Trump Turns Red Flag Idea on Cuomo, Says He Shouldn't Have Weapons After Unhinged Freak Out
This Donald Trump Twitter post spoke volumes — and liberals should be listening.
Joining in the general mockery of CNN anchor Chris “Fredo” Cuomo on Tuesday, the president managed to turn one of the left wing’s favorite talking points into a weapon against one of the liberals’ favorite talking heads.
And in the process, he proved how right Second Amendment advocates really are.
In the post, Trump wrote that Cuomo’s widely publicized confrontation on Sunday with a man who compared him to the weak brother Fredo in “The Godfather” Mafia saga had shown that Cuomo, a gun owner who favors strict gun control, should not be permitted to own a firearm.
The post specifically asked if the kind of “red flag” laws liberals love should come into play in the Cuomo case.
“Would Chris Cuomo be given a Red Flag for his recent rant?” Trump wrote. “Filthy language and total loss of control. He shouldn’t be allowed to have any weapon. He’s nuts!”
Would Chris Cuomo be given a Red Flag for his recent rant? Filthy language and a total loss of control. He shouldn’t be allowed to have any weapon. He’s nuts!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 13, 2019
Trump could have just been trolling Cuomo and liberals, of course.
But the reality is, his post shows just how dangerous to Second Amendment rights “red flag” laws really are.
Trump, normally a defender of the Second Amendment, endorsed “red flag” laws from the White House in the aftermath of the Aug. 3 and 4 mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio.
Liberals love the idea, as they love any form of government control over individuals when it doesn’t involve pregnancy, but the idea is anathema to conservatives.
As Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky and John R. Lott of the pro-gun Crime Prevention Research Center wrote on National Review on Monday, “red flag” laws like those passed in Florida and other states since the 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Florida, have become means for states to confiscate gun owners’ weapons without any meaningful due process:
“Little certainty is needed,” they wrote. “Initial confiscations often require just a ‘reasonable suspicion,’ which is little more than a guess or a hunch. When hearings occur weeks or a month later, about a third of these initial orders are overturned, but the actual error rate is undoubtedly much higher. These laws make no provisions to cover legal costs, and many people facing these charges do not retain counsel.”
For liberals in a normal situation, those concerns might be just more background noise. The important point to them is to give the government any tool it needs to disarm American citizens.
But Trump’s tweet is a reminder that when they surrender their rights to the government, they might not be controlling who is in the government to take advantage of it.
It’s a good bet that few American liberals wouldn’t want Donald Trump deciding who can and who can’t own a gun because he can control “red flag” laws.
It’s a better bet that even fewer American conservative want any government official to be able to use “red flag” laws to take away a right guaranteed by the Constitution from any American citizen — including Chris “Fredo” Cuomo.
Liberals hate Trump tweets as a general rule.
This one they should hate even more.
Because Trump is showing how dangerous it could be if they got their way.
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