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On 26 February 2018, Governor Gina Raimondo of Rhode Island signed an executive order instructing state police to promptly respond to and investigate credible red flag reports identifying people who pose significant danger of personal injury to themselves or others in the state. The order further directs police, in cases where probable cause is found, to initiate criminal proceedings or arrange mental health evaluation where appropriate, as well as to remove firearms from the person and/or the person's household. Despite stipulating that all of the above must be done in a manner consistent with all applicable state and federal laws and regulations, the order to remove firearms was characterized by some as a dictatorial confiscation of guns by the government. In an article headlined R.I. Governor Signs Executive Order To Seize Guns, for example, the Conservative Daily Post web site reported: That description of the document is wildly inaccurate, however. For one thing, the order does not contain language allowing the federal government to seize firearms. Nothing in the order applies to the federal government at all; it is directed at the Rhode Island State Police. Moreover, despite instructing the state police to do so, the executive order doesn't by itself give them the legal authority to confiscate the weapons of those deemed dangerous, as the Providence Journal pointed out on the day of its signing: In a public statement, Raimondo said her intention was to put a policy in place that sets the stage for a complementary legislative effort. That effort has already resulted in H 7688, a bill introduced in the Rhode Island General Assembly that would provide a legal framework for the policy similar to those established by the five states that have already red flag laws. According to the legislature's press release, the bill creates an 'extreme risk protective order' which would allow authorities to disarm threatening individuals while also providing them due process: Far from empowering the government to arbitrarily decide which individuals can have a gun and conduct wholesale confiscations, the legislation establishes court procedures for demonstrating probable cause so that a dangerous individual can be disarmed. The legislators say their intent is to provide a speedy but fair process. Theoretically, such a law could prevent mass shootings such as the one at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida that resulted in seventeen deaths in February 2018. The accused shooter was known to have engaged in hate speech, made violent threats, displayed a fascination with assault weapons, and joked with online acquaintances about killing people. [A] gun violence restraining order could have made the difference here, Garen Wintemute, director of the Violence Prevention Research Program at UC Davis Medical Center, told the Bay Area News Group shortly after the Florida attack. The red flag laws already enacted by states such as California, Washington, Oregon, and Indiana haven't been in effect long enough to assess how well they work, although a study conducted in Connecticut, which has had such a law since 1999, showed that at least 72 gun suicides have been prevented since its passage. Despite winning the support of the state Police Chiefs Association, Gov. Raimondo's executive order and the complementary legislation prompted an expression of great concern on the part of the American Civil Liberties Union. However, the issues they raised had nothing directly to do with gun confiscation, but rather with the question of due process for people who have not committed a crime: As ever, the thorniest problems in a free society often come down to balancing individual rights against the public good. How many children must die before we find a solution to gun violence? Which of our rights, if any, would we be willing to give up to do so?
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