Republicans ban policies that could solve suicide crises in their states

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In Natrona County WyomingThe Platte River flows along Casper Mountain, with dense forests and astonishing views, and each year the local coroner collects the data in a package called “Suicide Report.” Its very existence means that an area of ​​natural beauty and splendor is struggling with an unnatural, unrelenting epidemic.

On October 1, Coroner James Whipps, a large, bald man with glasses and a goatee, sat before the Natrona County Board of Commissioners in a bright courtroom. He didn’t have good news. “In the last two months since I last spoke to you, we have had nine suicides, bringing the countywide total to 24 this year,” he said. His voice was sober and honest, like a small-town sheriff describing an unsolved violent case. “We still have three months left in the year and if the last two months are any indication, we will set a record worse than the one we set in 2021.”

According to Whipps’ data, 18 of the 24 suicides were committed by firearms, part of a statewide trend. Last year, 75 percent of suicides in Wyoming were gun-related, and the state had the highest gun suicide rate in the nation. But in March, Wyoming, under the control of one-party Republicans, passed a law expressly banning red flag laws, which have been passed in 21 states. Red flag laws allow family members and law enforcement officials to go before a judge and make an argument that a person should be temporarily disarmed because he poses an imminent danger to himself or others.

Dallas Laird, a wistful, soft-spoken 78-year-old commissioner, addressed the room. “Last week, the boyfriend of one of my best friends shot himself and committed suicide,” he said. “The boy I have known all my life. And his mother is in Europe and his sister called me and she was in tears – I could barely understand her. A 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’m texting her, I’m like, ‘I’ll do it when I know what to say.’ I just don’t know what to say.”

NOT that long ago, red flag laws were widely touted as a bipartisan solution to gun violence. Both Donald Trump and the National Rifle Association supported it. But then the rights became a centerpiece of the Biden administration’s reforms, and there was fierce opposition from Second Amendment groups and the far right. As of 2020, four Republican-controlled states, including Wyoming, have banned such laws. The remaining three – OklahomaWest Virginia i Tennessee – consistently rank among states with the highest gun suicide rates in the nation, according to data provided by Cassandra Crifasi, an epidemiologist and associate professor at Johns Hopkins University.

For opponents of the red flag, prohibition or suppression of statutes was embraced as a just cause. There are false claims about rampant misuse and alleged violations of due process and the Second Amendment. Nathan Dahm, a state senator who sponsored Oklahoma’s anti-red flag bill, told me he was protecting his constituents from government violations. According to the files, a year before Dahm presented his bill, his 53-year-old colleague sat in a chair in his office and used one of 15 guns to shoot himself in the chest. Last year, Oklahoma had the sixth-highest gun suicide rate in the nation. “Everybody dies,” Dahm said when I pressed him about the link between guns and suicide. “That’s life.” As for the freedoms he says it protects, he added: “I’m not going to say it’s a valid compromise or an acceptable compromise or anything like that. But they will all die.”

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The fight over red flag laws is tinged with political tribalism. Before West Virginia implemented its red flag ban, documents obtained through a public records request show state delegates received automatically generated emails with the subject line “Oppose Red Flag Firearms Laws.”

“Gun control groups have deceived and shamed legislators into passing this legislation,” the emails said, claiming their “mission is to impose” the law on West Virginia next. One delegate replied: “I too share your concerns about red flag gun laws. I will oppose any such attempts and keep our 2^II rights to amendments.”

This year, Vice President Kamala Harris, now the Democratic presidential candidate, announced the creation of a red-flag resource center to be housed within the Justice Department to help states, localities and law enforcement agencies make the most of the statutes. In response, the West Virginia attorney general’s office attempted to undermine the initiative. He wrote a letter of protest to Merrick Garland, head of the Justice Department, and sent it to other Republican attorneys general in various states. Emails obtained through additional public information requests show an employee at the West Virginia AG’s office implored them to join the protest, writing: “National gun rights organizations have sharply criticized the center since its announcement.” .

A general counsel from the Iowa Attorney General’s office said the state was “pleased” with the agreement but asked for changes. He objected to a sentence in the letter that read: “Little credible evidence suggests that red flag laws have any real effect on gun violence.”

“Can the phrase ‘gun violence’ be replaced with ‘gun crime’?” – asked the attorney general. “Guns don’t cause crime, people do.” The term “gun violence,” he explained, is “hostile.” Ultimately, the mention was simply removed and the letter was signed by 19 countries.

Tens of thousands of people die by gun suicide every year, accounting for the majority of gun deaths in America. Research has repeatedly shown that taking one’s own life is often… impulsive act and that the period of imagination preceding it is limited in time. Gaining access to firearms during this period is almost always fatal.

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 to 2018. About 41 percent of the cases examined involved self-harm, and in no case did anyone die by suicide after the gun was temporarily removed. Another red flag study, published this year in the journal Jjournal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and Lawinvestigated nearly 3,000 cases in four states that included documented suicide concerns. It was estimated that for every 13 orders issued, one death was prevented.

WHEN RYAN WAS LITTLE, he took his first steps with Laird, the Natrona County Commissioner. As Ryan grew up, he played hockey, rode bulls and quad bikes. It seemed to vibrate with energy, but it also carried within it an ever-increasing sadness that grew until there was no room for anything else.

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

Sitting among the commissioners, Laird felt despair. He looked straight ahead, resting his face on his fist. He was worried about Ryan and wondered if one day he would hurt himself. “If you were talking to a young man…” Laird said, then stopped. He began to cry, his ragged breathing amplified by the microphone. He was still sitting in his seat, but he seemed to be leaning forward. “And he thought about suicide? What would you tell him?”

At this point in her life, Laird cries a lot. He wonders if it’s his age, or if he’s just something to cry about, or maybe a combination of both. Ryan was loved, and yet he didn’t seem to believe it. How is this possible? What’s happening in his community? He believes that most families don’t know what to do when someone is in crisis or can’t afford therapy. Guns are everywhere, woven into the fabric of rural American culture. Moose and moose hunting is a tradition that connects one generation with the next. Children learn to shoot. Ideas about self-defense and what it means to protect one’s family have become like a religious creed, even though the real danger usually lurks within.

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

As the Natrona County meet progressed, Laird said, “So I’ll see if I can refine it a little better. If you were in my shoes and knew this boy all his life… He cried again, the words catching in his throat. He forced them out, his voice strained. “What would you tell his mother? What would you actually tell her? Because I don’t know what to tell her!” Laird then stood up and left the room.

Three weeks later, he had breakfast at a small restaurant in Casper called Sherrie’s Place, long a favorite with the locals. The sun was out and the weather was still quite warm. Laird noticed the state legislator and his wife sitting in a booth. He kept thinking about suicide and what he could do about it.

“If some kid is threatening to kill himself,” he asked, “why don’t we take his gun away?”

“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 legislator did not find an answer. In the weeks since the commissioners met in the courtroom, there have been three more suicides in Natrona County, including two by gun. The total number of suicides was 27. There are over two months left in the year, plenty of time to set a new record.

Dial 988 in the US to contact National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. Find other international suicide helplines at Befrienders Worldwide (befrienders.org).