Monday’s mass shooting at the Old National Bank in downtown Louisville is the latest reminder of America’s worsening epidemic of gun violence. It should be more than enough to spur elected officials to pass common-sense measures to keep guns away from unstable individuals.
The Louisville shooting left five people dead and at least eight wounded, including two police officers. Despite his mental-health issues, the shooter was able to legally purchase an AR-15-style rifle the week before. The massacre came just two weeks after three nine-year-old students and three staffers at a school in Nashville were killed by a disturbed individual who had managed to stockpile seven guns despite having been diagnosed with an emotional disorder.
Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, who lost a close friend in the Louisville shooting, gave an emotional speech this week on the need to prevent future tragedies. As a Democrat who supports tougher gun laws, but faces a veto-proof Republican legislature, his frustration is understandable. Other officials have less excuse for inaction.
The fact is, research shows that a majority of mass shooters exhibit warning signs before committing murder. Laws that aim to prevent these people from accessing firearms are a critical tool in reducing the likelihood of mass shootings. Known as red-flag laws, such measures allow police or family members to ask a court to temporarily confiscate weapons belonging to unstable individuals. They’re one of the few gun-safety policies that command a degree of bipartisan support — and they seem likely to work: A study of Connecticut’s red-flag policy credited the law preventing at least one death for every 10 to 20 times it was used. A California study of 21 cases found that after guns were taken from individuals who’d made explicit shooting threats, no further violence occurred.
Last year, Congress passed the most significant federal legislation on guns in nearly three decades, which included federal grants to encourage states to institute red-flag policies of their own. Unfortunately, this push has only hardened opposition among lawmakers in Republican-controlled states. As of 2020, 19 states and the District of Columbia had red-flag laws on the books, with Florida and Indiana the only ones to pass them under Republican leadership. In the years since, despite scores of mass shootings, those numbers haven’t changed. Neither Tennessee nor Kentucky has adopted a red-flag law; in fact, Tennessee is one of multiple red states to pass recent legislation making gun access even easier. Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, a Republican, said Tuesday that he will push state lawmakers to pass a red-flag law in the wake of the Nashville massacre — a belated but welcome step forward.
Red-flag laws aren’t failsafe. In the past year, gunmen have carried out mass shootings in California, Colorado and New York, all of which have enacted such laws. In Colorado, several local sheriffs announced their resistance to enforcing red-flag laws, questioning their constitutionality; in New York, authorities believed that statements made by an eventual mass shooter who underwent a two-day mental-health evaluation weren’t specific enough to trigger the law, thus enabling him to acquire an assault rifle as soon as he turned 18.
Yet these failures don’t invalidate the broader concept; they show that more work is needed to ensure that red-flag laws are effective. States need to tighten such statutes to remove ambiguities and clarify when authorities should act. President Joe Biden’s administration has already tasked federal agencies to partner “with law enforcement, health care providers, educators and other community leaders” to expand public awareness of red-flag laws; it should expand this campaign to persuade states to strengthen enforcement of the law while addressing concerns over gun owners’ due-process rights. As a necessary step to get more red states on board, Biden should regularly publicize the fact red-flag laws have withstood numerous legal challenges — including in Republican-leaning Florida, where judges have approved red-flag requests more than 8,000 times since 2018.
Gun-rights extremists will surely continue to oppose such laws. But sensible people of both parties should recognize that they’re the most promising approach yet devised to address the national scourge of mass shootings. It’s hard to imagine a worthier cause to support.
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The Editors are members of the Bloomberg Opinion editorial board.
