With Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis leading the charge to repeal the state's "red flag" law and other post-Parkland gun controls, the gun control lobby is doing its utmost to portray Extreme Risk Protection Orders in the most positive light possible. That includes a new survey from the gun control group 97 Percent, which purports to "reduce gun deaths by including gun owners in the solutions".
What that means in reality is that the group wants to use gun owners as cover for their anti-2A agenda, and they're touting a new survey of some 5,100 gun owners across the country that supposedly found widespread support for ERPO laws, even in the most Second Amendment-friendly states in the country.
The group's findings are already being used to push back against the potential repeal of Florida's "red flag" law, with at least one press outlet in the state citing the survey to claim that the law is broadly popular with the general public and Florida gun owners.
Conducted by nonpartisan, nonprofit 97Percent, the study found that 72% of gun owners support red flag laws, also known as Extreme Risk Protection Orders (ERPOs). 97Percent also found the measure has over 50% support in every state in the country, including Florida.
The organization said its mission is to "reduce gun deaths by including gun owners in the solutions." DeSantis has said the policy infringes on the rights of law-abiding gun owners.
In addition, 97Percent found the measure is supported in ruby-red West Virginia and right-leaning North Carolina. Colorado and Michigan, with numerous Second Amendment Sanctuary counties, also back red flag laws.
A closer look at the group's survey, however, reveals some fundamental flaws. While 97 Percent claims that 72% of respondents back "red flag" laws, their survey also found that only 59% of respondents said they had a "high familiarity" with those statutes; a clear sign that at least some of those supporters have no idea what they're actually supporting.
And it doesn't appear that the group ever bothered to inform survey respondents about the particulars of Extreme Risk Protection Order statutes, including the fact that the subject of a "red flag" petition is not entitled to legal representation if they can't afford to hire an attorney or the lack of mental health treatment for those deemed by a judge to be a danger to themselves or others.
Instead, the group tested various messaging strategies on gun owners, including this "emotional frame":
Hannah's husband, Jason, was becoming increasingly violent. With the support of her family, she chose to leave him and move in with her parents, but he continued to threaten her despite having a restraining order against him. One night, Jason drove to Hannah's parents' house and shot her three times before turning the gun on himself. Miraculously, Hannah survived, but she and her family now live in fear. Thoughtful gun safety measures could have prevented this tragedy while still respecting the rights of gun owners.
What "thoughtful gun safety measures" could have prevented the tragedy went unspecified by 97 Percent, but when presented with such an emotional appeal it shouldn't come as a surprise that some respondents would have been persuaded to back a "red flag" law. I wonder, though, how those same folks would have responded if 97 Percent had presented this emotional framing instead:
Hannah's husband, Jason, was becoming increasingly violent. With the support of her family, she chose to leave him and move in with her parents, but he continued to threaten her despite having a restraining order against him. One night, Jason drove to Hannah's parents' house with the intent of shooting her before taking his own life. Hannah, however, didn't depend on a piece of paper to protect her. She'd purchased a firearm for personal protection a few days earlier, and as Jason was climbing in to the home through a window he'd broken, Hannah fired three shots in self-defense, preventing her abusive husband from harming her or her family.
Even in the scenario laid out by 97 Percent, the flaws in "red flag" statutes are abundantly clear. Just as "Jason" disregarded the restraining order telling him to stay away from his wife, he could have easily ignored a prohibition on him owning a gun and acquired one on the black market, through theft, or a family member or friend. He didn't even have to use a gun. He could have gone to Hannah's home with a knife, some zip ties, or a can of gasoline and matches and done just as much harm to her family without ever violating his Extreme Risk Protection Order.
In order to accurately gauge how gun owners feel about "red flag" laws, we also need to understand how much they know about the particulars of ERPO statutes, and if nothing else, the 97 Percent survey shows that a plurality of gun owners consider themselves pretty uninformed on the issue. That alone is enough to treat the group's findings with skepticism, but the blatant emotional appeal the group deployed to drum up support for "red flag" laws is a red flag of its own, and all the more reason to disregard the gun control group's claims that the vast majority of gun owners are on board with Extreme Risk Protection Orders.
