A judge in New York has ruled that the state’s extreme risk protection order law, which allows law enforcement to temporarily seize a person’s firearms, is unconstitutional.
Extreme risk protection order (ERPO) laws, often referred to as “Red Flag“ laws, allow courts to order the seizure of a person’s firearms if a police officer, district attorney, family member, or school administrator files a petition indicating the targeted firearms owner poses a risk of harm to themselves or others. In a Tuesday decision, Orange County Judge Craig Stephen Brown determined that the wording of New York’s Red Flag application requirements fall short of an existing New York state law, which stipulates that a person’s liberties cannot be curtailed on the basis of a belief that they pose a threat to themselves or others unless a physician attests that the targeted person is suffering from a condition “likely to result in serious harm.”
