A recent study led by a Duke professor found that extreme risk protection orders are effective in preventing suicides, estimating that one suicide death could be prevented for every 17 or 23 issued ERPOs.
ERPOs — also known as red flag laws — are civil court orders established in 21 states and Washington, D.C., that temporarily restrict access to guns for individuals at risk of harming themselves or others. Although guns make up only 5% of suicide attempts, they account for 52% of suicide deaths.
Jeffrey Swanson, professor in psychiatry and behavioral sciences, was the lead author of the research published in the Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law.
According to Swanson, a benefit of ERPOs is that those experiencing a mental health crisis can be noticed and medically evaluated.
“This gun seizure event [is] kind of a portal into treatment,” he said. “And there's nothing in the [ERPO] statute that talks about treatment or helping people or trying to mitigate the circumstances that lead them to injurious behavior, but it [does] have that [benefit].”
Swanson explained that an ERPO is issued in an ex parte proceeding, meaning that the involved parties are not present in the courtroom and the judge decides whether the information presented meets the standard of probable cause. After the ERPO is issued, the respondent schedules a hearing where the state has to prove that the individual poses a risk of harm using firearms.
ERPOs can act as a way of preventing potential mass shootings, he explained. The study cited that in six states with ERPOs, “10% of their of the ERPO petitions were granted in cases involving a threat of a mass shooting, typically against a K-12 school.”
Despite the public safety benefits that ERPOs have — according to Swanson — the main obstacle for the implementation of ERPOs is the political tension surrounding the Second Amendment and the right to bear arms. Because of this, he noted that ERPO laws often are not passed in states until a gun-related tragedy occurs.
“We have to figure out ... the people who are so dangerous that it is justified to limit their Second Amendment right,” he said. “[ERPO] takes advantage of information around a person that might be available to family members or clinicians or law enforcement or whoever [to make those informed decisions].”
Swanson also referred to a survey he conducted in 2019 from his book “Gun Violence Prevention and Mental Health Policy,” in which 68.2% of gun owners support the authorization of temporary firearm removal from individuals who pose an immediate threat of harm, in comparison to 77.1% of non-gun owners who support the removal.
The North Carolina General Assembly has not passed a Red Flag Law in N.C., though according to a 2022 WRAL poll, 87% of polled North Carolinians support passing such a law.
Looking back on the study, Swanson said that he wished the team could have gathered the stories and perspectives of people who have been respondents of ERPOs to understand whether they perceived positive or negative impacts from them — including military veterans and people who may pose a high risk of suicide.
“The reason we need ERPO laws is that we need a flexible tool to remove the access that [are] really efficient technology that's designed to kill people in a short period of time,” he said.
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Winston Qian is a Pratt sophomore and health/science editor for the news department.