The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Senators’ plan would emulate state gun law
As momentum on Capitol Hill for gun legislation slowed to a crawl, Sen. Richard Blumenthal took the wraps off a proposal to open up federal courts nationwide for protective orders to temporarily seize weapons from potential mass shooters.
The law would create what Blumenthal termed a “red flag” — establishing a process in federal court for judicial orders to seize guns for 72 hours when evidence is presented that weapon owners are a danger to themselves or others.
Blumenthal, D-Conn., said he modeled the bill on Connecticut’s 19-year-old risk warrant statute, passed by the Legislature after a disgruntled accountant, Matthew Beck, killed four co-workers with the Connecticut Lottery Corporation in Newington before shooting himself in the head.
Beck already had attempted suicide and was undergoing treatment for depression.
Since then, Blumenthal said, judges in the state have issued 1,519 orders.
“The Connecticut experience is really powerful,” Blumenthal said at a joint news briefing with the bill’s co-author, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.
“It is a way of making sure people who need (mental health) care are at least afforded the opportunity,” Blumenthal said. In about half the cases of gun seizures in Connecticut, the individuals involved received mental health treatment.
The Blumenthal-Graham proposal is among those tailored in response to the Feb. 14 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglass High School, in Parkland, Fla., which cost 17 lives.
The shooter, Nikolas Cruz, had been the subject of multiple warnings and visits by police because of provocative behavior mixed with showing off guns on social media.
Cruz “did everything but take an ad out in the paper (and say) ‘I’m gonna kill people,’ ” Graham said. “Wouldn’t it have been nice if somebody could have grabbed this man and said `what are you up to?’ and take every gun he had … and get him some help before it was too late?”
Blumenthal insisted the bill is “narrowly tailored” to afford the gun owner rights to contest the order in court, plus its 72-hour duration ensures the loss of weapons would be temporary.
The National Rifle Association has vigorously contested such laws at the state level, arguing that due-process assurances are vague and Second Amendment rights would be compromised.
Connecticut is one of five states with risk-warrant laws. The Blumenthal-Graham measure would extend the right to petition for such warrants to those in states without such laws, simply by opening up the federal court system.
“We know these laws work (and) we know that federal magistrates or judges can effectively perform this function,” he said. “We know the states with the strongest laws like Connecticut are at the mercy of states with the weakest ones, because guns and shooters cross borders.”
“There’s nothing to prevent them from going from one state to another,” he added. “That is why a federal solution is important.”
As Graham and Blumenthal spoke, the Senate was debating a Republican-favored overhaul of the Dodd-Frank banking regulation law, with no gun-related bills on the legislative horizon.
Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, R-Texas, accused Democratic Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-.N.Y., of holding up the so-called Fix NICS bill, which he wrote with Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn.
It would offer incentives to states and federal agencies to add records to the FBI data base that licensed gun dealers consult when determining if a buyer is qualified under law to own a firearm.
Blumenthal, Murphy and other Democrats scoff at the idea that they are to blame, pointing out that Republicans are in the majority in both House and Senate, and control what gets to the floor — and what doesn’t.