Sidebar: Sunday School 5/29/22: Extra Credit

In this week's Sunday School Extra Credit lesson, Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) was in the guest chair, chatting with Dana Bash in CNN's State of the Union classroom.

I want to focus on a specific part of his conversation with Bash; here's what he said when she first broached the subject of 'red flag' laws, which allow schools, family members, and others to contact law enforcement if they perceive someone to be a threat to themselves or others, and to have guns removed if a threat is confirmed.

You would think, from the trolls on the Internet, that I'm the number one advocate for red flag laws. That's a bit of a myth perpetuated by my own side. Now, truthfully, I think there's a lot of problems with red flag laws, especially at a national level.

Crenshaw would vote against a national 'red flag' law, and on a similar law for his own state, the site of multiple mass shootings. 

What's up with his comment about Internet trolls? What would make them think he favors red flag laws? If I had to hazard a guess, it'd be because they found the found the tweets he sent in 2019, after the mass shooting in Dayton, OH, which was just a day after the mass shooting at an El Paso Walmart. Take a look.

Darn those trolls for thinking he supports these laws, designed to stop potential bad guys from, you know, becoming actual bad guys who slaughter adults and children in schools, churches, and Walmart - in his own state, and others.

And what's that TAPS Act he talked about? According to the bill, it would task Homeland Security to put a task force together; the group would

"provide recommendations to the appropriate committees of Congress...on the development and implementation of a national strategy for preventing targeted violence through behavioral threat assessment and management... "

The bill defines "behavioral threat assessment and management,"  Too. (Note: I'll use BTAM, to make it easier.). BTAM is a

systematic and evidence-based process of (A) identifying individuals who are exhibiting patterns of concerning behavior that indicate an interest, motive, intention, or capability of carrying out an act of violence; (B) investigating and gathering information from multiple sources to assess whether an individual described in subparagraph (A) poses a threat, based on articulable facts: and (C) the subsequent management of such a threat, if necessary.

And who should be involved in developing that process? A group of experts with BTAM experience from non-governmental organizations, local and state BTAM units, local or state prosecutors, and educational institutions. 

In addition, experts from the following federal agencies would also participate: Secret Service, FBI, US Marshals Service, NCIS, Capitol Police, and the Departments of Education, Health and Human Services, Justice, State, and Veterans Affairs. That's a strong group of experts - I mean, they've got the gang from NCIS and Criminal Minds in there, for Pete's sake. 

And, from the text of the bill, the 'targeted violence' that they want to prevent is defined as

any incident of predatory violence with respect to which an identifiable individual or group focuses an attack on particular target. 

It's in our national security interest to develop best practices and guidelines on how to deal with targeted violence. 

Sounds pretty good, right? And, it also sounds like these are the kinds of things folks who administer red flag laws would need to know, to help them do their jobs. But, not so fast. Here's the Heritage Foundation's take on things; and we know that what Heritage says is what the Rs very often go with.

When law enforcement officers and school officials are properly able to distinguish true threats from nonthreats, they are less likely to pursue inappropriate interventions that wrongly infringe on the rights of people who aren’t dangerous. 

And, Heritage also makes clear this is not creating a red flag law, and of course, they don't like those. 

The TAPS Act does not authorize or fund these types of laws at any level of government. The legislation would, however, ensure that—regardless of whatever laws already exist at a state or local level—law enforcement officers and educators can make better decisions about potential threats to public safety. 

That’s the kind of public safety bill that America actually needs in the wake of tragedies—not extreme gun control measures that largely punish law-abiding, non-dangerous citizens, but training that empowers us to identify and stop specific threats before they turn tragic.

It would seem, according to Crenshaw and the Heritage folks, that the preferred answer is to give law enforcement the training they need to do their job, but not the actual laws that allow them to do it.  

And he thinks the "Internet trolls" are nuts?