this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2025
335 points (96.1% liked)
Greentext
6828 readers
564 users here now
This is a place to share greentexts and witness the confounding life of Anon. If you're new to the Greentext community, think of it as a sort of zoo with Anon as the main attraction.
Be warned:
- Anon is often crazy.
- Anon is often depressed.
- Anon frequently shares thoughts that are immature, offensive, or incomprehensible.
If you find yourself getting angry (or god forbid, agreeing) with something Anon has said, you might be doing it wrong.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
No. Thats 4chan, a place of lies and deception.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_flag_law
Despite being blatantly unconstitutional (deprives a citizen of rights based on an accusation without trial) red flag laws exist in 21 states.
In this particular thread, 4chan is a better source of information than Lemmy.
If you look at the numbers in your own post these laws are used very rarely, and in every state a fraction of petitions applied for are granted.
There needs to be actual evidence greater than "ex girlfriend said so" for a court to grant the request.
Ironically by the numbers Florida seems to be the state most likely to use the law. Granting a total of 2,355 in 2020. California on the other hand has issued only 984. These are the 3rd and 1st most populous states respectively.
Given how many people go through breakups each year and how many people are insanely petty, seems like it's not just based on a disgruntled ex's word.
I wonder if the stat is skewed by the fact that Florida has the largest population of Florida Men.
The government is allowed to suppress your constitutional rights in cases where it's narrowly tailored to a legitimate government interest (the strict scrutiny standard). This may seem suspect, but it allows the government to do things like prevent people from bringing guns into schools or planes, or spreading private information or harmful lies about others, or being overtly loud when their neighbors are trying to sleep. It does require a high burden of proof from the potential violating body, so it's not done casually.
For red flag laws, I imagine temporarily seizing the guns of someone who a judge is convinced is a significant danger to themselves or others would meet this standard. From what the other commenter said, it sounds like it isn't done casually in practice. We are missing parts of the story that may make it seem prudent.
Red flag laws, as written, don't come anywhere near a strict scrutiny standard and rarely involve a judge. Usually police are empowered to make the decision, or worse, instructed to always seize weapons immediately until a judge says give them back, even if the police think it sounds like bullshit (as in the scenario of the greentext).
From the Wikipedia page, emphasis mine:
Intuitively, it makes sense the police would not be able to search someone's home for guns without a judge's permission. It would be hard to say that there was a compelling emergency just from going through things that someone had said or things that had been said about them.
I didn't see a federal supreme court case that ruled on red flag laws specifically, but it sounded like there were some state supreme court rulings that found them unconstitutional. So it is at least contentious whether they meet the strict scrutiny standard or not.
When I was living with my parents my dad pushed my brother and told him to "get the fuck out". My brother called the cops on him and the cops came and took my dad away that day. He got let out but IIRC a couple days later he had to surrender his firearms later until everything was settled.