To prevent mass shootings, do this...

Get beyond gun-control politics and implement a mental health injunction

Gov. Doug Ducey says that his school safety plan failed in the Legislature because “politics intervened.”

That’s not fully accurate. Politics did play a role in its demise. But part of the problem was that politics played a significant role in its creation as well.

Ducey crafted his school safety plan to navigate the current difficult shoals of gun control politics. That his plan would crash into those shoals isn’t a surprise. That’s the fate of virtually all proposals dealing with guns.

Nor is it really a criticism to say that Ducey crafted his plan with the politics of the issue in mind. That’s generally the way to get something done.

However, there are times in which the only way to get something done is to expand the scope of the politically possible. And if the cause is impor-

tant enough, that’s the highest calling of political leadership.

This is one of those causes. After each mass shooting, proposals flow forth to do something to prevent them, usually involving limiting what kind of guns can be sold legally or how they can be purchased.

This is a terrific disconnect. Nearly always, the gun limitations being proposed, if they had been in effect, wouldn’t have prevented the mass shooting that supposedly makes their adoption so urgent.

There is one significant exception to this general rule, what is known as a mental health injunction against possessing firearms.

This is a civil procedure in which a person experiencing severe mental illness and showing violent tendencies can have their guns temporarily removed and be placed on the federal no-sell list.

In numerous mass shooting in the United States, the perpetrator had been exhibiting such symptoms for some time. If such a civil procedure were available, the tragedy might very well have been averted. In several cases, it almost certainly would have.

Now, for the civil procedure to be effective, it has to be limited to separating the individual from access to guns, nothing more. It can’t be the equivalent of an involuntary commitment for mental illness, or the beginning of a process that leads to involuntary commitment.

The people most likely to know when someone may be a threat for a violent outburst are family members. In several shootings, school officials were also acutely aware of the threat.

The police often have run-ins with such people. Such a civil procedure would give the police an option between doing nothing and initiating an involuntary commitment.

The legal hurdle to involuntary commit someone for mental illness is high, as it should be. And family members, the first line of sentinels, are often reluctant to initiative an involuntary commitment of a loved one, essentially turning them over to be locked up.

In the last legislative session, Democrats proposed a well-crafted civil procedure for a mental health injunction. A petition for an injunction could be filed by a family member or a law enforcement official. It would apply for a year and could be renewed. The subject of the injunction could apply to have it lifted at any time.

The only consequence of the injunction would be to deny the person access to guns.

Ducey’s proposed alternative amounted to a temporary involuntary commitment. The subject of the court order would have to submit to a psychiatric examination. The order would only last 21 days.

Families reluctant to subject a loved one to involuntary commitment would be unlikely to initiative such a process. The short duration of the order would make it more hassle than it is worth for police officers, who can already initiate involuntary commitments.

Senate Republicans made it even worse before passing the bill. Only police officers could seek the order. It would last for only 14 days. And it would clearly be a prelude to longer-term involuntary commitment.

The bill died in the House. Too many Republicans were spooked by gun control politics. Democrats opposed it supposedly because of what it lacked, notably universal background checks and a ban on bump stocks.

However, the Democratic bills providing for a mental health injunction didn’t include a universal background check or a bump stock ban. Those became sine qua nons only when Ducey proposed something somewhat similar.

A civil procedure along the lines the Democrats proposed could prevent a mass shooting in Arizona. Ducey and legislative Democrats should move outside the contours of gun control politics and make that happen.