California’s ‘red flag’ law utilized for 58 threatened mass shootings

A study from the Violence Prevention Research Program at UC Davis examines case details and mortality records from the first three years of California’s GVRO law, which went into effect on Jan. 1, 2016.

The “red flag” law allows law enforcement, family and household members, some co-workers, employers and teachers to work with a judge to temporarily remove access to firearms and ammunition from people at significant risk of self-harm or harming others.

“Extreme risk protection orders, or GVROs, offer a common sense, popular, and promising tool for firearm violence prevention,” said Veronica Pear, lead author of the study and an assistant professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at UC Davis Health. “The findings suggest GVROs are being used as intended — to remove firearms from individuals threatening to harm themselves, their intimate partners, co-workers, classmates or the general public.”