Police officers were attempting to implement Maryland’s new red flag law and, during the process of trying to confiscate a citizen’s weapon, shot and killed the elderly man when he grew enraged after they tried taking his pistol.
Maryland’s ‘Red Flag’ Law Turns Deadly: Officer Kills 61-Year-Old Man Who Refused To Turn In Gunhttps://t.co/faCZAGrtIY
— Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) June 17, 2022
The police reported that two officers were serving what Maryland calls an Extreme Risk Protective Order, which is essentially a red flag law. It’s a protective order in Maryland that requires police to remove the firearms from a residence.
According to Sgt. Jacklyn David of the Anne Arundel County Police Department, the department involved in the shooting, “protective orders to confiscate guns can be requested by family members, law enforcement officers, and mental health specialists.”
The man living at the address had no interest in giving up his firearms and, when police knocked, he had a weapon ready near the entrance to the house.
The officers then proceeded to try to serve the Extreme Risk Protective Order and Willis, the suspect and man living at the address, reached for his weapon, as could be expected of someone whos private property is being taken, even if by the police.
A scuffle then ensued in which he fired the handgun and the second officer started firing, hitting Willis and killing him. He was pronounced dead on the scene.
No officers or other individuals were injured or killed in the encounter, which was the ninth red flag law incident handled by the Anne Arundel County Police Department so far.
According to People’s Law, Maryland created Red Flag Laws in 2018:
Effective October 1, 2018, Maryland has extreme risk protective orders, which is a court order that temporarily requires a person to surrender any firearms or ammunition to law enforcement and not purchase or possess firearms or ammunition. Some people refer to this as a “red flag” law.
The incident is more important and relevant now than ever because, recently, a group of bipartisan senators agreed to a gun control framework that would include, if passed, funding for state red flag laws.
Specifically, the framework provides for “Major funding to help states pass and implement crisis intervention orders (red flag laws) that will allow law enforcement to temporarily take dangerous weapons away from people who pose a danger to others or themselves.”
The Republicans involved in agreeing to that are Cornyn, Tillis, Blunt, Burr, Cassidy, Collins, Graham, Portman, Romney, Toomey.
Though such laws are proferred as a solution to school shootings because people would, theoretically, have their guns taken from them before they could commit such a horrific crime, many doubt that the laws would be effective and argue that they would likely be instead used to disarm dissidents.
Further, such laws essentially involve the taking of a citizen’s property without due process, an attack on property rights.
And this case in Maryland is how they have the potential to end: people being shot because they don’t want to hand over their personal property and means of protection from violent crime.
By: Gen Z Conservative, editor of GenZConservative.com. Follow me on Facebook and Subscribe to My Email List
