We should not punish people for crimes they have not committed

    Recently "60 Minutes" did a story on Red-Flag-Laws.   In their article they led with the story of a man who was mentally unstable and had a large assortment of guns in his apartment.   The police had dealt with him in the past, but never were able to hold him on any law he could be charged with.  In the story, he shoots several police officers as they were in the process of breaking down his door to investigate an issue and talk to him.  One office was killed by the man.   60-Minutes talked to a police-chief who was in support of passage of Colorado's Red-Flag-Law.   He believed it would save lives in the long run.

     How do Red-Flag-Laws work? 

     First you have to go to a court and issue a statement showing that a person has made "threats" to your life and safety.   The defendant is not required to be at the hearing, but if they are they can make counter claims to the judge.   The judge then issues a judgement of whether the guns should be confiscated or not.   If the judge does, then the police are sent to the persons home to confiscate them.  The person can come back in a period of time (30 days usually) to prove that they are not longer a threat and that they should be given back their guns.

     Sounds easy... right?

     Here is what is wrong with it. 

     First of all, judges will side with the threatened person nearly 100% of all the time.  Why?  Because it's safest for them, the judge.   If they rule in favor of the gun owner and he does shoot someone then that murder will be on the judge because they "could" have stopped it.   There is no upside to letting you keep your guns, but there is plenty of upside to take them away. 

     Second, you have not been charged with any crime, but you are considered "guilty-until-proven-innocent".    On top of that, you now have the impossible task of proving to the judge you are NOT a threat.   How do you do that?   If a judge asks you "Will you never use these guns to harm a person?" and you reply "Never, your honor!", then the judge has a choice to either believe you or keep your guns.  What is safer?   It is impossible to "prove" you will never ever do something.   Yet here you are, guilty of nothing, but punished for life because not only can you never get your guns back, you will never ever be allowed to buy another gun.   You can go before a judge a 100 times and declare you are no longer a threat to others but have no way to prove that beyond a shadow of a doubt.  It will always be in the best interest of the judge to keep your guns rather than let you have them back.

    It's a life-sentence without committing a crime.

    This is the biggest problem with Red-Flag-Laws.  They go against the most fundamental basis of our Constitution and Legal System:

 INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY IN A COURT OF LAW.    

     Nothing is more sacred in our legal system than that.  NOTHING!   If we allow our legal system to do away with this in these cases we now have a legal precedent to do away with it altogether.  We cannot let that happen, no matter how many "lives it might save". It moves our legal system from one of trying crimes that have been committed to one in which we take away rights in order to prevent crimes that "could" be committed.  While we do have laws on the books to put restraining orders on people who pose a threat to others, those orders do not take Constitutional Rights or Property away from them or there ability to protect themselves.

      It reminds me of the Tom Cruise movie, "Minority Report", where people are tried on crimes that are "foreseen" by 5 girls who have precognition abilities.   It seems to work until it is found out that the girls "visions" can be tampered with to put innocent people away.  Our legal system must never become a system to prosecute people for crimes they "might commit", no matter how many lives it "might save".   . 

     That brings me to my final issue.  I take issue with the Sheriff who sided with the Red-Flag-Law, who claimed it would save lives.   It is the police officers who will have to serve these judgments.  They will be put into harms way to confiscate the guns.   In the story 60-Minutes used, the mentally ill man would have been met with the same police officers at his door who wanted to talk with him.  Only now, they would have had to tell him they are there to confiscate his guns.  Would he have handed them over peacefully?   I very much doubt that.  Instead, the might have wounded even more police officers and killed even more of them.  To me, the only people who would hand over their guns peacefully are mentally-stable-law-abiding-citizens.  But if they are mentally-stable-law-abiding-citizens, then most likely they were no threat in the first place and the issuance of the Red-Flag-Law is completely unneeded.