David Berg, 67, a lawyer from Freehold, New Jersey, filed the complaint last week in U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey. He alleges that law enforcement officers illegally and without warning showed up at his home with a red flag order and forcibly removed all firearms.
After reiterating recent Supreme Court decisions in District of Columbia v. Heller (Heller) and Bruen (New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen), Mr. Berg complained:
New Jersey apparently didn't get the message.
New Jersey continues to suppress the fundamental right to keep and bear arms using every means available, including the grossly unconstitutional Extreme Risk Protection Order Act of 2018 (the “ERPO Act”). This is a law that does not meet even the most basic requirements of mandatory provisions. It treats and treats the Second Amendment worse than a second-class right. The ERPO Act treats the Second Amendment as if it does not exist.
This law not only allows seizures without trial, but also allows local law enforcement officers to seize firearms without informing the public that they are coming to take them. This is called ex parte and is defined as “a tribunal proceeding for the benefit of one party to a dispute without the presence of the other party.”
As Berg explains,
The ERPO law allows certain petitioners, including law enforcement agencies, to completely disarm individuals based on ex parte records, hearsay, and vague and weak evidentiary standards identified simply as “just cause.” There is.
New Jersey's red flag law not only ignores the Fourth Amendment's requirement that any action be based solely on “probable cause,” rather than the lower standard of “reasonable cause,” , also allows authorities to show up “suddenly.” By going to Mr. Berg's home and seizing his firearms, they “left him completely defenseless and completely unable to exercise his fundamental right to keep and bear arms.”
crime of burg
What was Berg's heinous crime? According to the complaint,
A few days earlier, Mr. Berg had exercised his lawful right to self-defense by showing the barrel of his legally-carried Glock 43x micro pistol to a driver who relentlessly and menacingly followed him for miles. .
However, the other driver called police first, falsely reporting that Berg had pointed a gun at him for no reason.
So instead of investigating the case in a systematic and impartial manner, the state police defendants applied the presumption that the man with the gun was the bad guy in a shockingly unprofessional and irresponsible manner. .
As a result, Mr. Berg was immediately disarmed, without the opportunity to tell his side of the story, and without the defendant having to meet even the most basic obligation of producing a reliable and rigorous record. They were denied their fundamental constitutional rights.
The complaint states:
If this can happen to Mr. Berg, then so can any law-abiding New Jerseyan with a handgun permit who urgently needs to exercise his fundamental right of lawful self-defense outside of his home. may occur.
Bourque calls the Legislature's response to Bruen's ruling an act of defiance.
The ERPO law is part of New Jersey's blatant refusal to accept the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling. On June 24, 2022, the day after the Bruen decision was handed down, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy announced plans to overturn the decision in any way possible. The ERPO Act is only part of the plan to fulfill that illegal promise.
flawed premise
According to the Rand Corporation, red flag laws do not result in measurable reductions in gun violence or suicide. After reviewing several recent studies that attempted to prove that red flag laws work, we found that only five survived initial scrutiny. One in five of these had a small decrease in suicide rates (4 to 5 percent). None showed a reduction in gun violence.
Mallory Perazzo, a law professor at the University of Cincinnati, affirmed Rand's findings. “Studies have not shown that (passing and enforcing red flag laws) had an impact on homicide rates,” he noted.
Perazzo continued, “Many (state red flag) laws do not provide any means to prevent individuals from maliciously accusing others (as in this case), so third party could easily abuse this system.”
Numerous lawsuits have been filed against them since the first red flag law was passed in 1999. And in most cases, lower courts find a way to rule them constitutional. The issue is therefore ripe for review by the Supreme Court. “If the (Supreme Court) were to rule all (red flag laws) unconstitutional, the question of whether states should adopt them would become moot,” Perazzo said.
In the meantime, law-abiding gun owners like New Jersey's David Berg will continue to suffer under the state's unconstitutional actions against Bruen.
