Red Flag laws deny your right to a trial by jury of your peers

The Sixth Amendment guarantees your right to a trial by jury because a group of your peers is more balanced and able to decide your case more justly than a single person in a position of power. Red Flag laws summon you before a judge, who will likely say "better safe than sorry" to uphold the confiscation order because they don't want to be known for letting you go if you do turn out to be a killer.

Red flag laws discard the presumption of innocence

Civilized societies presume people to be innocent until guilty for at least two reasons. First, if guilt is presumed, then punishment may be enacted without any occasion to consider the accused's innocence. Mere accusations, followed by punishment, become another tool of tyranny. This is exactly how confiscation orders operate: your door is kicked, your dog is shot, your guns are taken, and then after some time, you are allowed an opportunity to prove your innocence.

Second, if innocence is no defense, there is no downside to being guilty. What can we call “justice,” if guilt and innocence are equivalent? What is left of our civilization, if the difference between a criminal and a good citizen is arbitrary?

Red flag laws abandon due process

"it is better to let ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer."

The Fifth Amendment guarantees that we shall not be deprived of our rights without due process of law, because if punishment can happen without due process, there is no guarantee that the individual's rights or presumption of innocence will be respected. If punishment can happen before process, our courts become irrelevant. Red Flag laws allow the state to skip the judge and jury and go straight to the executioner.

Red flag laws are popular because people don’t realize what they’re losing

Last year in Colorado, a Red Flag bill became law. I spoke at the Capitol when they had a public hearing on the bill, and one thing I kept hearing from legislators and citizens alike, was that "it's not controversial," and "all these other states are doing it!" Red Flag laws are immoral, unjust, and contrary to our founding obligations, yet they spread because the majority of citizens are too indifferent to object. On the one hand, I'm sure that President Trump's "take the guns first, due process later" comments encouraged lawmakers to consider these laws. However, lawmakers only make laws because We The People let them. Connecticut has had red flags since 1999. Indiana, 2005. California, 2014. Washington, 2016. This travesty isn’t new, and I regret every day that I was unaware of it.

This trend is dangerous, but we can reverse it. We must educate our fellow citizens so we can hold our lawmakers to account for proposing and passing these bills. It's too late for Colorado because the House, Senate, and Governor's office are full of D's nuts. All I can do now is educate the people in my community about why our rights must be protected, what happens when they aren't, and how they doom themselves by supporting laws that deny their rights in the name of public safety. Everyone here should do the same, or your states will follow.