Under law, Parscale could lose his guns

State’s ‘red flag law’ may apply in incident

After SWAT officers tackled Brad Parscale in front of his Fort Lauderdale home Sunday, police seized all his guns.

Now, city officials have filed a request to keep his guns away from him for at least two weeks under Florida’s socalled “red flag law,” saying

President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager posed a danger to himself and others.

A risk protection order — filed by the Fort Lauderdale Police Department and city of Fo r t Lauderdale — said Parscale, 44, poses “significant danger of causing personal injury to themselves or others in the near future.”

The law says police have 14 days to petition a judge to keep Parscale from his guns for an entire year.

The Fort Lauderdale Police

Department did not immediately respond to questions about the guns they seized.

Police documents offer a window into the guns in Parscale’s home: 11 firearms of varying caliber, including seven handguns, and a “cache” of ammunition.

Parscale does not have a concealed weapons license, according to those documents, but a license is not required to purchase, own or keep guns in your house in

Florida.

At the hearing that will determine whether Parscale keeps his guns, a judge will consider if there is clear and convincing evidence that Parscale presents a “significant danger of causing personal injury to himself or herself or others,” by examining if he’s been the perpetrator of a recent act or threat of violence against himself or others, or made any such threat in the past 12 months.

Additionally, the judge will consider if there is “evidence of the respondent being seriously mentally ill or having recurring mental health issues.”

The process is a civil matter, not a criminal one, said Nova Southeastern University law professor Robert Jarvis. Parscale is not entitled to legal representation, but he may hire an attorney. Since the law passed, Jarvis said it has been applied thousands of times in Florida, although data showing how often it’s used is still lacking. That’s because the law is new and the data is compiled by each individual county.

“It’s being used about five times a day in Florida, across the state,” said Dave Aronberg, the state attorney for Palm Beach County.

Aronberg last looked into the statistics around the law’s usage in April, and he says that what he found was surprising.

“In practice it is not a very controversial law, and I know this because they are most popular in the reddest of counties, the most pro-gun counties are the ones that use it the most,” he said.