In a vote of 3-2 today, right along party lines, New Hampshire Senate Democrats voted to pass House Bill 687 – AN ACT relative to extreme risk protection orders. This legislation is better known as the ‘Red Flag’ bill. NYC billionaire Michael Bloomberg is spending a lot of money on lobbyists to get this bill passed in the State of New Hampshire and the Democrats he bought into office are doing his bidding.
The hearing was held via a Zoom call where the public could register ahead of time to provide testimony. The public was not on video, only audio. Of course, the Senate Judiciary Committee, led by Democrat Martha Hennessey and controlled by Democrats (Melanie Levesque and Shannon Chandley are the other two who voted for this), decided to vote on the legislation right after the hearings were done for the day. The two Republicans on the committee, Sharon Carson and Harold French, voted against it.
What supporters of the bill neglected to mention, and what a few proponents either mentioned or implied, was that HB 687 gives the police even more power over the people than they have currently. A Red Flag order can be petitioned by a family member, ex-lover, family member of an ex-husband or wife, ex-roommate and others who have had some sort of relationship, even if it’s on the fringes of that definition.
Law enforcement are also able to petition the court to request a Red Flag order on an individual.
Let that sink in for a minute. At a time when the entire country, including many police officers, are screaming for reforms in law enforcement, NH Senate Democrats are giving them more power that can easily be abused. Not only is the Red Flag law discriminatory in its very nature (as are all gun control laws) but now the police, who the left claim are riddled with systemic racism, will have another tool to abuse citizens with at the their fingertips.
According to reports, police departments in other states have done just that.
Remember, no crime has been committed. No laws have been broken. HB 687 is based on the premise that an anonymous petitioner (they are indeed anonymous to the respondent) can make claims to a judge, claims that do not have to be supported by the same evidentiary standards as in criminal cases, that the petitioner ‘believes’ the respondent is *thinking* about committing a crime or harming themselves…. sometime in the future.
You read that correctly. No crime has been committed. The respondent legally owns their firearms. No law has been broken. Yet the police can decide they don’t want you to have firearms and easily get a Red Flag order to have them (forcibly) removed from you, along with your 2nd Amendment rights.
A person then has to spend thousands of dollars on a lawyer to defend themselves (it’s not a criminal case, there are no court-appointed lawyers) and possibly thousands more to get their own property back that the police take and put into storage. This intentionally inflicts the most pain on poor people who can barely afford to protect themselves in the first place, never mind defend themselves against ‘the system’ that claims they might be *thinking* about harming themselves in the future.
Red Flag laws are bad enough but at a time when the entire country is focusing on the abuses that indeed happen across the country by some in law enforcement, it’s hardly the time to give police MORE power over the people. Democrats are completely tone deaf to the reforms Granite Staters are demanding and they further proved that with their vote today.
Bloomberg’s Red Flag bill will go to the full senate for a vote on June 29th.
