Dan Crenshaw Explains His Talk of Red Flag Laws and Encourages Debate Over Emotion

Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, left, listens as Office of Management and Budget Acting Director Russell Vought testifies before the House Budget Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, March 12, 2019, during a hearing on the fiscal year 2020 budget. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Dan Crenshaw

Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, left, listens as Office of Management and Budget Acting Director Russell Vought testifies before the House Budget Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, March 12, 2019, during a hearing on the fiscal year 2020 budget. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

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Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw caused a bit of an uproar when he revealed that he’d be in support of a red flag law, or in other words, a state action whereby your guns are confiscated by the government if you’re deemed a risk to society in some way.

The Republican, conservative, and Libertarian members of society came down hard on Crenshaw and Trump when the idea of a red flag law was brought to the forefront.

However, Crenshaw noted in a video posted to Twitter that what he would consider a viable red flag law doesn’t look like something Democrats would propose.

“Earlier this week, President Trump indicated his support for something called red flag laws. I stated on Twitter that maybe we should consider them at the state level, maybe we should have a conversation about it, and it should be a conversation,” said Crenshaw.

“Unfortunately, that’s not what happened,” he continued. “What came out of it instead was hate-filled comments, a lot of emotion, a lot of anger, a lot of memes – a lot of memes that could be improved.”

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Crenshaw continued by noting that even mentioning the term sent right-leaning Americans into the idea that they had been betrayed and shutting out any conversation about it.

“Clearly even the words ‘red flag law’ just emotionally triggered a lot of people, made you guys really mad at me. It seemed that no amount of explanation was able to quell your fears or convince you otherwise, convince you that somehow the president and I had not betrayed you,” Crenshaw said. “That is not true, of course, and it’s sad that many of you think that, it really is.”

“When we say ‘red flag laws,’ you guys stop listening,” he continued. “You can’t hear what we’re suggesting because, understandably, you automatically assume that we’re just agreeing with the left’s version of that law and we all know that the left’s version would not be good, it would not protect due process. But as it turns out, that isn’t what we’re talking about at all.”

Crenshaw noted the importance of due process when crafting anything like a red flag law.

“Making sure that due process could not be abused is at the heart of any conservative solution to the supposed red flag laws. In our version of what those would look like, I’ve laid out specific safeguards that would have to be in place for us to support any type of red flag law,” Crenshaw said.

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Crenshaw was careful to note that his looking into red flag laws does not mean he was currently crafting any legislation as of yet, and made sure to tell his listeners that he understands the right’s fears of red flag laws.

“Here’s the thing, I understand your fears about bad red flag laws. Red flag law is a general concept,” he explained. “There could be good ones and there can be bad ones. You should be against the bad ones, as I am.”

The tricky part about red flag laws is that they’re easily corruptable or expanded once they’re put in place. Should a shooting occur in a state that has a red flag law in place, calls for expansions on it with inevitably rise and that state would be put in danger of having oppressive and abusive rules put on it in the name of “gun safety.”

Crenshaw urged that nothing can change unless we have an actual conversation about it, instead of resorting to emotional reactions.

“The whole purpose of what the president did, and what I am doing, in trying to start a conversation about this is so that we take control of the narrative and propose solutions that actually do protect due process rights,” Crenshaw said. “[Let’s] ensure that we aren’t on the sidelines when Democrats are proposing blatantly unconstitutional laws that would not protect your due process.”

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“It’s a conversation that conservatives have actually been having for a very long time. It’s not new at all and it definitely does not deserve the emotional reaction that it has gotten,” he added. “We are better than that. Let’s be better than that.”

(h/t: Daily Wire)

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