police too (and first,
before we do). Good luck with that.
