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Opinion

Virginia – -(AmmoLand.com)- AmmoLand News' pundit John Farnam recently wrote a thought-provoking article on how gun owners should behave in states that have adopted “Red Flag” laws, where your guns can be confiscated for an arbitrary amount of time-based on someone else's word that you are a danger to yourself or others.

Under Red Flag laws your “due process” won't come for weeks or months after they have already confiscated all your firearms, with no actual crime having been committed. And how does one even PROVE that they are not dangerous? And if a person is truly dangerous, why don't the Red Flag laws make any attempt to have the “dangerous” person taken into custody or to get them help?

Red Flag laws violate the the following Amendments to the Constitution:

2nd (right to keep and bear arms)

4th (protection against unreasonable search and seizures)

5th (right to due process, just compensation, self-incrimination)

and 6th (right to confront accusers, cross-examine witnesses, have a public defender).

John and I are looking at this situation from two different angles. John's advice is meant to keep gun owners from being victims of Red Flag laws by having them stay under the radar. That is a laudable goal meant to save as many gun owners as possible from falling in the unconstitutional Red Flag web. John suggests hiding your gun ownership to as high a degree as possible. Only people with a need to know should know.

I look at hiding gun ownership as giving the gun controllers exactly what they want – gun owners going quietly into the night.

Red Fag laws are not about saving lives. They are about gun confiscation, plain and simple. While keeping a low profile will reduce your chances of becoming a victim, you will still never know if that 4 am knock on the door is coming anyhow.

I think we have to go in the other direction. We need to go on the offensive. We need to remind our fellow Americans, and politicians, that there are over 80 million of us and we are NOT going to go quietly into the night. In fact, we are not going to go anywhere:

We must educate others, every chance we get. Too many people, including many gun owners, have fallen for the soundbites that seem reasonable on the surface, but are lies and misrepresentations of the real effects of Red Flag laws. Many people simply don't know the truth. The Virginia Citizens Defense League has a flyer we encourage gun owners to print out and give away at gun shows and other events, and to give to reporters, family, friends, and coworkers – anyone that will take one. Feel free to steal the concept and create your own flyer, if you wish, or just use ours: vcdl.org/resources/PDF/RED_FLAG_laws_flyer.pdf

We need to write letters to the editor of our local papers and certainly never let a pro-Red Flag letter or editorial go unchallenged.

We need to call talk-radio shows and discuss the dangers that Red Flag laws bring to our way of life.

We need to educate politicians. If that fails, then we need to organize protests outside their local offices, which will hopefully be picked up by local news to spread the word even further.

We need to make it a priority to vote out of office any politician who supports Red Flag laws.

Gun owners in states with Red Flag laws need to work tirelessly to get those laws repealed.

All that said, John's article provided some advice which is good under all conditions: Don't make enemies if you can reasonably avoid it. Be a polite, civil, pleasant, courteous person. Don't inject yourself into other people's business.

The ongoing war against gun ownership, and most of our other American values continues to escalate daily and we have no choice but to meet it head on and to defeat it. Our opponents want to divide us and we can't let that happen. If you own a gun, regardless of whether it is a handgun, rifle, or shotgun, or regardless if it is for self-defense, target shooting, collecting, or hunting, or regardless if you think a gun-control law, such as a Red Flag law, won't affect you personally, we must ALL stand unified in protecting ALL of our gun rights. 80 million of us, standing as one, makes us an unstoppable force and the gun controllers know it.

Philip Van Cleave

President

Virginia Citizens Defense League

About Virginia Citizens Defense League, Inc. (VCDL):

Virginia Citizens Defense League, Inc. (VCDL). VCDL is an all-volunteer, non-partisan grassroots organization dedicated to defending the human rights of all Virginians. The Right to Keep and Bear Arms is a fundamental human right.

For more information, visit: www.vcdl.org.