06 Jan In-the-News Update [Issue: 2nd Amendment]
In a victory for gun rights, surprisingly coming out of New York, State Supreme Court Judge, Thomas Moran, ruled that the state’s Extreme Risk Protection Order law was unconstitutional. Such Extreme risk Protection Orders, otherwise known as “Red Flag laws,” generally allows for an individual to petition the court for a judge to issue an order for law enforcement to “temporarily” confiscate the firearms of someone that has been deemed by the petitioner and the court to potentially pose a risk of harming themselves or others. While on its face, these red flag laws may seem to offer an effective means of interdicting potentially dangerous individuals before they are able to cause harm, and while the specifics of these laws may vary from state to state, as they are currently written, red flag laws leave little to no room for the individuals’ constitutional rights of due process, while simultaneously seeking to deprive them of their 2nd Amendment rights. As argued by the attorney in this case, the law allows for a “very quick and easy mechanism to deprive somebody of their fundamental Second Amendment rights… You have people who are essentially not medical professionals expressing medical opinions that result in the deprivation of rights. And you have a procedure that essentially allows somebody to lose those rights without ever having gone in front of a judge.” Fortunately, Judge Moran was inclined to agree with the attorney, subsequently ruling in its unconsitutionality.