Since the Parkland tragedy, only nine states have passed red flag Gun Confiscation Laws. And with the sole exception of Florida, these states are, without exception, the bluest, most anti-gun states in the country. They include New York, Massachusetts, Illinois, Connecticut, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Maryland. Of course, this means that 36 states have refused to pass red flag Gun Confiscation Order laws. These include states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Texas, where the issue was hotly contested. Gun Owners of America has been active in every one of the 36 states that doesn’t have a red flag law. They have strenuously worked to defeat these Gun Confiscation Orders. At the federal level, they have told me that they will count any vote for S. 7 or S. 506 -- or any similar bill -- as an anti-gun vote. As for me, I would consider support for any Gun Confiscation Order as an anti-gun vote, and I will definitely “remember in November.”

I agree with Gun Owners of America that there are many Due Process problems with “red flag” Gun Confiscation Orders (GCO). But S. 7 and S. 506 will also punish the 36 states that have NOT passed a GCO. For starters, states like ours will be forced to adopt gun control. Our state legislature has opted NOT to pass Gun Confiscation Orders, but Congress would be ignoring the will of our state by imposing these GCOs upon us. Second, these two bills would distribute a potentially unlimited pot of money to the super-blue anti-gun states that passed these bills. Bottom line: they would take tax dollars from the red states, like ours, and send them to states which have passed these laws -- blue states like New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Maryland, Illinois, and California. This is outrageous! The net result is that these bills would represent a large transfer of tax dollars out of the "red states" that respect the Second Amendment -- and into the "blue states" that don't. So federal policy will, perhaps for the first time, have developed a bias in favor of the minimization and destruction of the Second Amendment. And the question is why Republicans in the Senate, who owe their power to "red states," would deliberately hurt their own states in this way. Hopefully, the answer is that they won't. Please oppose S. 7, S. 506 or any similar legislation.