Jul 17, 2022 2 min read

The gun law that President Joe Biden and legislators celebrated recently at the White House is far from what is necessary to diminish gun violence in this country, especially mass shootings. Without a ban on military-style semiautomatic rifles and high-capacity magazines, the death toll likely will mount.

There are some good attributes to the law. It significantly increases funding for community mental health treatment, for example, which is badly needed regardless of the gun issue.

But Pennsylvania isn’t even eligible for funding under one of the law’s central features because too many state legislators won’t recognize the vast public interest in diminishing gun violence, allowing a minority of gun-rights absolutists to prevail.

The state does not have a “red flag” law, under which 19 other states and the District of Columbia have been able to take thousands of guns out of the hands of people whom courts have deemed to be a danger to themselves or others.

A study by Veronica Pear of the University of California, Davis, found that between 2016 and 2019, for example, local authorities used that state’s red-flag law to confiscate weapons from 58 people who had threatened to use them to commit mass murders.

Broward County, Florida – home to Parkland, where a mass murderer killed 17 high school students in 2018 – filed 255 red flag petitions and seized more than 400 guns in the law’s first year.

State lawmakers should pass a red flag law on its merits. And under the new federal law, the state will be eligible to receive $750 million in community violence prevention funds, mental health support, and more. They also should create a program to train local police and prosecutors in applying the law.

Red flag laws protect gun owners’ rights. Every step includes due process under the law. It is irresponsible for state lawmakers to reject one.