‘Red flag’ legislation emerges as leading option in the Senate following shootings

Senators in both parties say “red flag” legislation, which already exists as law in at least 19 states, has the best chance of securing enough bipartisan support to make it to President Biden’s desk in the wake of mass shootings in Buffalo, N.Y., and Uvalde, Texas.  

A number of senators now see red flag legislation as perhaps having a better chance of becoming law than proposals to expand background checks, reforms the House passed in March of 2021 but have sat in Senate limbo for more than a year.  

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), a key swing vote, on Wednesday identified red flag legislation as a promising avenue for compromise.  

“If we can’t get 70 or 75 senators to vote for commonsense protection of your children or grandchildren, what in the world are we here for? What’s your purpose for being in the United States Senate if it’s not at least to protect the children?” he said, discounting calls to abolish the Senate filibuster and pass gun control measures by strict party-line votes.  

He highlighted his conversations with colleagues about red flag laws.  

“We talked about the red flag. It’s worked. It’s works in states such as Florida. It’s been very effective,” he said.  

Manchin also pointed to legislation to expand background checks for firearms sales and transfers. 

“Background checks is something that doesn’t infringe” on gun owners’ rights, he added.  

But Manchin said last year that he did not support the bill passed by the House to require background checks for all firearms sales and transfers. 

The proposal he negotiated with Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) in 2013, and which he endorsed again last week, would not require background checks for transfers between friends and family.  

“There are a lot of solid things that will work and we need to look at those and basically get a piece of legislation. We know that we can show we can be united to protect our children. That’s the thing in a nutshell,” he said.  

“I’m willing to look at anything that’s practical that makes sense,” he added.  

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), another prominent centrist, told reporters that she also sees red flag legislation, which is on the books in Maine, as a good bipartisan proposal.  

“I believe that we should look at enacting a red flag law based on the one we have in Maine, which has due process rights and involves a medical professional in the decision,” she told reporters Tuesday evening.  “I don’t know the details of the shooter, but it’s hard to believe he wasn’t mentally ill.”   

Collins on Wednesday reiterated support for legislation that would create a process to take firearms away from people who are mentally unstable. 

She said she told Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), one of the lead Democratic negotiators on gun violence legislation, about the Maine law.  

“That is the kind of law that could have made a difference in this case since according to press reports, if they are accurate, he suffered from mental illness. It’s my understanding he bought his weapon legally and passed a background check,” she said, referring to the 18-year-old shooter in Texas.  

“I really think our focus should be on looking at what the states have done, what some states have done on red flag or yellow flag laws,” she said.  

Collins and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) sponsored red flag legislation with Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) in 2018.  

That proposal, the Federal Extreme Risk Protection Order Act, would have established procedures for requesting a court order to prohibit a person deemed an imminent risk to themselves or others from possessing a firearm. 

“We’ve come close to a red flag statute. Sen. Graham and I had a measure that we actually introduced and I think there’s common ground on a red flag statute, which separates people from guns when they are dangerous to people or others,” Blumenthal said.  

Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Rick Scott (R-Fla.), Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and Angus King (I-Maine) introduced their own version of red flag legislation last year.  

Their Extreme Risk Protection Order and Violence Prevention Act would direct Department of Justice funds to incentivize states to adopt laws similar to Florida’s red flag law, which the state enacted after 17 people died in the shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.  

Scott, who signed the law while he was Florida’s governor, says it’s since been used 5,000 times to take guns away from people deemed to be mentally unstable or dangerous.  

“Here’s the way we did it in Florida: For people who threatened harm to themselves or somebody else, you could only go through law enforcement and you had to go through the courts and it wasn’t permanent,” he said of the process to take guns away from people deemed to be dangerous.  

“Somebody from law enforcement told me it’s been used 5,000 times,” he said. 

Scott noted that Florida also raised the age for purchasing a firearm to 21 and said such requirements should be implemented on the state level instead of nationally.