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Trump Wants To Take Guns Away From People In Crisis. Will That Work?

A shooting at the Cielo Vista Mall WalMart in El Paso, Texas, on Aug. 3 left 22 people dead. (Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images)

In his response Monday to mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, President Donald Trump called for an expansion of state laws that temporarily prevent someone in crisis from buying or possessing a gun.

A flurry of states have recently passed such laws 鈥 known as extreme risk protection orders 鈥 which allow a court to intervene when someone shows warning signs of impending violence. Although the laws are widely supported by groups and , others note that the measures alone won鈥檛 solve the nation鈥檚 gun violence epidemic.

Trump said the shooter in the Parkland, Fla., massacre last year 鈥渉ad many red flags against him, and yet nobody took decisive action; nobody did anything. … We must make sure that those judged to pose a grave risk to public safety do not have access to firearms, and that if they do, those firearms can be taken through rapid due process.鈥

About show warning signs that they were a threat to themselves or others, according to Everytown for Gun Safety, which advocates for stricter measures to reduce gun violence.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) has to provide federal funding to states to put such laws into practice. A has been introduced in the House of Representatives by Rep. Salud Carbajal (D-Calif.). After Trump鈥檚 Monday speech, (R-S.C.)聽said he and (D-Conn.) have agreed to get the bills passed.

A 2018 poll found of registered voters support such legislation.

At the time of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., in February 2018, only allowed extreme risk protection orders. Today, 鈥 California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington 鈥 have protection orders, as does the District of Columbia.

Advocates say protection orders address gaps in , which bars people from having guns only if have been convicted of certain crimes; if they are determined to have a mental illness or have been involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital; or if they鈥檙e subject to a final domestic violence restraining order. People who don鈥檛 meet these criteria are still able to buy and keep guns, according to federal law, even if they display warning signs of impending violence or suicide.

Protection orders 鈥渢ake guns out of the hands of those who should not have them without infringing on the rights of law-abiding gun owners,鈥 said Dr. Mark Rosenberg, who oversaw gun violence research at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Protection orders are a 鈥渧ital tool鈥 that allows the people who are most likely to notice when a loved one or community member becomes a danger to take concrete steps to disarm them, according to the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, a San Francisco-based advocacy group named for Gabrielle Giffords, a former congresswoman who survived a mass shooting.

The , which typically opposes efforts to restrict access to guns, said it supports state protection orders, as long as the laws include certain provisions to ensure gun owners鈥 rights.

A 2018 study in found gun-related suicides fell significantly after the passage of extreme risk protection laws in Indiana and Connecticut. Gun-related suicides fell 7.5% in the 10 years after Indiana enacted its law, along with 13.7% in Connecticut. of firearms deaths are suicides.

Yet the evidence that protection orders reduce gun violence is more 鈥渟uggestive鈥 than definitive, Rosenberg said. No one has performed a large, long-term study of the state laws, mainly because of a from the 1990s that discouraged federal agencies from studying gun violence, he said.

鈥淚t鈥檚 a horrible shame that we don鈥檛 have evidence about what works to prevent gun violence,鈥 Rosenberg said.

Some mental health advocates criticized Trump for blaming mass shootings on mental illness.

鈥淔our percent of violence in this country is attributable to mental illness,鈥 said Ronald Honberg, a senior policy adviser for the . 鈥淭hat means 96% of violence is not. So if somehow we were miraculously able to cure mental illness, which we’re far from being able to do at this point, we would not be appreciably reducing violence.鈥

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