Man denied firearm due to 72-hour involuntary hospital stay

Many states have already enacted “red flag laws” targeting firearms owners. These allow the courts to confiscate guns from anyone deemed mentally ill by a judge.

What you may not know is the federal government already claims the power to deny gun ownership to anyone “adjudicated mentally ill or committed to a mental institution.”

So a man who was briefly and INVOLUNTARILY treated at a mental health clinic in 2003 for less than 72 hours was denied by the background check system when he tried to purchase a firearm 15 years later.

He sued, alleging his due process rights were violated. And the courts just agreed that his brief hospitalization did not meet the standard to take his Second Amendment right to bear arms.

Simultaneously, however, the courts still said that had the man been involuntarily committed with a judge’s order, he could have been stripped of his rights.

So if, back in 2003, the judge had ruled he should be committed for even a single day, the man would have lost his rights to own a firearm forever.

This is starting to set a very clear legal precedent for how Red Flag laws can be applied.

Full story here