So Red Flag Laws Didn’t Fail in Minneapolis, People Did?

Minnesota passed a red flag law in 2023. It went into effect in 2024.

Despite that, no red flag order was sought for the 23-year-old who decided to seek out a gun-free zone and shoot through the windows, killing two children and injuring so many more.

It’s pretty clear that the red flag law that was sold as a way to stop attacks like this from happening failed.

But it seems that rather than acknowledge this, the media is more interested in spinning this as a failure of people to notice the problem.

Police say that an emergency risk protection order was not sought for the suspect, nor did this person have a criminal record. Shortly before the attack, the shooter posted on social media a diary and a manifesto that indicated hate and the potential for violence.

The chorus of concern after the shooting serves as a reminder not only that Americans aren’t powerless in the face of pervasive gun violence, but also that red flag laws are only effective when people speak up. For many here, there is a sense that there may have been missed clues that could have been used to disarm the person under the new law. The investigation is ongoing.

“A crisis was enough to push them over the edge,” says Chris Carita, a former police officer and a senior trainer at 97Percent, a nonprofit that helps law enforcement use what are commonly referred to as red flag laws. “They didn’t get the help they needed or the intervention that they needed.”

The philosophical core of the laws is that they exhibit not only concern for public safety but also empathy for people in distress who may be leaving clues of potential deadly intent.

“It’s an individual tool that people and families can use, but the bigger and more challenging task is making sure that folks understand it and know how to use it,” says Minnesota state Rep. Emma Greenman.

It’s funny how the red flag law is supposed to be the savior, but when it fails, no one who supported it ever steps back and thinks, “Oh, wait, maybe this law wasn’t quite what I thought it was.”

Oh no, the problem is that the people in the killer’s life completely failed to recognize the problem and take this particular action, which isn’t actually needed since existing laws could do far more.

Of course, despite what the Christian Science Monitor might claim, 97Percent isn’t a nonprofit that helps law enforcement. I mean, they might do some of that, but what they actually are is a gun control group that pushes an anti-gun agenda and pretends they’re really just a centrist organization looking for some common ground on guns. We’ve talked about them before. We’ve talked about them a lot.

That’s important because this is someone who works for an organization with a vested interest in defending this particular law rather than acknowledging that the laws don’t work as advertised.

“But the problem is still the people!” someone might exclaim, which I find funny, because we say the same thing about guns and they reject that out of hand.

The difference is that me having a gun doesn’t impact anyone else except for me and my family.

Their red flag law can impact everyone.

And the fact that they don’t even work just makes it that much worse.

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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