Michigan's Own Courts Reveal Red Flag Confiscation by the Numbers

The state's judicial branch quietly released Michigan's first-ever comprehensive statistical report on its Extreme Risk Protection Order law—and the NRA-ILA broke down what it actually means for the 4.8 million gun owners across the Great Lakes State.

The core fact is brutal in its simplicity: Michigan courts are issuing confiscation orders against people convicted of exactly nothing. No trial. No jury. No chance to face your accuser before a judge signs the paper. You find out when deputies are at your door.

**That is not a justice system. That is a government-issued SWAT list.**

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and a Democrat-controlled legislature rammed Michigan's red flag statute through in 2023. It allows police and family members to petition a court in an emergency *ex parte* hearing—meaning you are barred from the room while your rights are being stripped. The order issues first. Your chance to fight comes after your guns are already gone.

What this new judicial report gives us, for the first time, is a statistical window into how often this machinery actually runs: filing rates broken down by county, and the rate at which courts grant versus deny orders. Once a petition hits a judge's desk, the data shows, approval is the overwhelming rule—not the exception. Anti-gun lawmakers designed these laws to *sound* clinical and cautious. The numbers tell a different story.

And Michigan is not a cautionary tale from some far-off state. It is a preview of the national playbook.

Nearly 20 states now run red flag frameworks built on the same due-process-lite architecture. Every one wraps itself in the same sanitized language—"extreme risk," "temporary measure," "public safety." What that language actually means: accused without charge, disarmed by court order, and left to lawyer up and fight for your own rights at your own expense.

The *Bruen* decision (2022) and *Rahimi* (2024) handed courts sharper tools to scrutinize these statutes. But Michigan's confiscation regime is running at full operational speed while legal challenges grind through the docket at glacial pace. **Rights delayed is rights denied—and the clock is running in every county courthouse in this state.**

If you live in Michigan: find out your county's filing rate from this report, and retain a firearms-rights attorney *before* you ever need one. Call your state legislators and demand either an outright repeal or—at minimum—a mandatory adversarial hearing before any order takes effect.

If you live anywhere red flag legislation is pending: this report is your ammunition. Print it. Share it. Send it to every undecided lawmaker you can reach.

Michigan just showed the country exactly how this machine operates when no one is watching. Now everyone is watching. The question is what gun owners do next—because the activists pushing these laws in your state are already studying Michigan's numbers and calling them a success.