Red flag laws can prevent suicide About one life is saved for every 17 times a protective order takes a troubled person’s firearms away Guns are the most lethal means of suicide FRIDAY, Aug. 23, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- “Red flag” laws are an effective means of preventing suicide , a new study finds. About one life was saved for every 17 times that an extreme risk protection order (ERPO) kept firearms out of the hands of a troubled individual, researchers reported Aug.
20 in the Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law . “This analysis provides important information for making the case that ERPOs can save lives,” said lead researcher Jeffrey Swanson , a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Duke University School of Medicine, in Durham, N.C.
“These laws do not affect private gun ownership rights for anyone who is not dangerous and is law-abiding, and they are broadly supported by people across the political spectrum,” Swanson added in a Duke news release. Judges issue ERPOs after determining that a person poses an imminent risk to either themselves or other people, researchers explained in background notes. The person’s guns are temporarily taken away.
Laws allowing ERPOs are now active in 21 states and the District of Columbia. For the study, researchers analyzed ERPOs issued against nearly 4,600 people in California, Connecticut, Maryland and Washington. They used death records to determine whether these people had wound up comm.