Media’s Red Flag Law Defense Not Making Case They Think it Is

The idea behind red flag laws seems pretty straightforward. You take guns away temporarily from people who seem to be a threat, then give them back if you’re wrong or the problem passes. That’s how they’re sold, and they really gained momentum in the wake of Parkland, when the killer had so many red flags in his background it looked like an old Soviet May Day celebration.

But those red flags should have led someone to address him, not to make it easier for guns to be snatched from just about anything else.

Now, in Minnesota, a news publication wants to make them look like a good thing, but their opening anecdote doesn’t make the case they think it makes.

One day in early February, a Bloomington police detective got a call that a man had told his family that he planned to shoot himself in the head. 

The detective, Matt Jones, found the man at his home where, according to a Minnesota District Court filing, he “admitted to officers that he was planning to buy a gun today and always believed that when he dies it will be by his own hand.”

Jones then took a step that is becoming increasingly common among officers in Hennepin County and, to an extent, throughout the state: He persuaded a state court judge to stop the person with suicidal thoughts from owning or buying a gun. 

Jones used the Extreme Risk Protection Order Act (informally known as the red flag law or ERPO), a remnant of the DFL’s 2023 legislative smorgasbord, which went into effect at the start of 2024.

Minnesota Judicial Branch data shows that more ERPO petitions were filed throughout the state in the first seven months of this year than in all of 2024. Also, of the 284 petitions filed through Aug. 1, just 14, or 5%, were rejected by a state court judge.

Gun control is a center-stage issue following the assassination of DFL House leader Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark Hortman.

Now, I get that Minnesota is looking at gun control after what happened earlier this year, but let’s think a few things through for a moment.

First, there was no red flag order issued for the alleged assassin, which means it’s an example of how the law doesn’t actually do as much as they claim it does.

But what really irks me here is, again, the opening anecdote.

Someone says they want to take their own life. The police confirm the intention. They get a red flag order, so he can’t buy a firearm.

What then?

There have, in fact, been apparent cases where people who were disarmed by red flag laws later killed themselves via some other means. In other words, taking the weapon from someone who is suicidal, or barring them from buying a gun, isn’t enough to keep them from ending their lives. 

But every state has a statute allowing authorities to confine someone involuntarily for 72 hours if they pose a risk to themselves or others. I have moral problems with such a thing, but a lot of people don’t, especially those who like red flag laws. I’ll concede, though, that these holds do far more to prevent someone from harming themselves than a red flag law ever could.

When you’re in such a confinement, you’re denied access to pretty much anything that would allow you to hurt yourself. You can’t even have shoelaces. Not only that, but you’re evaluated by a professional who can also start getting that person help, thus possibly stopping them from harming themselves ever again.

Just taking their guns doesn’t do anything.

That story on the lead-in doesn’t make the case the writer thinks it does. If anything, it shows just how idiotic the idea is. Especially when you’ve got someone who is clearly saying they’re determined to end their own life, and the police seem only interested in keeping them from doing it with a firearm.

Guns aren’t the problem. People wanting to die to solve temporary issues is the problem, but hey, who cares about that so long as they don’t use a gun, right?

Editor’s Note: The mainstream media continues to deflect, gaslight, spin, and lie about gun owners and our Second Amendment rights.

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