NRATV host Grant Stinchfield erroneously claimed that “anti-gunners out there could weaponize” a new gun violence prevention bill in Nevada in order to get law enforcement to confiscate their neighbors’ legally owned firearms.

The legislation in question, a type of protection order that allows temporary removal of firearms from certain “high-risk” individuals, actually allows only household members to file a report requesting the removal.

During NRATV’s May 17 10-minute update at 11 a.m., Stinchfield interviewed NRA Nevadans For Freedom’s Robert Uithoven, who said that under this bill, anyone “who owned or possessed a firearm” was classified as “high risk.” Stinchfield went on to theorize that anti-gun advocates would file complaints against their neighbors, “and the next thing you know, those guns are being confiscated off the word of an anti-gun zealot”: 

GRANT STINCHFIELD (HOST): All right, so the big issue at hand, we talked last week about this bill that would say that anybody who owns a firearm would be considered high risk. And if you’re considered high risk, anybody makes a complaint about you, the police can come in and take your guns away. Shortly after that interview, they pulled the high-risk component of that bill, for simply being a firearms owner?

ROBERT UITHOVEN: Right at the very beginning of the bill -- I mean, there are a lot of things wrong with this bill -- but it defined what a high-risk person is, and it's anyone who owned or possessed a firearm. And we’ve got a lot of those folks here in Nevada, as there are across the country. Just simply by the ownership or possession, you were defined as high risk. The sponsor of the bill, I think at the urging of probably the committee chair, removed that provision. There have been some modifications that have improved the bill, but it is still, in our view, a pre-crime bill.

[...]

STINCHFIELD: And so due process is what this country is all about. We have a right to keep and bear arms -- if you want to take away one of our freedoms, you’ve got to prove the reason of why you’re going to take away that right. This bill does none of that, but even beyond that, I believe the left and the anti-gunners out there could weaponize this bill to have anti-gun advocates simply go around their neighborhood, know what neighbors own guns, and simply file a complaint against them, and the next thing you know, those guns are being confiscated off the word of an anti-gun zealot.

UITHOVEN: That’s true, and even some Democrats -- we had our hearing last week right after we concluded with this interview. Fortunately, we, on this assembly judiciary panel where this hearing was conducted, we even had some Democrats who we believe will be with us on the legislation.

In actuality, the bill, which passed the Nevada Senate last week, defined a high-risk individual far more narrowly: As guns.com described it, the term covers “someone who owns a firearm, poses a danger to themselves or others and has threatened violence” within six months “or behaved violently.” The bill also specifies that it is “a family, or household member or law enforcement officer” who can file a “verified application” for an order of protection against the individual -- not “anti-gun advocates” walking around the neighborhood, as Stinchfield suggested. The bill states that any firearm confiscation is temporary, with a hearing to be scheduled for 21 days after the order is issued; it may be extended after the hearing for up to one year. According to Guns.com, an amendment to the bill would add the rule that “those who provide false information” in trying to temporarily remove someone’s firearm would be penalized.



This is the latest conspiracy theory from Stinchfield, who last week claimed that ISIS terrorists are trying to “freak liberals out” so they pass more gun safety measures, which would allow the group to “disarm its enemy, then wage war.”