Good morning, 

Democrats want control of the Texas House. Perpetually at the top of the Democrats’ legislative wish-list is disarming law-abiding Texans. 

The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” 

Here is today's Texas Minute.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan 

Monday, September 14, 2020
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• The Democrats’ national platform frames gun control as the solution to a public health “epidemic.” They explicitly call for more restrictions on American’s Second Amendment rights.
   
• “We will incentivize states to enact licensing requirements for owning firearms and extreme risk protection order laws that allow courts to temporarily remove guns from the possession of those who are a danger to themselves or others.” – 2020 Democrat Party Platform
     
• These “extreme risk protection order” – also known as “Red Flag” – laws have been proposed around the country by Democrats in recent years as an end-run around the Constitution. And the Texas Democrats’ platform includes their implementation here.

• Such laws would allow a mere complaint about a person’s emotional state—to raise a “red flag,” as it were—to be all the justification necessary for law enforcement officials to seize that person’s firearms. The individual would then have to fight in the courts to prove their innocence in order to get their guns back—a costly process at best, and prohibitively expensive for most.
   
• We have already seen due process turned on its head in the realm of “civil asset forfeiture,” where government entities seize property allegedly used in the commission of a crime. For instance, there are cases like The State of Texas vs. a 2001 Dodge Ram Pickup. The rub comes when property owners are never charged or found guilty of anything. The citizen must then hire lawyers and sue to get their property back.
   
• Conservatives have been fighting for years to reform unjust civil asset forfeiture laws. We’ve seen those laws abused against people who are unable to fund a lawsuit to prove their property was innocent!
   
• Proposed “red flag” laws are even more unjust. While the Second Amendment protects citizens’ right to keep and bear arms, red-flag laws deprive individuals of those rights without due-process. Firearms can be seized, and their owners must hire lawyers to get them back. Along the way, the state is never required to prove any crime, much less prove one beyond a reasonable doubt. And the firearm owner is never given access to a jury, or even to an appeal!
   
• When Americans are deprived of their basic constitutional rights, they suffer an irreparable harm.

• Some groups, like the National Rifle Association, say they support a unicorn-like middle ground. They naively support red-flag laws, but only where due-process is allowed. But the entire point of these laws is to seize firearms from people who have never been convicted, much less accused of any crime. By its nature, a red-flag law is a violation of due-process. The very nature of red-flag laws is for a fundamental constitutional right—ownership of a firearm—to be violated on the basis of mere suspicion.
   
• Fortunately, other groups recognize the threat and are fighting back. Gun Owners of America correctly notes that such laws represent an unconscionable abridgment of fundamental rights, which would soon go beyond just the right to own and possess a gun.
   
• “Peaceful, law-abiding citizens could be forced to defend themselves in a court of law against an accuser who thought they were dangerous just because of their ethnic background.”— Rachel Malone, Gun Owners of America’s Texas Director
   
• “The burden of proof [for a red-flag order] is very low. Any family member, roommate, or neighbor can go to the police to seek an order. Studies show that 98% of all warrants that police seek are approved by the courts. It has cost the accused upwards of $10,000 to get their gun rights back.” – John Crump, former CEO of Veritas Firearms, LLC

• Democrats are waging an all-out war on our civil liberties, ranging from eroding the protections of the First and Second amendments, to criminalizing political participation. Will we go dumb and silent into the night? 
   

• Early voting for the 2020 general election beings on Oct. 13 and runs through Oct. 30.
   
• The General Election is Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2020.

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