After what one family member cryptically called “family being family,” 60-year-old Gary Willis fell dead from a gunshot on the doorstep of their Maryland home, which he shared with a host of siblings, a niece and her son, and a grandmother.

Michele Willis, who grew up in the house, said her uncle Gary “likes to speak his mind,” but “wouldn’t hurt anybody…”

Police say they were at the home to issue an emergency protection or “red flag” order to temporarily seize Willis’s legal firearms. The state law, which went into effect on October 1, allows police, health care officials, spouses, family, and those a person might be dating and/or cohabiting with to petition the court to take away an individual’s guns if they believe he is a danger to himself or others…

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Gun control advocates are hailing the passage of red flag orders across the country as the best commonsense legislation since Nicholas Cruz shot 17 high school students in Parkland, Florida, on February 14. Reports indicate that police had been warned on numerous occasions about Cruz’s repeated threats of gun violence, but for whatever reason they did not arrest him (which would have prevented him from possessing a firearm) before the massacre…

Nevertheless, a number of gun rights advocates are sounding the alarm. They say these laws violate constitutional due process protections, not to mention the Second Amendment right to own guns in the first place. Every state has a slight variation in standards, but in general these confiscation laws allow courts to issue emergency ex-parte orders based on the lowest “reasonable cause” evidence that the subject is an immediate danger to himself or others. This is typically issued with a search warrant, and does not allow the subject time to see or refute the charges, either with or without a lawyer present. The police simply show up at your door, which could mean a SWAT team in the middle of the night. While laws vary across states, the gun owner is guaranteed a hearing after so many days or weeks following the confiscation to contest the order and have his firearms returned…

Mike Hammond, legislative counsel for Gun Owners of America, notes that most of these orders are issued ex-parte, without notice. And expect the judges to sign off on most if not all of them: “When you are the only guys in the room you can get the judge to sign a ham sandwich. This is what we call the star chamber,” Hammond said…

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