• TransplantedSconie@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      The thing is, he was a prime candidate to fall under the Yellow Flag law with the threats he made.

      The police didn’t do their job and invoke it.

      • jordanlund@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        The problem was, when he made the threats, he was in New York. He was committed for 2 weeks in New York. Maine’s yellow flag law had no jurisdiction.

        New York has a red flag law, but his home and guns were in Maine.

        We solve this problem with a FEDERAL Red Flag law.

            • gregorum@lemm.ee
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              1 year ago

              Nnnooo, it’s still a failure of the cops. The law, as it is, is a good law. The problem here, again, is that the cops didn’t do their jobs.

              Edit: Sometimes a law is poorly written so law enforcement can’t do what’s necessary to enforce it or the law doesn’t really address a problem. That’s not what happened here; the cops simply chose not to enforce the law, and that’s entirely on them.

              • ArbiterXero@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                Mostly nobody.

                The reality is that the laws are the written minimum expectations of our social contract.

                If enough of the unwritten social contract falls apart, you’ll be amazed at how quickly it becomes obvious that most laws aren’t really enforced.

                I mean cops won’t even show up for most shoplifting cases these days, so what stops most people from shoplifting?

                The social contract that we hold dear. As long as I can have my needs met legally, I will do it. As soon as I can’t feed and house myself legally, I won’t choose to “not eat” because of cops.

            • squiblet@kbin.social
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              1 year ago

              That doesn’t make much sense. That’s not how many laws are enforced. What do you even mean by “initiative”? Weird how they could stop my friend on the street, shove their hands in his pockets to search him for “drugs” (cannabis) and give him a ticket for loitering but when some guy tells someone he wants to shoot up a military base, no problem.

              Or they can pull us over repeatedly as teens and say “where are you going tonight? Any drugs in the car? Can I search your car?” Those were failed laws but not due to “initiative”.

    • BigFig@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Except HE reported having heard voices and threatened to shoot up a military base. No knocking required, the police knew and did nothing

      • jeffw@lemmy.worldOPM
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        1 year ago

        Sounds foolproof. People being involuntarily committed never lie to the people locking them up!

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Too bad there’s no way to find out if they have guns like, for example, looking to see if they have guns. But that would be impossible.

    • Kalkaline @leminal.space
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      1 year ago

      We could enact a law that would have people take a yearly gun safety course which includes a psychological assessment to determine their fitness for gun ownership. Failure to comply would start a process for gun confiscation by the state. Failure to provide proof of completion would result in a $10,000 fine and confiscation of guns on the person and on their property.