FYI and use: Sent to Virginia elected officials. Suggest contacting officials with your views. These were mine.

"The red flag legislation, as I interpret it, unacceptably and immediately removes a Virginian’s civil rights without warning or due process. There are no explicit requirements for clear and authoritative evidence by mental health professionals showing the person to be a grave mental health concern prior to the Commonwealth imposing life-changing, civil rights removing sanctions against them.

Legislation includes the labeling of those red flagged as criminals and life risks in Virginia, State-level databases. There is no allowance for the red flagged, criminally-designated Virginian to request an immediate stay of the judgement against them or measures to immediately prevent their loss of civil rights and property. Most telling, the legislation places the burden on the flagged citizen to prove, in some undefined manner, that they are not a risk to themselves and others.
It also places all burden for the return of their property on their making timely, written requests, or risk loss of their property.

I urge deferment the proposed red flag legislation in the Commonwealth. If a Virginian is truly a life risk to themselves or the community, I believe that the State already has the authority and obligation to place that person into custody.

My review of information on the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007 shows that local Government actions in Virginia failed to place into custody the Virginia Tech mass murderer prior to the shooting. The mass murderer was a known mental health concern and was reported to Government officials prior to him committing mass murder. In my view, the Government failed to recognize the danger posed and place the murder-to-be into custody for safety reasons. I believe that the mass murderer at Virginia Tech in 2007, even if lacking firearms, would have, acted on his malevolent intentions and sought, obtained, and used other means to perpetrate great harm.

If a Virginian is truly a life risk to themselves or the community, the State already has the authority and obligation to place that person into custody.

I believe that some Virginians may hold that any civilian possession and presence of firearms, whether in their families and amongst neighbors, may pose an unacceptable risk to themselves or the community. The red flag legislation offers no stated protections against accusations from those who may feel justified in making malicious, capricious or frivolous accusations resulting in initiation of red flag processes and possible sanctions being imposed against them.
American and Virginians’ civil rights are too precious to be administratively removed through the proposed red flag legislation.

Thank you for supporting and preserving the civil rights and liberties of all Virginians through judicious and careful use of any legislation which may cause unjustified loss of rights and property."

###Senator Marsden's email response###

This is a civil process. A mental health temporary detention order places someone in custody. Not all high risk persons are mental health cases eligible for commitment. Some are just angry, bitter folks.The law requires that a person comply with a court order. In this case the judge issues an order for the guns, not the person, and due process has been served. Pollice execute the judges order that was disobeyed by the high risk person.

These laws have been ruled constitutional. We will change our laws when the supreme court reverses circuit court of appeals decisions in this matter.

Hope this helps clarify things.

Thx.
Dave