Last November, students at a local public university were beginning to worry about their roommate. He had been acting increasingly erratic: neglecting his emotional support dog, making concerning comments while watching true crime documentaries; and, in one alarming incident, pointing a gun at himself and others at a party. When law enforcement officers were notified and executed a search of his dorm, they found a binder of mass shooters’ manifestos, blueprints of university buildings, and a list of specific student ID numbers.
This chilling scenario might have ended in an all-too-familiar tragedy. But it didn’t — instead, law enforcement officers were able to immediately remove firearms from this student using Virginia’s Red Flag Law.