One of the premier efforts of the gun-control lobby is the push for Extreme Risk Protection Orders, also known as Red Flag Laws. What such laws profess is the need to “temporarily” take someone’s guns when they pose a risk to themselves or others.
Recently, I enrolled in the free online course: “ERPO: A Civil Approach to Gun Violence Prevention Teach-Out!” presented by the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research. I’ve taken other “gun-violence” prevention courses from the Johns Hopkins Center and was keen to learn what they had to say about ERPOs.
I’ll analyze this Teach-Out by briefly discussing their presentation of ERPOs and more importantly, how they advocate for policy change, which provides an insight on how we Second Amendment proponents can similarly advocate for policies to protect our rights.
Let’s start by asking what is the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research? According to them:
“The Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Prevention and Policy is engaged in original scholarly research, policy analysis and agenda-setting public discourse. An important part of the Center’s mission is to serve as an objective and informative resource for the news media, thereby providing the public with accurate information about gun injuries, prevention strategies, and policies.”
Objective? Accurate? Hardly. You don’t have to dig deep into the course background materials to find the name Bloomberg and that alone should alert you of the implicit anti-Second Amendment bias of the Center. In other words, the Johns Hopkins Center are academics hand-picked by Michael Bloomberg and his associates to make the case for more gun control.
The principal moderators of this Teach-Out are Dr. Shannon Frattaroli, Associate Professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and a core faculty member in the Center, and Joshua Horwitz, the Executive Director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence and the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence. By the way, Horwitz even refers to the Center as the Bloomberg School in case there’s any doubt about who is behind the curtain.
Before continuing, we should ask what is the legal definition of “Extreme Risk” in Extreme Risk Protection Order? The short answer - there is none. “Extreme Risk” is a marketing term invented by the gun-control lobby to sell gun confiscation legislation and pretend it’s about public safety.
As you would expect from a well-heeled school funded by one of the richest men in the world, this Teach-Out is impressively slick, designed for a lay audience with little knowledge of guns, gun law, and gun-control advocacy. The course is divided into short modules, with the material presented in videos narrated by a moderator from the Center who interviews guest “experts.” Each module concludes with an exercise for the students to reflect on how ERPOs can be implemented in their communities. The course also offers a discussion forum but my experience from previous courses showed that the moderators won’t consider comments that question their message of gun control.
The first section of this Teach-Out where they explain ERPOs should be nothing new. The moderators interview activists, law enforcement, and prosecutors who make the case why ERPOs are necessary and how without them, public safety officials have no means to disarm gun owners who pose a risk to themselves and others. This part of the course also presents canned scenarios demonstrating how pediatric, psychiatric, and geriatric clinicians can request ERPOs.
In discussing ERPOs, one term the moderators keep referring to is “due process,” meaning that your rights as a gun owner are respected. Or so they claim. However, an equally important term they never mention is “ex-parte” which means that ERPOs can be requested behind your back and the first indication you’ve been Red Flagged is when a police SWAT team shows up at your house demanding that you hand over your guns. The course also stresses that ERPOs are a civil, not a criminal process, but what is overlooked is that if you don’t comply, then you’ll be arrested or shot dead, as has already happened.
According to this Teach-Out, every gun confiscated represents a shooting averted and a life saved. But is that true? Have ERPOs saved lives?
In an article from Kaiser Health News “ ‘Red Flag’ Gun Laws Get Another Look After Indiana, Colorado Shootings” Rosanna Smart, a researcher at the Rand Corp and her colleagues examined this assertion and “found ‘very inconclusive’ evidence that they’re effective as a means to reduce overall firearm suicide or homicide rates.”
Sadly, we can list too many tragedies where ERPOs failed to prevent bloodshed or protect public safety. Sandy Hook, Connecticut. The Navy Yard, Washington DC. Thousand Oaks and San Jose, California. And last year in my home state of Colorado when we suffered mass shootings in Boulder, Colorado Springs, and Denver.
