Republicans are banning policies that could solve their states’ suicide crises

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In Natrona County, Wyomingthe Platte River runs past Casper Mountain, with its dense forests and astonishing vistas, and every year the local coroner collects data in a package called the “Suicide Report.” Its very existence implies that an area of ​​natural beauty and splendor is suffering from an unnatural, brutal epidemic.

On Oct. 1, the coroner, James Whipps, a tall, bald man with glasses and a goatee, sat in a bright courtroom before the Natrona County Board of County Commissioners. He didn’t have good news. “In the last two months since I last spoke to you, we’ve had nine suicides, bringing us to a total of 24 in the province for the year,” he said. His voice was matter-of-fact and candid, like that of a small-town sheriff describing an unsolved violent crime. “We still have three months of the year left, and if the last two months are any indication, we will set a record worse than 2021.”

According to Whipps’ data, 18 of 24 suicides were committed with a firearm, part of a statewide trend. Last year, 75 percent of suicides in Wyoming involved firearms, and the state had the highest firearm suicide rate in the country. But in March, Wyoming, under one-party Republican control, passed a law expressly banning red flag statutes, which have been adopted in 21 states. Red Flag laws allow family members and law enforcement officers to appear before a judge and argue that a person should be temporarily disarmed because he or she poses an immediate risk to themselves or others.

Dallas Laird, a wistful, soft-spoken 78-year-old commissioner, addressed the room. “Last week, my best friend’s guy shot himself,” he said. “A boy I’ve known all his life. And his mother is in Europe and his sister called me and she was in tears – I could barely hear her.” The boy, named Ryan, called him Uncle Dallas. He continued, “I never know what to say.”

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“I haven’t called his mother back yet,” he added. “Because I text her, I say, ‘I will when I know what to say. I just don’t know what to say. ”

Not long ago, red flag laws were widely touted as a bipartisan solution to gun violence. Both Donald Trump and the National Rifle Association had endorsed them. But then the laws became a centerpiece of reform for the Biden administration, prompting a backlash from Second Amendment groups and the far right. Since 2020, four Republican-controlled states, including Wyoming, have passed bans on such laws. The other three — OklahomaWest Virginia, and Tennessee — are also consistently among the states with the highest gun suicide rates in the country, according to data from Cassandra Crifasi, an epidemiologist and associate professor at Johns Hopkins University.

For opponents with a red flag, it has been banning or challenging the statutes embraced as a just cause. There are false claims of rampant abuse and alleged violations of due process and the Second Amendment. Nathan Dahm, the senator who sponsored Oklahoma’s anti-red flag law, told me he protects his constituents from government intrusion. Records show that the year before Dahm introduced his bill, a colleague of his, who was 53, sat on an armchair in his study and shot himself in the chest with one of his fifteen pistols. Last year, Oklahoma had the sixth-highest gun suicide rate in the country. “Everyone dies,” Dahm said, as I pressed him about the relationship between guns and suicide. “That’s life.” When it comes to the freedoms he believes he is protecting, he added: “I’m not going to say it’s a valid trade-off, or acceptable, or anything like that. But everyone will die.”

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The fight over red flag laws is underpinned by political tribalism. Before West Virginia instituted the red flag ban, documents obtained through a public records request show that state deputies received automatically generated emails with the subject line “OPPOSE RED FLAG GUNS LEGISLATION.”

“Gun control groups misled and shamed lawmakers into passing these laws,” the emails said, claiming they are on a “mission to then impose the statute on West Virginia.” One delegate responded, “I too share your concerns about the red flag gun laws. I will oppose such attempts and our 2^i.e modification rights.”

This year, Vice President Kamala Harris, now the Democratic nominee for president, announced the creation of a Red Flag Information Center, which would be housed within the Department of Justice and help states, municipalities and law enforcement agencies make the most of the statutes to get. . In response, the West Virginia attorney general’s office led an effort to undermine the initiative. It wrote a letter of protest to Merrick Garland, the head of the DOJ, and distributed it to other Republican attorneys general in several states. Emails obtained through additional public records requests show that an employee of the West Virginia AG’s office implored them to join the protest, writing: “National gun rights organizations have sharply criticized the center since it was announced. ”

The attorney general’s office at the Iowa Attorney General’s Office said the state was “happy” to sign up but requested a change. He took issue with a sentence in the letter that read: “Little reliable evidence suggests that red flag laws have any real effect on gun violence.”

