Governor Andrew Cuomo is out touting his ‘Make America Safer Pledge.’ Part of the pledge is to establish a mental health database. He has incorporated that into his Red Flag laws, which were put in place by fiat. Do you think that is a good idea? He wants to see that done nationally with Big Government compiling lists of people someone said was mentally ill.
Do you want people like Cuomo deciding who gets on the list?
This is the thought crime police, trying to predict who might commit a crime. There are already laws on the books that allow a 72-hour hold on people someone thinks might harm themselves or others.
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How far will they go with it, will there be rules and accountability for errors, and what do you have to do to get on it? Who gets to submit names and how will they protect this database from hackers or the prying eyes of enemies? What other uses might they find for it?
Why not just make them wear the letter “M” for mentally ill on their lapels or a target on their backs?
Democrats should come together with one clear message on gun safety.
The federal gov’t must:
1) Outlaw assault weapons and high-capacity magazines
2) Create a mental health database
3) Pass universal background checks
4) Pass a Red Flag Law pic.twitter.com/0odxSpeDQT— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) August 7, 2019
He claims those “four elements of gun control will change this nation.”
Cuomo also told WXXI public radio in Westchester that a mental health database would prevent some people with mental health issues from obtaining firearms.
The governor already banned assault weapons in New York, and he has had a mental health database and universal background checks since 2013. They came in under his Red Flag laws.
An individual can be put on the mental health database if some disgruntled ex says you’re crazy, as one example of how it works.
Matthew Larosiere, an opinion editor at USA Today and director of legal policy for the Firearms Policy Coalition, writes that Red Flag laws are “simply bad policy.” They do not give the targeted individual due process rights.
“In Connecticut, in at least one-third of confiscation cases where the gun owner eventually contests the order, it is overturned. Many people who have their property seized never get it back because petitioning the government for the return of firearms requires an expensive lawyer. And criminal law can disproportionately affect the poor — the very same people most likely to be violently victimized.”
Some people will be killed during enforcement of a red flag order.
People like to say, well, the laws are not perfect, but it’s worth it. The truth is it’s never worth giving up due process. If you allow it for one amendment, it will be allowed for all the amendments.
“Red flag laws stand for the proposition that people can have their rights and property taken from them on the basis of mere allegations,” Mr. Larosiere says. “No reasonable suspicion needed. And even if you don’t believe the right to keep and bear arms exists at all, or it is of little importance to you, do you really want this government to extend a relaxed notion of seizure and inverted due process to other areas of law? Because history shows it will.”
Now we have the far-left governor of New York claiming his plan is the one everyone should adopt and he is pushing mental health databases.
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