State House expands ‘red-flag’ weapons seizure law
Connecticut’s House of Representatives on Wednesday approved revisions to the state’s so-called redflag law, in an attempt to make it easier for law enforcement to obtain court orders and seize firearms as well as other deadly weapons from people whose family members or medical professionals fear could harm themselves or others.
The bill passed mostly along party lines, 93-55 after a half-hour debate and next heads to the Senate. It would take effect June 1, 2022.
It would be an update of the state’s first-in-the-nation risk-warrant law passed in the wake of the 1998 workplace massacre at the Connecticut Lottery Corp, when four died, including the shooter, in Newington. Through 2020, 2,623 risk warrants, including 200 alone in 2020, have led to the seizure of firearms.
Nineteen states and the District of Columbia have adopted similar mechanisms.
The current law allows virtually anyone to go to police and file complaints that can lead to investigations and possible firearms seizures. One of the major changes in the proposal would indefinitely extend the time people would be separated from their weapons, and allow complainants to go directly to state judges in addition to local police.
If passed and signed into law, those under such court orders would also be prohibited from purchasing firearms, a longstanding loophole.
Minority Republicans claimed that the current law works well and that such a new statute could create confusion. The bill’s main proponent rebuffed that idea.
“The idea is, they haven’t committed a crime, but we need to get the guns, the dangerous weapons, out of their hands nonetheless,” said state Rep. Steve Stafstrom, D-Bridgeport, cochairman of the Judiciary Committee who led the debate. “So some folks may not want to go directly to the police department. They may rather go to a judge in a more civil process. What we’re adding on is an additional avenue, which may lead to a few additional risk warrants a year.”
Stafstrom cited a 2018 Duke University study that indicated that for every 10 or 20 risk warrants, a suicide has been thwarted. “So if we can save another life, two lives, five lives, this additional procedure is worth it,” Stafstrom said.
In response to some opposition criticism, Stafstrom stressed that fraudulent claims could result in Class D felonies for false reports. He said the state’s temporary restraining order program only covers domestic violence cases where police can take away firearms.
But it wasn’t enough for Rep. Craig Fishbein, RWallingford, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, who voted against it. He recalled a case in which a military veteran, after a quarrel with his wife, took a handgun, said “Have a good life,” walked into the bedroom and locked the door. The wife called police, who immediately responded and persuaded the man to surrender the weapon.
“He’s alive today,” Fishbein said. “The system worked. I just haven’t found a place where this alternative process, which actually takes longer, would be necessary. If an individual doesn’t talk to the police to initiate this process and then the judge looks at the papers, and says ‘Law enforcement, go conduct an investigation,’ but that person is unwilling to talk to law enforcement, though they would have in the beginning, then that is going to impede the investigation. And the passage of time in these cases can lead to people dying.”
“This is a bad bill for people with mental illness,” said Rep. Greg Howard, R-Stonington, a police officer who warned that it could complicate the currently successful law.
But Rep. Anne Hughes, D-Easton, a social worker who has been involved in such cases, said that family members have been asking for the right to go directly to judges to issue risk warrants and remove weapons for households.
“This is an attempt to de-escalate the situations, to create a safe avenue to seize the firearms and deescalate the risk and maybe provide a little time buffer in there, which can be very important,” Hughes said. “Sometimes people in distress see that this is a judge’s order and they will comply with the surrender of their weapons. Others can see this as an attack. There is a breadth of situations where this is an important alternative.”
The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner reported 424 suicides in Connecticut for the calendar year 2019.
Jeremy Stein, executive director of Connecticut Against Gun Violence, applauded the House action.
“The 20-year-old law has been effective in preventing suicide and this can be even more effective,” Stein said, credited the state’s Department of Criminal Justice in crafting the response to the lottery shootings, which followed complaints about the shooter’s stability.
“This law clearly gives deference to police in investigating,” Stein said in a phone interview. “The claim that this would make the police’s job harder seems to be unfounded. This will make it easier for family members and mental health providers to be able to get emergency help in the most extreme circumstances that could save lives.”