Implementation and Effectiveness of Connecticut’s Risk-Based Gun Removal Law: Does it Prevent Suicides?
2017; Duke University School of Law; Volume: 80; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1945-2322
AutoresJeffrey W. Swanson, Michael A. Norko, Hsiu‐Ju Lin, Kelly Alanis‐Hirsch, Linda K. Frisman, Madelon Baranoski, Michele M. Easter, Allison G. Robertson, Marvin S. Swartz, Richard J. Bonnie,
Tópico(s)Legal Systems and Judicial Processes
ResumoI INTRODUCTION Developing practical, effective, and legally sustainable policies to separate firearms from people at risk of harming themselves or others presents a potentially important, but challenging, public health opportunity for gun violence prevention in the United States. Risk-based, temporary, preemptive gun removal is a legal tool that four states--Connecticut, (1) Indiana, (2) California, (3) and Washington (4)--have adopted, and which has recently attracted considerable interest among policymakers in other jurisdictions. (5) To date, there has been little empirical scrutiny of these laws in practice and there are important unanswered questions about how they work: What are the legal and logistical barriers to implementing risk-based gun removal laws? Do they target the right people? Are the laws fair? Do they actually help reduce gun deaths? In 1999, following a highly publicized mass shooting, (6) Connecticut became the first state to pass a law authorizing police to temporarily remove guns from individuals when there is probable cause to believe ... that a person poses a risk of imminent personal injury to himself or herself or to other individuals[.] (7) Connecticut's innovative statute established the legal practice of preemptive gun removal as a civil court action based on a risk warrant, a process that neither requires nor generates a record of criminal or mental health adjudication as its predicate. (8) Our research study provides an analysis of the characteristics, implementation, and outcomes of gun removals conducted under Connecticut's risk warrant law during the period of October 1999 through June 2013. (9) This article summarizes key features of the study in an effort to inform other states that are considering the adoption of similar gun-seizure laws. Part II sketches the relevant policy landscape in order to demonstrate that point-of-purchase background checks are a necessary but insufficient component of a strategy to reduce gun violence in the United States, and that risk-based preemptive gun removal schemes provide a complementary policy to bridge the gap. Part III briefly recounts the history of enactment and gradual implementation of Connecticut's risk-based gun removal law, beginning with the high-profile homicide that drove public opinion to support the law. Part IV describes our research study's quantitative and qualitative methods and data sources. Part V presents the results of the study. It first describes the characteristics of gun removal cases in Connecticut. Next, it summarizes views of stakeholders regarding the effectiveness and fairness of gun removal, as well as particular challenges faced in implementing the risk warrant law. It then analyzes suicides committed by the individuals from whom firearms had been seized to determine whether the policy saved lives, and concludes with an estimate of the number of gun removal cases that are necessary to avert one suicide. Part VI summarizes the findings and draws key policy implications. Finally, Part VII renders the study's conclusion. II THE POLICY LANDSCAPE: THE LIMITS OF BACKGROUND CHECKS AND THE POTENTIALLY IMPORTANT ROLE OF RISK-BASED PREEMPTIVE GUN REMOVAL LAWS Intentional gun violence in the United States remains a daunting public health problem--diverse in its surrounding circumstances, complex in its causal pathways, and far reaching in its social and economic consequences. (10) How to solve the problem remains the subject of a contentious and partisan political debate, pitting public safety interests against the Second Amendment right. (11) The 1994 Brady Law's (12) requirement of point-of-purchase background checks for firearm sales from federally licensed dealers has long been the mainstay of federal and state efforts to prevent gun violence. This is arguably a necessary but insufficient policy approach. (13) Wide variation in the operational criteria for gun restrictions across states, inconsistencies in local policies and practices that apply these criteria to individual cases, and major gaps in state authorities' reporting of gun-disqualifying records to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), all contribute to inefficient identification of people who should not have guns. …
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