WCBC

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey on Thursday responded to a letter sent by the Duke Center for Firearms Law (Duke University School of Law) regarding Morrisey’s opposition to the establishment of the National Extreme Risk Protection Order Resource Center—a hub formed by Biden’s Department of Justice to provide “assistance” to entities who implement laws confiscating firearms from those who purportedly pose a threat to themselves or others. The Attorney General recently led a 19-state coalition in a letter to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, urging him to rethink the department’s approach. Although the letter was not addressed to Duke, the Center responded a month later by disclaiming responsibility for a study cited in the letter.
 
Attorney General Morrisey took aim at Duke’s focus in its response. “Rather than challenging any of the substantive concerns that we raised, you instead focused on the authorship of one internet article describing one study that we cited in support,” the Attorney General wrote, referring to Duke’s suggestion that it was clear from the post that “the Duke Center for Firearms Law did not in fact 'endorse' a study showing the ineffectiveness of red flag laws.”
 
Worth noting is that the post appears on the Center’s website, placed under the Center’s logo, and based on a paper presented at a Center-hosted conference. Attorney General Morrisey said red-flag laws raise questions beyond the Second Amendment, asking in the letter to Garland “how can officers enter a home and seize a gun without a warrant in a way that’s consistent with the Fourth Amendment?  How can ex parte proceedings that lead to firearm seizure be good enough under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments?”