Imagine you’re just going about your life, then one day the police show up at your door. You’ve done nothing wrong, so you answer. After all, they might need your help in some regard, something you might have seen or whatever.

However, you’re told that they’re there to collect your guns. Someone used the red flag law in your state and says you’re a threat and they are there to get all your firearms.

I’d imagine that if you’re like me, you’d feel a mixture of emotions. Anger at someone doing this to you, for one thing. Confusion, maybe, depending on your circumstance?

The truth is that red flag laws aren’t some amazing thing. They create a lot of problems for the victim of such orders, problems that can be difficult to get beyond in some cases.

So imagine your state rep is actually urging people to use them?

That’s what’s happening in at least one Illinois district.

From The Truth About Guns:

One of the gun control measures Rep. [Denyse Wang] Stoneback helped push over the line before being elected was the Firearms Restraining Order Act, Illinois’ version of a red flag confiscation law. Once in office, she helped expand the law so that more people, including ex spouses and those with common children, can drop a dime on a gun owner and move to confiscate their firearms.

Now Rep. Stoneback is taking steps to make sure that all of her constituents know about the law and can easily petition a court to grab the guns of someone they know and love (or just someone with whom they have a beef).

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Reader AJ who lives in Morton Grove got this flyer from Rep. Stoneback in the mail yesterday. Here’s the other side . . .

I’m going to ask you to go over there and look at the flyer.

Basically, Stoneback is asking if you have a loved one “in crisis” and, if so, to use the red flag law to forcibly disarm them.

TTAG has reached out to Stoneback’s office to verify the flyer is real, but since they haven’t bothered to get back to them, I think it’s safe to assume it’s legit. After all, if they were interested in denying the authenticity, you’d imagine they’d jump on that one.

Now, it’s easy to look at something like this and shrug it off. After all, she’s talking about people “in crisis,” right?

The problem is that if someone is in crisis, a real crisis, then how does taking away their guns and making them feel less than human actually help anything?

If they want to hurt other people, they’re still on the streets where they can do just that. If they want to hurt themselves, they’re free to do that as well. What’s more, there are still plenty of avenues available to them to do either of those things. They don’t actually need the guns for that.

Further, if a loved one is in crisis, why not do something to actually help them get through the crisis instead of potentially making it worse?

That’s a big problem with red flag laws. They don’t treat the symptom or the problem. They just remove one thing from the equation and pretend that’s enough.

I’m unsurprised that a gun-grabbing lawmaker would urge people to do just that, though.