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WASHINGTON — Several states have red flag laws of their own on the books already in order to keep certain people from having guns that may be deemed a risk. Lawmakers in Washington are pushing to do the same on the federal level.

A bill authored by Rep. Lucy McBath (D-GA) would allow the family or a household member of someone to petition a federal judge to issue an extreme risk protection order to temporarily remove any guns they may have from their possession.

“Nearly nine years ago, I lost my son Jordan to gun violence,” said McBath in a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee. “Far too many parents know exactly that pain. I turned that pain into action, calling for change to prevent another parent from losing their child to gun violence.”

Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-IN) also sits on the committee and passionately denounced the bill as a suppression of Americans’ rights. She said red flag laws don’t stop violence from happening.

“We had just recently the FedEx facility shooting, so it’s not going to stop, unfortunately, bad people that are going to do bad things,” said Spartz. “But, if we are going to have legitimate cases where we are going to help people we have to respect constitutional rights and this bill doesn’t do it.”

Spartz suggested that lawmakers look at other factors that she believes are causing violence to happen in many American cities. She said one factor is the plethora of illegal crossings at the southern border, which she said includes human and drug traffickers. Spartz also denounced efforts to defund police departments which she said are causing many people to leave careers in law enforcement, in turn causing crime rates to go up.

“Why don’t we talk about issues that really create violence and why we have this increase in violence,” Spartz said. “Not trying to take rights from law-abiding citizens and suppress.”

At the end of the hearing, the committee voted to advance the Federal Extreme Risk Protection Order Act.