Florida law might have offered a chance to triple murder victims. DeSantis wants it gone | Opinion

There’s a chance that a Florida law might have stopped the shooting rampage that killed Mary Catherine Gingles, her father and a neighbor in Margate in February.

Unfortunately, Broward County Sheriff deputies failed to invoke what’s known as the state’s red flag law, passed in response to the 2017 Parkland school shooting. It allows police to request a judge’s order to temporarily confiscate weapons from people deemed a danger to themselves or others. Based on the history of alleged threats and domestic violence by Gingles’ estranged husband, who’s been charged with the triple murders, law enforcement could have obtained a risk protection order to temporarily seize his guns under the law, according to reporting by the Miami Herald.

Like other laws, the red flag law isn’t foolproof, but if applied properly and in a timely manner, it does offer a mechanism for police to try to stop dangerous people from having easy access to guns.

That’s what makes Gov. Ron DeSantis’ request that lawmakers repeal the law, which he did on the first day of the legislative session earlier this month, mind-boggling. Luckily, so far, legislative leaders — who helped pass the law in 2018 after hearing from Parkland students who were clamoring for action — are holding the line.

As the Miami Herald/Tampa Bay Times Tallahassee Bureau reported, DeSantis’ request is unlikely to move forward. Senate President Ben Albritton, R-Wauchula, has defended law enforcement’s use of risk protection orders. But the fight to repeal Florida’s Parkland-era laws is far from over. The Legislature is advancing a bill to reverse the law that raised the age to buy a weapon from 18 to 21, also passed in response to the school shooting.

Keeping the red flag law in place is especially important for domestic violence victims. People who live with a handgun owner have a “substantially elevated risk” of dying by homicide, and “women are disproportionately affected,” according to a 2022 study conducted in California and published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Gingles’ estranged husband, Nathan Gingles, owned dozens of firearms, six gun silencers, 660 rounds of ammunition and a semiautomatic handgun and silencer that police believe were used in the Feb. 16 shootings, the Herald reported. Those weapons were confiscated last February because of a domestic violence restraining order against him but were returned in September.

DeSantis has criticized Florida’s red flag law for undermining people’s right to due process, saying: “The burden shifts where you have to prove to a court that you are not a menace or a threat. That’s not the way due process works.” Gun rights advocates claim police can be persuaded by bad information to initiate a petition.

Undermining the Second Amendment rights of people who don’t represent a threat is not the point of red flag laws, which have been adopted by 21 states, according to Everytown for Gun Safety. If the law is indeed being abused — and there isn’t evidence that’s actually happening on a major scale — then reforms, not a repeal, should be considered.

DeSantis’ claim about the law oversimplifies how risk protection orders work. While other states allow family members to request that someone’s weapons be taken away, in Florida, only law enforcement can do so, and a court must approve that request. Police must show evidence of serious mental illness or legitimate threats or acts of violence the person has made.

Both sides can call witnesses and present evidence at a court hearing, Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri told the Herald/Times Bureau. And, if an order is granted, gun owners can ask a relative or someone else to hold their weapons instead of turning them over temporarily to law enforcement, he said.

Gualtieri, a Republican and former head of the Florida Sheriffs Association — definitely not a liberal organization — said police have “unquestionably averted violence” thanks to the law.

Unfortunately, in the case of the Margate triple murders, Broward deputies might not have done their due diligence. But, without Florida’s red flag law, it will become even harder for police to stop future acts of violence.

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