People deemed to be a danger can lose gun rights under new Massachusetts law

[DonViejo]

By Joshua Miller GLOBE STAFF JULY 03, 2018

Governor Charlie Baker on Tuesday signed into law a bill that gives courts the authority to strip weapons from people who have been identified by their families as a danger to themselves or others. The new statute strengthens already strict gun laws and makes Massachusetts the latest state to respond to a national spate of mass shootings with more restrictions on firearms.

Baker, a Republican, signed the “red flag” legislation at the State House surrounded by Democratic legislators, police officers, mothers who have rallied for stronger gun laws, and a Cambridge Rindge & Latin School student who had been advocating for the bill.

“Even in a state like ours, which has made tremendous progress on this issue, when there’s more to do, we do it — and we do it in a way that gives everybody the chance to be heard,” Baker said.

House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo, Beacon Hill’s leading advocate for gun control, said: “As we stand here right now, I think we can rest assured that we did everything that we could do to keep our constituents safe from gun violence in Massachusetts.”

He also said the new law is “just to keep guns away from those folks who should not have guns,” so those who lawfully own guns, “they’ve got nothing to be concerned about.”

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https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2018/07/03/baker-signs-red-flag-gun-bill-into-law/SqiPzGFWjxHLcZWqnxMGRJ/story.html

[SonofDonald]

1. Only a couple decades late

But better than nothing.

My extended family was on its last nerve for years because of a member with a fucked up idea of himself VS everybody.

YEARS

His father and I took a trip to the county sheriff's over it, not one thing they could do.

So we all lived with a nightmare for another 15 years, he passed away and we found out he'd been talked to and arrested many times during this period.

But he never was taken to task otherwise.

Was never made to pay for his actions.

But we all paid.

[Lee-Lee]

2. You all know I'm a pretty pro-gun person

And I’m perfectly ok with this, because it does it right. It gives a person due process to have a hearing within 10 days and includes a process to appeal.

There still is a possibility of abuse, where people use it as a tool to harass a person they know owns guns. But that’s the same risk of abuse that protective orders have. It happens, but as along as the courts are vigilant for the cases and punish those who abuse it then I am ok with it.

I do with it would come with mandatory mental health treatment. Because without that it’s a bit of a hollow gesture. You are saying a person is so dangerous they can’t be trusted with a firearm because they pose a danger to themselves or others to the point you must strip them of a Constitutional right, but then turning that person back out on the street with access to medications, knives, cars, black market firearms and all kinds of ways they could still harm themselves or others. It is essentially saying we only care if you hurt yourself or anyone else with gun, as long as you don’t use a gun it’s acceptable. But that’s the folly of must gun control ideas and advocates, they focus just on the gun instead of the behavior so they come up with “solutions” that pretty much accept harm to people as long as it’s just not with a gun.