Red Flag Law Fails in Buffalo Supermarket Mass Shooting Spree
“Red Flag laws,” or Extreme Risk Protection Orders, have been promoted by anti-gun activists over the past few years as a solution to violent crimes committed with firearms. Essentially, these laws allow authorities to seize the weapons of someone who is thought to be violent or dangerous. These laws, executed before a crime has even been committed, have not been shown to work as intended.
“Red flag Laws”, which allow police to seize the firearms of people accused of being at risk to misuse them, have been passed in 19 states. Do they do what proponents say they do? A recent study by Veronica Pear, PhD and Garen Wintemute, MD, and co-authors says the answer is clearly, “No”.
The latest example of the failure of this law happened just this week, in Buffalo, New York. A spree killer attacked innocents at a supermarket, killing ten and wounding three. This shooter was known to be dangerous, and had spoken about committing murder and committing suicide a year prior to the incident.
“The Buffalo supermarket massacre should never have occurred under New York’s “red flag” law, which is designed to specifically keep firearms out of the hands of disturbed individuals, a gun policy expert told The Post Tuesday.”
“Accused mass killer Payton Gendron may have been a perfect case for the use of the law, as reports that the 18-year-old was talking about suicide and murder came to the attention of educators and law enforcement nearly a year before he killed 10 black people on Saturday — but nothing was done.”
New York State has some of the strictest gun laws in the nation, and also has a Red Flag law in place. Yet, a person who was clearly disturbed, and voiced his desire to kill, managed to accomplish his deadly task despite the Red Flag law and all other preventative laws.
It is important to ask, what are Red Flag laws for, and who are they meant to target? Time and time again, these laws are advertised as a solution to gun violence, and time and time again they fail.