“Is it possible to replace the expression ‘gun violence’ with ‘gun crime’?” asked the Advocate General. “Guns don’t commit crimes, people do.” The term “gun violence,” he explained, is “hostile.” Ultimately, the reference was simply removed and the letter was signed by 19 states.

Tens of thousands of lives are lost each year due to gun suicide, which accounts for the majority of gun deaths in America. Research has repeatedly shown that taking someone’s life is often a… impulsive and that the period of ideation that precedes it is limited in time. Gaining access to a firearm during that window almost always leads to a fatal outcome.

A 2022 study published in Injury prevention, examined the effectiveness of California’s red flag law during the first three years of its implementation, from 2016 through 2018. About 41 percent of the cases studied involved self-harm, and in no case did anyone die by gun suicide after their weapons had been used. were temporarily removed. Another red flag study, published this year in the Jour research from the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Lawexamined nearly 3,000 cases in four states that included a documented concern for suicide. It estimated that for every 13 orders issued, one death was prevented.

When Ryan was little, he had taken his first steps towards Laird, the Natrona County Commissioner. As Ryan got older, he played hockey and rode bulls and four-wheelers. He seemed to vibrate with energy, but also carried with him an ever-increasing sadness that grew until there was little room for anything else.

Laird imagined Ryan’s mind as a haunted house; New residents were constantly arriving. Ryan tried to subdue them with alcohol and drugs. His obituary stated that life was “sometimes unbearably painful for him. He felt overwhelmed.” When Ryan was arrested, Laird, an attorney, helped him with his legal problems, just as he had helped Ryan’s father in 1978, when the father accidentally shot a woman with his gun. Ryan used the same gun on himself.

As he sat among the commissioners, Laird felt despair. He stared into space, his face pressed against his fist. He had been worried about Ryan and wondered if he would ever hurt himself. “If you were to talk to a young man…” Laird said before walking away. He began to cry, his fitful breathing amplified by his microphone. He was still sitting in his seat, but he seemed to be lurching forward. “And he thought about killing himself? What would you say to him?”

At this stage in his life, Laird found himself crying often. He wonders if it’s his age, or if there’s just a lot to cry about, or if maybe it’s a combination of the two. Ryan was loved, yet he didn’t seem to believe it. How is that possible? What is happening in his community? He thinks most families don’t know what to do when someone is in crisis, or they can’t afford therapy. Guns are everywhere, woven into the fabric of rural America. Elk and elk hunting is a tradition that connects one generation to the next. Children learn to shoot. Beliefs about self-protection and what it means to stand as a sentinel for your family have become a religious belief, even when real danger is often lurking.

Laird believes that too many people feel like they are going nowhere, and that feeling burrows into and infects the soul until the day comes when they pick up a firearm. In Wyoming, more than 85 percent of firearm deaths are suicides.

As the Natrona County meeting progressed, Laird said, “Let me see if I can fine-tune this a little more. If you were me, and you’d known this boy all his life…’ He cried again, his words stuck in his throat. With a tense voice he forced them to go outside. ‘What would you say to his mother? What would you actually say to her? Because I don’t know what to say to her!” Laird then stood up and walked out of the room.

Three weeks later he had breakfast at a small restaurant in Casper called Sherrie’s Place, a long-time favorite among locals. The sun was shining and the weather was still quite warm. Laird saw a state lawmaker and his wife sitting in a booth. Suicide, and what could be done about it, was still on his mind.

“If a child is threatening to commit suicide,” he asked, “why not take his guns away from him?”

“You know, Dallas,” he said, “I don’t think we can pass a law like that.”

“Well, what should we do?”

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The legislature had no answer. In the weeks that had passed since the commissioners met in court, three more suicides had occurred in Natrona County, two of them involving a firearm. The total number of suicides now stood at 27. There were still over two months left in the year, enough time to set a new record.

Call 988 in the US to get the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. Find other international suicide hotlines on Befrienders Worldwide (friendsers.org).