Explained: What is a ‘red-flag’ law and can it help stop mass shootings in the US? | Explained News,The Indian Express
The law allow courts to issue a special protection order which authorises the police to temporarily confiscate guns from people that display concerning behaviour, such as issuing threats of harm.
The United States House of Representatives on Thursday (June 9) passed a ‘red-flag’ bill aimed at barring those considered dangerous to themselves or others from possessing firearms.
The bill, which passed 224/202 largely along party lines, comes in light of two devastating mass shootings in the US that occurred in less than a fortnight. On May 24, a gunman killed 19 children and two school teachers in an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. On May 12, 10 people were killed in racist attack in a grocery store in Buffalo, New York.
Currently, 19 US states, and also Washington D.C., have these ‘red-flag’ laws in place. The latest push is to create a federal law of the same nature to check gun violence.
What are ‘red flag’ laws?
The ‘extreme risk protection laws’, known informally as ‘red-flag’ laws, are among the possible solutions offered to tackle the endemic gun violence in the United States.
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