When a mountain town experiences a vicious murder, a likable Sheriff must rely on a smart Trainee and her anti-gun stance to help catch a killer and prevent a mass shooting.

SYNOPSIS:

Lovable SHERIFF RAMON WEBBLEY (30s) is without a care. His mountain town is devoid of serious crime, he’s happily married to HANNAH (30s), and a beautiful and smart family friend, ABBIE BRIGGS (21), has volunteered to be a Sheriff’s Trainee before she heads off to law school. However, everything changes on election night when voters pass a Red Flag law allowing sheriffs to confiscate guns from the mentally ill. That same night, a vicious murder occurs in the county. Suddenly, citizens are labeled anti-gun nuts or gun-rights nuts, and a dozen sheriffs across the state proudly create Second Amendment Sanctuaries. Sheriff Webbley is non-committal, which makes quick enemies of both sets of nuts, and everyone encourages him to “stand for something, or you stand for nothing.”

At the murder scene, yellow smoke escapes the victim’s burnt car and injures the Sheriff’s eyes, forcing Abbie to become his driver and “eyes.” The case involves cold-blooded murder, drugs, weapons, and a firebomb that attracts the attention of FBI AGENT TOMPKINS (40s). To complicate matters, unsafe target practice with AK47s in a meadow on MAGGIE CARVER’S (50s) ranch involving District Attorney BOBBY HOWELL (40s), JUDGE SUSAN BRIGGS (50s; Abbie’s mom), and the Governor’s Chief of Staff, MARSHA INGRAM (30s), who is accidentally shot in the foot by the town’s petty-thief, DONNY PRUITT (20s). For the Sheriff, defining mental illness becomes incredibly murky. Everyone’s crazy!

The murder appears better planned and more sophisticated than originally thought. The “perp” hides his tracks well, and the investigation is hampered by the Sheriff’s poor eyesight and a pesky TV news reporter, TAMMY CHONG (30s). A heroin overdose of a homeless man appears unrelated, until chemically identical drugs are found in the first murder victim’s car. And, when two assault rifles are stolen, Donny’s past psychiatric care and rap sheet move him up on the suspect list. However, the Sheriff gets suspended and Abbie is detained by a Deputy Sheriff for leaking the Sheriff’s body-cam video of the accidental shooting in the meadow, exposing the county’s VIPs as gun-rights nuts.

The Sheriff gets reinstated, and with Abbie’s help, closes in on the homeless man’s estranged son, HARRY (20s), who recently returned to town. Harry secretly joined a white supremacist group but has no history of mental illness. Judge Briggs finally allows the Sheriff to confiscate Donny’s guns because he’s on the FBI watch list, but not Harry’s guns, because he’s not on the list. All along, it was the unsuspected Harry who went berserk, killed the drug dealer and the homeless man (his estranged dad), amassed automatic rifles, and planned the school mass shooting, which the Sheriff prevents in a shockingly wild, dark-comedy ending.

RED FLAG