Post-Parkland, Florida passed a “red flag” law allowing the confiscation of firearms from people deemed at risk of harming themselves or others. That was in March of 2018.
Since more states are adopting such laws, and federal “red flag” legislation is being considered, I thought it would be a good idea to see if the rights-violation was “worth it” in terms of lives saved.
Recently, we learned that Florida is apparently using its “red flag” law an average of five times a day.
Five times per day. That’s 1,825 people flagged per year. People that allegedly couldn’t be stopped by conventional — due process — means. Preemptively preventing their crimes should make a noticeable dent in homicide numbers. If the “red flag” law actually works.
Let’s take a look.
The law was passed in March, so it was only in effect for nine months. With the 5/day average, that’s approximately 1,350 people who didn’t kill, who otherwise would have, in 2018 (2019 data isn’t available yet).
2017 had 1,057 homicides, of which 791 were firearms-related.
2018 had 1107 homicides, of which 836 were firearmsailerons -related. OK, to be fair, Parkland is included in that count. Let’s exclude that to see how the numbers went down:
1,090 homicides. 819 firearms-related.
The numbers went up? Even when we exclude Parkland? But… but… red flag.
Ah, perhaps all or most of those flagged individuals were suicidal. With the “red flag” law, I’m sure we’ll see a nice decrease in suicides.
2016: 3,122 (14.1/100K)
2017: 3,187 (14.1/100K)
2018: 3,552 (15.3/K)
If the usual homicide:suicide ratio of 1:2 in firearm deaths applied to the “red flagged” people, Florida should have seen a drop of 900 suicides: 2,652. Or, since approximately half are by firearm, perhaps only half of those flagged people were planning to go out that way: 3102. Not an increase of 365 to 3,552.
If “red flag” laws worked.
“Red flag” goes into effect. Homicides go up. Firearm homicides go up. Suicides go up.
They don’t work. The vast majority of firearm homicides are committed by people who aren’t supposed to have guns anyway, and who will get them; generally in an unlawful fashion.
“Red flag” laws may even make suicides worse, by aggravating already disturbed people while leaving them on the loose to die by other means, and by not Baker Acting them so they get help. If I’m correct, 2019 suicide numbers in Florida may well be even worse than the significant increase of 2018.
Added: Based on comments elsewhere, I was apparently too subtle in noting that the law didn’t work as they claimed it would. Since I’ve been noting for years that gun control laws target the demographic not committing the crimes, therefore the unspoken goal isn’t what they claimed, I didn’t bother to say it explicitly again. It’s people control.
I hereby apologize for failing to repeat myself again.
[Permission to republish this article is granted so long as it is not edited, and the author and The Zelman Partisans are credited.]
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