Having the right to keep and bear arms comes with another side to things. I believe people have the right to not keep and bear arms if they don't want to. It seems simple, but gun ownership isn't for everyone. If someone feels they'd be an irresponsible gun owner, then by all means, don't buy guns.

Yet for some, it seems important that we not just have the option to not buy a gun but that we should have a law that allows people to declare themselves prohibited from buying a gun.

I mean, of all the gun laws being proposed by people, this is the least intrusive because it's apparently voluntary, but I do have a problem with media outlets try to hype the measure.

A prime example is a piece entitled, "This Voluntary Gun Law Is Preventing Suicides."

Firearms are the most common means of suicide in the US, accounting for 53 percent of all suicides in 2020. Her mother's death was the fourth gun suicide in Brees' family history, and a tipping point. "The next morning, I went straight into action."

Now Brees is advocating for a simple solution: A way for people like her mother to voluntarily add themselves to a Do-Not-Sell List that prevents them from quickly buying a gun.

"There are almost no barriers to buying a gun in Louisiana," Brees says. "Every year we have more than 600 suicides here, and two thirds are by firearms."

State by state, Brees' solution is becoming a reality. Versions of the Voluntary Do-Not-Sell List - or Donna's Law - have since been passed in Washington State, Virginia, and Utah. The law grants people the option to voluntarily and confidentially add their names to their state's background check system to prevent them from impulsively purchasing a gun.

Anybody can sign up, no questions asked. If they want to buy a gun, they can file a request to have their name removed after a 21-day waiting period.

It actually gives people more gun rights," Brees says.

No, it does not. It may give people more options, but voluntarily surrendering your rights doesn't mean you have more rights. That's just not how it works.

That said, if someone does want to forfeit their rights, so be it. I'm not losing any sleep over your decision to say you shouldn't be allowed to own a gun just so long as you're not trying to interfere with my right to own one.

The issue arises, though, with the framing. This law saves lives, we're told. That must mean they have studies to at least back up the claim, right?

The laws are too new for their effects to be evaluated in the three states where they have already been implemented, but mental health experts agree that delaying access to firearms in times of crisis is a life-saving strategy.

Mental health experts have been claiming that delaying access can save lives, but the truth is that this is being hyped as a sure-fire solution when there's absolutely no evidence to support it.

Meanwhile, where is the advocacy for measures that allow people to hand their guns over to their local gun store temporarily? Because of how FFL record keeping works, this creates problems for gun stores, which means we should try to remove burdens from stores.

We can also recognize that universal background checks actually can prevent efforts to delay access to guns.

I've had friends who were dealing with some stuff, so they asked friends to hold onto their guns for them so they wouldn't do anything stupid. This meant that if things got really bad, they didn't have guns handy.

Yet universal background checks create a problem with this kind of arrangement. If a person asks a friend to hold onto their guns in California, for example, the only way to do it lawfully is to go to an FFL and affect a transfer. In that case, in the eyes of the authorities, the friend is now the new owner of those guns, which might be more than some people are willing to go. Plus, let's be frank, if you're creating hurdles for people doing the responsible thing, a lot of people are just going to skip it.

All this talk about putting yourself on a do-not-sell list is fine and well, but there are other measures that would make so much more sense that these same people are generally ignoring.