Red flag laws are often sold to the American public as not just the cure for mass murder, but also for suicides. The idea is simple, and we can all see how it's supposed to work. The problem is that it doesn't require anyone to actually know what they're talking about before they take people's guns.
And The Trace loves them, but it seems they just discovered an alternative.
Many of us know that if we start feeling depressed, especially enough that we might ponder making very permanent decisions to address temporary problems, we can reach out to a friend who can take possession of our guns for a short time, at least until we're better.
It seems this is now called "safeguarding," and a recent piece at the anti-gun "newsroom" touts research showing the benefits of the practice.
Violence prevention groups and researchers have spent years working on initiatives to get firearms out of the hands of people who may pose a danger to themselves or others. Their most prominent success is perhaps also the most controversial: extreme risk protection laws, commonly known as red flag laws.
States across the country have adopted these laws, which allow people to petition a court for an order to temporarily remove guns from someone who may be a threat. Red flag laws have been used to prevent mass violence, and research indicates that they can help reduce not only firearm suicide but also suicide overall. For a while, these laws had bipartisan support, but now, Second Amendment groups have launched a concerted attack on red flag laws in the court system. In such a supercharged political climate, with such high stakes, what other options exist for people at risk?
Emerging research reveals there may be promise in another practice: safeguarding.
Safeguarding is the process of temporarily taking control of someone’s guns because they’re at risk of suicide or harming someone else, without involving the criminal justice system — like voluntary extreme risk protection. The idea is somewhat analogous to laws that allow people to temporarily ban themselves from buying guns.
A forthcoming analysis examined who is safeguarding guns and how they are doing it. I spoke about the practice with Catherine Barber, the researcher at Harvard Injury Control Research Center who led the analysis. Barber has worked in violence prevention for over four decades, and her work has been pivotal in helping to understand the landscape of gun violence. She led the pilot program for what would become the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Violent Death Reporting System, and served as the founding director of Means Matter, a national suicide prevention campaign that involved gun owners. We discussed what the research reveals about safeguarding and what that could mean, specifically for firearm suicide prevention, in the future.
Barber notes that one benefit of safeguarding is that, because it's voluntary, it doesn't create the political friction that red flag laws create. Absolutely no one opposes someone who is feeling suicidal giving their guns to someone else for safekeeping. It's absolutely the right thing for such a person to do.
The research suggests that just under 7 million people have safeguarded for someone in the past five years. That's a lot of potential lives saved, and if you go further back, you'll find a lot more.
I've been asked to hold onto a friend's guns when he was at a low point, and I was happy to do so. Most gun owners are happy to take hold of their friends' firearms in such a case.
However, something that didn't make the report is that it's illegal to do in some states without going through an FFL.
Universal background check states usually don't have a safeguarding provision in their law, which means that in order for me to take possession of a friend's firearms in that state, we have to go through an FFL. That adds an additional layer to the process, one which might be enough to scuttle the entire process and lead to someone taking their own life because they were legally barred from doing the simple, right thing.
Some states have started allowing gun stores to hold onto people's guns for a period of time, which shows that at least some people are thinking that folks can make that determination for themselves, but the harsh truth is that too many others seem to think voluntary action isn't good enough.
And there's no reason gun rights advocates would ever oppose this, because none of us want to see our friends take their own lives.
States would do better by trying to get out of people's way, not just with safeguarding, but also by making it so people could talk to professionals about their problems and not have to worry about their guns being taken away. That's a thing in too many places, and it just makes the problem worse.
I'm going to give The Trace credit on this one. For once, they aren't pushing the anti-gun solution.
I have no doubt that it's going to last just as long as it takes for the second hand to move on my watch.
