Citation

Swanson JW. Psychiatr. Serv. 2019; ePub(ePub): appips201900291.

Affiliation

Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, North Carolina.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, American Psychiatric Association)

DOI

10.1176/appi.ps.201900291

PMID

31378190

Abstract

More than a dozen states have enacted risk-based temporary firearm removal laws—typically called extreme risk protection orders (ERPOs)—and numerous other states are considering similar legislation (1, 2). Emerging research on these policies’ fairness and effectiveness thus takes on new import. Do ERPOs save lives and also respect the rights of law-abiding gun owners who pose no threat? Studies by Swanson and colleagues (3, 4) and by Kivisto and Phalen (5) independently examined the impact of firearm removal authorized by civil courts in Connecticut and Indiana, the first two states to enact such laws. These studies converge in their main conclusion: two different states’ laws enforced for over a decade to temporarily separate firearms from people considered at high risk of harming themselves or others were effective in preventing firearm-related suicides. But the studies’ findings differed substantially in their estimates of the magnitude of both the laws’ benefits and potential adverse consequences. This commentary compares the two sets of studies and discusses possible reasons for their varying results. The discrepancies, rooted in methodological differences, do not undermine the relevant policy message from both studies: ERPOs save lives. Still, further research is needed in other jurisdictions, using a range of empirical methods—rigorous, complementary approaches that can both illuminate the underlying legal processes and evaluate the relevant outcomes of ERPOs.

Kivisto and Phalen (5) compared trends in population-level suicide rates in Connecticut and Indiana with trends in “synthetic control” states, which lack gun removal laws. Using a statistically sophisticated quasi-experimental analysis, the researchers estimated that Indiana’s gun removal law was associated with a 7.5% reduction in gun suicides over 10 years and that Connecticut’s law was associated with a 13.7% reduction in the “post–Virginia Tech period” (5). However, the researchers concluded that the laws’ benefits were somewhat offset by increased nonfirearm suicides. Although the gun removal laws prevented an estimated 128 firearm suicides in Connecticut and 383 firearm suicides in Indiana, the laws contributed to an estimated 140 nonfirearm suicides in Connecticut and 44 nonfirearm suicides in Indiana, according to Kivisto and Phalen (5).

Taking a more direct research approach, Swanson and colleagues ...

Language: en

Keywords

Firearms; Law and psychiatry; Suicide and self-destructive behavior