Bill to prevent ‘red flag’ gun policies advances

An Oklahoma Senate panel advanced legislation Tuesday to preempt localities from implementing so called “red flag” policies.

On a party-line vote, the state Senate Judiciary Committee approved legislation to prevent Oklahoma cities and towns from enacting policies that would allow a court or other entity to restrict gun access to people deemed to be an imminent danger.

“This would ensure that we, as the state Legislature, would preempt anything dealing with red flag laws here in the state so that no local municipality, county ordinance or any other political subdivision would accept funds or work toward implementing their own form of a 'red flag' law,” said Sen. Nathan Dahm, the bill’s author. 

The bill is a response to the growing number of states adopting such laws and federal legislative proposals to offer grants to such states, said Dahm, R-Broken Arrow.

More than a dozen states and Washington, D.C. have adopted “red flag” laws in response to mass shootings across the country.  

The debate over Senate Bill 1081 devolved into a disagreement over whether localities or the state should have control over local decision-making. 

Too often Oklahoma's Legislature prevents cities and counties from making their own decisions, said Senate Minority Leader Kay Floyd, D-Oklahoma City. 

"The people in this state deserve to be able to make decisions in their location without being preempted by the state," she said. 

The bill, which will advance to the full Senate, passed on an 8-2 vote.