Red-flag gun laws are step in right direction

Common-sense gun control. In the overheated cauldron that constitutes the debate over guns, it remains a most perplexing anomaly.

To those who point to our never-ending string of mass shootings, it is a given, something long overdue.

To ardent Second Amendment advocates, it is nothing short of a call to arms. Literally.

Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke didn’t exactly douse this inferno at the recent debate when he vowed to take away people’s AK-47s and AR-15s, often the weapons of choice in recent years’ horrific shootings, such as the terror spree inflicted on his hometown of El Paso.

So let’s start with a few ground rules.

No one is coming to take your guns, despite O’Rourke’s rhetoric.

The Second Amendment is not going away, nor should it.

However, that right to bear arms is not absolute. No less a conservative icon than late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia conceded that.

So the search for commonsense gun control continues.

Specifically, the notion of keeping guns out of the hands of those who should not have them, and perhaps limiting the lethal capacity of those guns that are out there.

More stringent background checks for all gun purchases, including private sales.

Of course, there is a stipulation here — one made all the time by gun rights activists — that before any new laws are considered, it would help if the ones on the books were enforced. And stiff penalties were exacted on those who break them.

Gun rights activists constantly note that you can pass all the laws you want, and it will not stop criminals from ignoring the law and packing heat. They are right.

But it clearly is not — and has not — been enough.

There are areas where we can — and must — do more.

Which brings us to Harrisburg, the capital of Pennsylvania and one of the bastions of gun rights.

The tide may be shifting, if only marginally, in the state Capitol in favor of those pushing what most would consider “common-sense” gun control.

One effort once again being considered by the Legislature is known as an ERPO, or redflag bill. ERPO stands for Extreme Risk Protection Order. It would allow the courts after hearing solid evidence to temporarily remove guns from a person deemed to be dangerous, either to themselves or others.

Sen. Tom Killion, R-9th Dist., increasingly a voice espousing common-sense solutions to our gun problems, is pushing Senate Bill 90. Similar red-flag legislation is making its way through the House.

Killion’s red-flag push came in the wake of a tragedy in Delaware County, where a woman was gunned down by her estranged husband in a Radnor Wawa in front of horrified customers and employees. The woman and her husband were involved in a long, contentious divorce. He had made threats against her. And he was still able to casually stroll into the Wawa where they routinely exchanged custody of their child and open fire on her at close range, killing her. Luckily, she did not have the child with her in this instance.

One area red-flag laws would target that does not get nearly as much attention deals with those who are a danger to themselves. Of the approximately 1,500 gun-related deaths recorded every year in Pennsylvania, 62 percent are people taking their own lives.

This week activists and lawmakers came together at a rally at the Capitol during Suicide Prevention Awareness Month to boost passage of a red-flag law.

Ardent gun rights supporters want to put a red light on such red-flag legislation. They foresee problems with overzealous judges seizing guns, along with contentious divorce and other private matters being twisted in an effort to take away guns from law-abiding citizens.

We’d like to think our judges and courts are better than that.

We hope Pennsylvania will join 17 other states and Washington, D.C., who already have such laws on the books, with no great uptick in seizure of firearms from those not in danger.

Give the green light to redflag laws. Seems like common sense to us.