This Teach-Out never comments on these failures although Horwitz and Dr. Frattaroli discuss the Indianapolis FedEx shooting in a separate YouTube video “ “Red Flag” Laws: Extreme Risk Protection Orders and What Went Wrong in Indiana” and they could’ve used that material to update this course.
While the first part of the Teach-Out provides an insight into the rationale behind ERPOs, it is the second part that offers valuable lessons that we Second Amendment proponents can adopt as we fight to preserve our rights. This part is moderated by Horwitz who draws upon his thirty-plus years of advocacy experience. Rather than a point-by-point summary of his narration, I’ll condense his presentation into these takeaways.
1. Develop a Plan Develop a plan for advocacy through effective messaging, what Horwitz calls “sticky messaging.” Craft an “elevator speech.” Those business types, entrepreneurs, and writers among you know exactly how important this is. You know the drill: You got me for fifteen seconds. Convince me why what you’re pitching is important to me.
Getting time with policy makers is tough and you have to take advantage of their short in-between moments to grab their attention and make an impression—the “sticky messaging.” Though there is much about Horwitz that I disagree with, he is right about the fact that if we want to make change, we must “get off the sidelines,” and take risks, that we might face pushback and even embarrassment. But “…if you don’t get out of your comfort zone, you’re never going to accomplish these big policy goals.”
2. Collect the data. Translate the data. Obviously, collect accurate data from reputable sources like the CDC Fatal Injury Reports and the FBI Homicide Tables. Remember, the gun-control lobby will challenge you at every turn, and they will lie, distort the facts, and get away with it. We can’t. Think about the intended audience and build your message around easily understood key points that are relevant to the audience. Don’t swamp them with statistics. If you’re addressing an informed group, present your data in the form of a blog or a magazine-length article. Tell a story. For policy makers, distill your message into a one-page fact sheet. Present the data as simply as possible, and again show why your message is important. More of that “sticky messaging.”
3. Leverage the pain-pleasure principle. The more pain you can give a policy maker, the more likely they are to support you. In policy advocacy “they” usually means politicians and the pain they face is not getting re-elected. For others like bureaucrats and business executives, the pain is bad publicity. Don’t forget people in the middle, you need to bring them to your side.
4. Climb the Ladder of Engagement. This means contacting legislators, first by email, then Zoom, and when possible, in person. Cast a wide net in your advocacy. Think about school boards; city, county, and state governments; Congress. Lobby for legislation that supports your policy or against policy that attacks our rights under the Second Amendment. This is the time to engage your allies. Like gun rights groups, industry representatives, supportive legislators.
5. Media advocacy is about showing power. For me, the most profound revelation in this Teach-Out was when Horwitz explained that media advocacy is about showing power to policy makers, not about convincing the public to change behavior. This goes back to the pain-pleasure principle. To get policy allies, you must show power. How?
For us Second Amendment proponents, given the media bias against us, this will be an uphill battle. Still, we must persist. Contact your legislators. Write op-eds. Post on Facebook, Twitter, get interviews on podcasts, radio, television, wherever you can. Don’t forget social media and this is where memes are especially useful. More sticky messaging. Get engaged. Stay engaged. Show our power. Remember, this was how we kicked David Chipman’s nomination for ATF Director into the gutter.
The battle is about our rights. The battle is about public safety. Those who want to destroy the Second Amendment have fat wallets at their disposal, plus the support of big tech and a sympathetic media. But we can match and defeat their efforts with the truth, determination, and our resolve.
https://www.coursera.org/learn/erpo/home/welcome?utm_medium=email&utm_source=other&utm_campaign=opencourse.jfuauPxJEeq6DRJuuh40MQ.opencourse.programmed.welcome~opencourse.jfuauPxJEeq6DRJuuh40MQ.courseBranchStart
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/2021-04-23/red-flag-gun-laws-get-another-look-after-shootings-in-indiana-colorado
Extreme Risk Protection Orders: Gun Confiscation disguised as Public Safety