New California Study Shows 'Red Flag' Laws May Help Stop Mass Shootings Across the Country

BY TARA LAW
5:00 PM EDT

-snip-

The police’s actions were made possible by a California policy known as a Gun Violence Restraining Order (GVRO), colloquially called a “red flag” order, which was signed into law in 2014 and went into effect in January 2016. The policy allows police or family members to petition a court to recover someone’s guns, magazines and ammunition in emergency situations for up to three weeks, though a judge can extend the confiscation to a year.

On Monday, a team of researchers from the country’s first state-funded gun violence research center at University of California Davis School of Medicine, released the first research into its effects. The paper includes 21 cases in which the state’s law was used to help prevent potential mass shootings. In the case of the car dealership employee, according to the study, police received a GVRO the day after the manager’s report, and later had the order extended to one year. The order can be applied to any insecure weapons in the location of the warrant, including if they belong to another person – such as the dealership employee’s wife.

Since Connecticut passed the first “red flag” law in 1999, California and 13 other states, plus the District of Columbia, have enacted some version of this policy, which is often referred to as an Extreme Risk Protection Order (ERPO). In the aftermath of recent shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, both Democrats and Republicans, including President Donald Trump, have signaled that they’re ready to discuss passing ERPO legislation at the federal level.

Advocates say that ERPO laws can reduce the odds of gun violence by focusing on those possibly at the highest risk of harming themselves or others. However, advocates also say research into these laws’ effectiveness has been stymied by states delaying implementation, and by the Dickey Amendment, which prohibits the CDC from funding research that “may be used to advocate or promote gun control.”

-snip-