Look, red flag laws don’t work. We all know they don’t work. They might result in some people having their guns taken for absolutely no valid reason, while other people who do bad things will still do them, all because most people don’t think someone they care about is really a monster.
But a mass shooting in Michigan on Friday left five innocent people dead, and the now-deceased shooter was under a red flag order.
Clearly, it didn’t work.
Rather than acknowledge that, however, a gubernatorial candidate there is claiming that the problem is “loopholes” in the law.
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jocelyn Benson said Saturday that a mass shooting in northern Michigan a day earlier highlighted the importance of “closing loopholes” to ensure abusers’ firearms are relinquished under the state’s red flag law.
On Friday, six people were killed, including the suspected gunman [dead scumbag’s name redacted], in Missaukee County. Hickman had been convicted in 2024 of misdemeanor fourth-degree child abuse and contributing to delinquency of children.
Benson, the current secretary of state, appeared Saturday at the Clinton-Macomb Public Library for a panel discussion on preventing gun violence with Democratic U.S. House candidate Christina Hines, who is running for the seat of U.S. Rep. John James, R-Shelby Township, in the 10th Congressional District, and Democratic former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, a survivor of a 2011 mass shooting in Arizona.
During her remarks, Benson of Detroit called for better training for law enforcement, challenging legal immunity protections for gun manufacturers and bolstering the state’s red flag policy, signed by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in 2023. Under the red flag law, courts can issue extreme risk protection orders to confiscate someone’s firearms if they determine a person can reasonably be expected to seriously injure someone by possessing a gun.
As I understand Michigan’s red flag law, when police serve the recipient of an ERPO, they take the guns right then and there. Failure to comply lands them in handcuffs with a felony charge. In other words, I fail to see how the dirtball had any “loophole” he could have used to evade having his guns seized…beyond the fact that he knew where his guns were, and the police likely didn’t.
Just hiding one firearm would have been enough, and I’m sorry, but unless they have an idea of where to look, the possibility of any officer finding a creatively hidden firearm is probably low. I’m sure I know one detective in Buffalo who could find them, but he seems to have a knack for that sort of thing.
Most officers aren’t necessarily going to have that.
So how is it a loophole? Honestly, Benson doesn’t actually explain. She just claims it is, and her evidence seems to simply be that the law didn’t work, that the killer wasn’t disarmed. I find that more than a little convenient, considering her side wrote the damn law and she was Secretary of State at the time and could have spoken out about any issues there and been taken seriously. [Editor’s Note: As I discussed on Bearing Arms Cam & Co earlier today, the suspect was charged with felony child abuse in 2024, but was allowed to plead down to a misdemeanor. The state had the opportunity, if not the duty, to deprive this man of his freedom, but instead gave him a slap on the wrist and quickly released him back into the community. — Cam]
Feels more like the law didn’t work, like we’ve always said it wouldn’t, and so now she’s desperate to find a way to defend her side of the debate by simply pretending they didn’t infringe on people’s rights hard enough.
Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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