The 4th of July mass public shooting of parade goers in Illinois is yet one more tragedy sparking calls for new gun control laws. As in the Buffalo shopping center mass public shooting, this event occurred in a state with some of the most stringent gun control laws in the country. Only seven states are ranked A- or better, including Illinois and New York, by the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. Both states also have Red Flag Laws in place that if properly resourced, prioritized, and enforced could have prevented both events.
In a
previous blog post, “Mourning
with Uvalde – what can we do?” this blog recommended several actions for
readers and law makers to make changes that could be realistically achieved and
might make a difference. Another blog
post, “A
victory for respectful bipartisan collaboration,” described some legislative success at
the federal level. One of
the outcomes was to support states in creating and implementing Red Flag
laws.
As I
have written before, there are now 19 states with Emergency Risk Protection Order
(ERPO) laws commonly called Red Flag laws. These laws are essential to successful intervention at the intersection
of dangerousness and firearm access. They typically create a
process for the removal of guns from the possession of an individual who
demonstrates they are dangerous to themselves or others. Having a
Red Flag law in place is essential as a first step in this effort.
But I
warned in that original blog: Do not
assume that because your state has passed a law that it is being implementing
properly!
Passing a law is
not the final answer, only the enabling part. Government representatives always
focus on passing new laws so that they can say they “did something.”
Passing a law is just the beginning of a process to create institutions
and resources to use the law successfully to its intended purpose. We are
not good at this and failure to enforce existing laws creates resistance to
passing new laws. It is essential that citizens hold their leaders to account on the enforcement of laws.
Unfortunately,
it appears the effectiveness of implementing Red Flag laws varies dramatically by
state. One recent report indicated Florida used their Red Flag law “2,355 times
to temporarily remove guns last year, nearly half the national total.”
New York, with a comparable population to Florida only used its law 255
times.
In another
report, the Buffalo grocery store mass public shooting was identified as a
specific failure of a state to implement existing law. The murderer made many prior statements and
underwent psychiatric examination that should have triggered New York’s Red
Flag law when he tried to purchase weapons.
"Buffalo was a textbook case. It was not the failure of the law. It
was the failure of the implementation of the law," said John Feinblatt of
Everytown for Gun Safety.
In
Illinois, there is today an effort to strengthen
its Red Flag law with one legislator saying, “There’s alot we can do, and loopholes
in the law which we need to fill.” It
may well be that there are loopholes to fix and lessons to better the law. But Illinois is an abject failure at
implementing the existing law.
Despite
several mass public shootings in that state, CBS News reports court records “indicate
only 51 emergency orders issued statewide in 2020 and 37 of them in 2021.” State Rep. Denyse Stoneback said of Illinois’
record, "When the red flag law was first enacted, there was no structure
put in place to inform residents or law enforcement about its passage or
implementation."
The
point here is to tell readers once again, you must hold officials
accountable. Do you have a Red Flag law
in your state? Is it funded properly? How is the public educated about how to use
it? What specific coordination and
procedures have been created in your community between police and schools to
detect dangerous persons? What kind of
culture exists in your community to report a suspected dangerous person in your
home, school, or community?
Again,
we can pass laws all day long, but if we do not implement, resource, and
enforce them properly they are useless. If you
think your state is immune, think again.
CBS News reported Massachusetts, another A- rated gun control state, has
only dozens of actions using its Red Flag law. How is it possible that Florida can have nearly
9,000 since its implementation in comparison?
Ask some questions.
