PolitiFact’s parent company “The Poynter Institute” was widely mocked after it published a series of tips for journalists on how to cover “red flag laws” so that they could better advocate for them.
“Beware of misinformation about red flag laws, including critics who say they lack due process, which is not accurate. Another false claim is that the laws allow people with a grudge, such as an ex-spouse, to take guns away,” PolitiFact wrote in tweeting out the article.
They rely on the “expertise” of Jennifer Mascia, a founding staff member at The Trace, which was created with seed money from the nation’s largest gun control advocacy group, Everytown for Gun Safety, Dr. Garen Wintemute, who believes California’s gun laws are a model for the rest of the country, and Johnny Magdaleno, a courts reporter with bylines in a handful of left-wing rags.
The only explanation we’re even given as to what a red flag law is are from Mascia, who says they’re merely “a tool to separate someone from their guns in a time of crisis.”
Beware of misinformation about red flag laws, including critics who say they lack due process, which is not accurate. Another false claim is that the laws allow people with a grudge, such as an ex-spouse, to take guns away. https://t.co/6hY8VcICNR
— PolitiFact (@PolitiFact) June 14, 2022
Zero perspectives were offered on how such laws could be misused, but that’s to be expected from partisans disguising themselves as fact checkers.
And the evidence of misuse isn’t hard to find. Dana Loesch pointed to Senate testimony from David B. Kopel before the United States Senate Judiciary Committee, who pointed out that in Connecticut, 23% of gun confiscation orders are wrongly issued against innocent people and were overturned. A study in Marion County, Illinois, produced similar results (29%).
Fact: A third of red flag orders are wrongly issued https://t.co/ioCW6J8MhL
— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) June 14, 2022
Fact: With red flag laws, the investigation into any wrongdoing comes AFTER the penalty.
— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) June 14, 2022
No one else seemed to be buying the PolitiFact narrative either.
Really? pic.twitter.com/z23bJ1gT9F
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) June 14, 2022
In an era when the FBI labels parents protesting at schooling boards meetings as 'domestic terrorists', it seems incredibly naive to think that red flag laws won't be used to disarm political enemies.
— Geoffrey Miller (@primalpoly) June 14, 2022
The Attorney General of the State of Missouri would beg to differ on constitutionality of red flag laws. But what would he know, he's just charged with the faithful execution of the laws of the State in which he serves, and a practicing lawyer for over 20 years. @Eric_Schmitt https://t.co/xeZcqUxYVn
— Matthew Kolken (@mkolken) June 14, 2022
Beware of misinformation of organizations downplaying the consequences of any law introduced, all laws have the potential to be abused.
— Harrison Krank (@HarrisonKrank) June 14, 2022
Others pointed to the Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling last year in Caniglia v. Strom that warrantless gun confiscation is unconstitutional in a case that involved a Rhode Island man whose firearms were taken by law enforcement after his wife expressed concerns about his mental health. Justice Thomas wrote the unanimous opinion, stating that while law enforcement can execute “many civic tasks in modern society, “there isn’t “an open-ended license to perform them anyway. The very core of the Fourth Amendment is the right of a man to retreat into his own home and there be free from unreasonable search and seizure.”
The Court didn’t address the constitutionality of state red flag laws specifically, but the parallels are there.
Matt Palumbo is the author of The Man Behind the Curtain: Inside the Secret Network of George Soros
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