PIERRE — Sen. Arthur Rusch, a retired state's attorney and judge, wants to start a discussion in South Dakota about gun violence.

But the discussion the Vermillion Republican wanted to start with Senate Bill 82 was short lived after the Senate Judiciary Committee squashed the bill allowing law enforcement to seek an emergency risk protection order to remove firearms and ammunition from people deemed by a court judge to have a high probability to be a threat to themselves or others. The committee voted 5-2 to send the bill to the 41st legislative day, effectively killing it.

More:'Red flag law' proposal would let S.D. police seize firearms from certain people

Rusch was the lone speaker in favor of the bill before the committee on Tuesday, pointing out that he's a gun owner and hunter himself, but "we have a problem with firearms in the United States."

On the other side, Lt. Gov. Larry Rhoden, speaking on behalf of himself and Gov. Kristi Noem, and National Rifle Association lobbyist Brian Gosch warned that SB 82 was a violation of the U.S. Constitution and it won't stop shootings from occurring.

The bill is sometimes called a "red flag law," although Rusch said his is modified because it doesn't allow family members to request an order, among other changes he was proposing.

South Dakota's shootings

The astonishment people felt about the Columbine High School shooting in 1999 has dissipated to the point where people can't name all the shootings that happen, including two that happened in Texas and California on Monday, Rusch said.

People say it's a problem elsewhere and not in South Dakota, but shootings have happened at Harrisburg High School and at Sioux Steel in Lennox as well as shootings that happen regularly across the state, he said. Looking away from it doesn't solve the problem, he said.

"After a hundred years, we now have armed guards at the door of our Capitol building. I absolutely believe that we have a violence problem in the United States," Rusch said.

No legal court has held the belief that the Second Amendment can't be limited, he added.

More:One year later: Harrisburg school shooting coverage

But Rhoden said SB 82 is unconstitutional because it violates the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms, the Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable search and seizure and the Fifth Amendment right to due process. The bill also violates the South Dakota Constitution. The state is supposed to punish people who break the law, not people who may break the law, he said.

"The express purpose of red flag laws are to deprive individuals of their liberty and property interests, specifically the right to own and use firearms," Rhoden said.

If a person is too dangerous to own a gun, why are they walking around with everyone else, Rhoden questioned.

"While these laws may be well intended, we cannot disregard our constitutional rights and reverse more than 200 years of legal history for legislation that will not prevent dangerous individuals from causing harm to others," Rhoden said.

Las Vegas, Hurricane Katrina and suicides

Law-abiding gun owners can sympathize with Rusch's frustration with people misusing firearms, said Sen. Lee Schoenbeck, R-Watertown.

But the issue is predictability and the bill isn't any better than "shaking dice or drawing cards" about predicting who is going to act violently with a firearm, he said. He added that no one could have predicted the 2017 Las Vegas shooting that killed 58 people.

Sen. Jim Stalzer, R-Sioux Falls, opposed the idea of law enforcement storing the firearms it seizes if the bill was passed.

The New Orleans police seized firearms that were stolen or found in abandoned homes after Hurricane Katrina and the firearm owners "waited years to get their firearms and (the guns) had just been thrown in barrels, that were all scratched and rusted and unusable by the time they were returned."

Sen. Craig Kennedy, who joined Rusch in voting against the bill's defeat, applauded Rusch for "having the courage to stand up in South Dakota and say something that I agree needs to be said."

The bill is a "extraordinarily conservative, cautious law" that could only be evoked by law enforcement and would require a hearing and evidence before actions could be taken, said Kennedy, D-Yankton.

More:South Dakota officials map out plan to lower suicide rate

South Dakota doesn't have locations similar to where the Las Vegas shooting occurred, but South Dakota has a "significant problem" with suicides, Kennedy said.

"And if we could through the use of a tool like this, stop one, stop just one, isn't it worth it?" he said.

Disagreement over curbing gun violence

Rusch went point-by-point through the NRA's list of items that need to be in emergency risk protection order legislation for the NRA to support it, explaining how his legislation either met or exceeded what the NRA's requested.

Rusch took issue with people arguing that his bill didn't include due process for the person. Due process includes three factors: the person is given notice of a hearing, there's an opportunity for the hearing and a decision is made by a independent third party, he said. He also argued that his bill prevents a one-sided ex parte hearing where the person isn't present.

Gosch argued that the NRA's list are the actions it wants in red flag laws that it knows it can't stop from passing because of the makeup of that state's Legislature. The NRA will always oppose red flag laws, he said.

Curbing gun violence in the United States is a "laudable goal," but South Dakota doesn't have a problem like other states have, Gosch said. Other states have red flag laws, but it doesn't stop shootings from occurring, he said.

"A lot of times, the proponents of bills like this will say, 'Look, I'm not trying to grab your guns,' but that's all this bill does, is grab your guns," Gosch said.

The bill is asking a judge to predict the future on the basis that someone thinks a person could do something wrong and the person has firearms, he said.

"You don't take away the knives, the ropes, the poison, the pills, other dangerous objects, anything like that. If you truly believe this person's a dangerous individual and may cause harm to him or herself, why are you only taking the firearms away?" Gosch asked.

The senators heard a lot of people objecting to the bill on Tuesday, but "they've got their head in the sand," Rusch said in his rebuttal.

"Did any of them propose any other solutions?" he said. "It's clear there's a problem in South Dakota and elsewhere and we need to do something about it."