TX Democrats Waste No Time Going After Guns

I hate seeing the future sometimes.

I'm not saying I'm clairvoyant or anything, mind you. I'm saying that sometimes, I can tell what's going to happen because I'm someone who learns from history. The fact that it's often recent history that I'm tracking means I'm far from unique in seeing it, but it still sucks to be right.

"What are you talking about, Tom? Can you get to the point?"

OK, fine. I will. 

I knew that pretty much everywhere that Democrats ran on things like affordability and won, based on affordability, they'd waste no time going after people's guns. That's what happened in Virginia, and that's now what seems to be happening in Texas.

Texas Democrats are wasting no time pushing new gun restrictions following last week’s election sweep, filing legislation that would allow judges to order firearms confiscated without a prior hearing.

House Bill 218, filed Monday by Democrat State Rep. Ann Johnson of Houston, would repeal Texas’ prohibition on red flag laws and establish a process for courts to issue extreme risk protective orders.

Under the proposal, family members, household members, and law enforcement officers could petition a court to restrict an individual’s firearm rights if they believe the person poses an immediate danger because of alleged mental illness and access to firearms.

A judge could issue a temporary order without notifying the gun owner or holding a hearing, requiring the individual to surrender their firearms to law enforcement within 24 hours.

A hearing would be required within 14 days, after which a judge could impose a prohibition lasting one year, subject to renewal.

Texas Gun Rights President Chris McNutt blasted the proposal and accused Democrats of attempting to establish a statewide gun confiscation program.

“The gun confiscation lobby and their puppets in the Legislature aren’t wasting any time,” McNutt told Texas Scorecard. “Ann Johnson’s HB 218 doesn’t just repeal Texas’s ban on red flag laws. It creates a statewide red flag gun confiscation scheme that lets a judge order your guns taken without a crime, without a hearing, and without you ever knowing it was coming, based on nothing more than an allegation.”

In addition, there are multiple bills that seek to ban the sale of most commonly owned semiautomatic rifles to adults under 21, among other measures. This, however, is the most insidious of the proposals because it's an affront to both the Second Amendment and due process.

What's more, it's not needed. There are already processes in place to remove people who are a danger to themselves and others for up to 72 hours and place them in a psychiatric facility for evaluation. While that's a problem, too, it does at least have the benefit of removing a potentially dangerous person from society, as opposed to just taking their guns and hoping they won't use something like a car to injure and kill people in job lots.

Nothing about this is good news, but if there's a bright spot, it's that the Democrats' blue wave in the Lone Star State wasn't enough to change the majority in the state Senate. That means any proposal has to go through that chamber for a vote. While I'm not sure about the procedures and rules of the Texas Senate, I do know that a majority trumps a minority in legislative chambers.

In other words, there's not a lot of chance of these measures passing.

But it's still telling that this is what lawmakers have decided to focus on with their newfound majority in the House and the executive branch of the state government.

Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their extreme gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.

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