According to Firearmchronicle
I thought I had exhausted my complaints about these laws previously, but Virginia’s Bloomberg-purchased Democrats made changes to the bill that plumb new depths: the “extreme risk” threshold was lowered to “substantial risk” and the usual time frame of “imminent” was expanded to “near future.” Determining whether or not “substantial” refers to the likelihood or magnitude of the harm is an exercise left for judges to determine. But they receive no more guidance regarding risk assessment than whatever evidence they “shall” consider, leaving respondents at their mercy and reducing courts to the Chanceries of old.
Virginians can look to Florida to see what we’re in for. The Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence recently released a report of its examination of the usage of Florida’s red flag law, an “extreme risk protection order,” in Broward County. The report opens with their justification for these laws: “People who carry out violence against themselves or others often exhibit dangerous behavior and warning signs. Restricting firearm access in these moments of crisis is a critical way to prevent gun violence and save lives. Extreme risk laws give law
The key premise of red flag laws is that there is a category of behaviors that are neither criminal nor due to a mental illness that merits civil commitment, that indicate that the person is at such risk of violence that his/her enumerated rights should be immediately violated ex parte for the protection of the subject and those around them.
Yet of 255 unique petitions filed between March 9, 2018 and March 9, 2019 in Broward County, all of the cases could have been managed under existing laws, either by mental health commitment or through the criminal justice system.