Glen Sturtevant flips on red flag laws

Glen Sturtevant comes with an apology this spring in his primary election campaign for the 12th District Senate seat in Chesterfield and Colonial Heights.

"I whiffed," the former state senator recently said about his 2019 vote in favor of a red flag law. The bill would have allowed judges to order the temporary seizure of firearms from people believed to be a threat to themselves or others, even if those people haven’t committed crimes.

His vote upset many Republicans and was considered a factor in his reelection defeat that fall to Democratic Sen. Ghazala Hashmi.

This year, Sturtevant is promising to fight to repeal Virginia’s red flag law as he wages his primary campaign in a newly drawn district against state Sen. Amanda Chase, R-Chesterfield, and Tina Ramirez, a former congressional candidate. Chase and Ramirez have said they oppose red flag laws.

We put Sturtevant’s statements and actions on red flag laws on PolitiFact’s Flip-O-Meter, which measures the extent a politician has changed on an issue. We don’t judge whether those changes are good or bad.

Sturtevant voted against red flag laws in 2016, 2017 and 2018 in the Senate Courts of Justice Committee. Each time, the bills died on party-line votes. Republicans, which held the majority those years, said the measure would violate constitutional protections for gun ownership and against unreasonable searches and seizures by the government. Democrats said the legislation would reduce suicides and homicides by people with mental illnesses.

Conservatives nationwide became more receptive to red flag laws in 2018 after a string of mass shootings. Then-President Donald Trump endorsed such laws in March 2018. Also that month, the National Rifle Association signaled conditional support for red flag laws in a YouTube video that was later set to "private." Five Republican governors signed red flag laws in 2018, one of which was passed by a Republican-majority Legislature.

In January 2019, Sturtevant switched and became the committee's only Republican to vote for a red flag bill. It died on a 7-to-7 vote.

During pre-vote debate, Sturtevant called the bill’s public safety goal "laudable and important." He expressed concern about  how long people whose guns were seized law would have to wait for judicial review. He said it could take up to 14 days before a hearing to determine whether these people posed a "substantial risk" and should be banned from possessing firearms for up to six months. Sturtevant introduced an amendment that would have mandated the judicial hearing within two days of the gun seizure.

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Democrats won control of the Senate and the House of Delegates in the 2019 election, when Sturtevant was defeated. The next year, they passed a red flag bill that Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam signed. 

Sturtevant, in his Republican primary bid this year, has been repeatedly asked about his 2019 support for a red flag law and recanted his vote.

"I don’t support red flag laws," he said at a March 16 candidates forum hosted by the pro-gun rights Virginia Citizens Defense League.  

Sturtevant noted that when the 2019 bill came up, red flag laws were "an idea that was getting pushed by President Trump and the NRA. At the time, we thought it was a way to help stop some of the shootings by the mentally ill folks. We have seen since then that it is an abusive and bad policy."

Sturtevant said his vote was "a mistake; wish I could get it back. But I’ve learned from it. Nobody is perfect, and I’m committed to carrying that legislation to repeal it in the Senate."

Lauren Fulcher, Sturtevant’s campaign spokesperson, said Sturtevant has come to think that red flag laws deny due process to people whose firearms are taken.

Sturtevant, after opposing red flag bills for three straight years, voted for one in 2019. In this year’s Republican primary, he apologized for the 2019 vote, saying he opposes red flag laws and promising to lead a charge to repeal Virginia’s law.

Sturtevant’s 2019 vote for a red flag law, had we checked it at the time, may have qualified for PolitiFact’s Full Flop rating. The matter at hand, however, is his renunciation this year of his 2019 vote. We rate that a Full Flop.