Image: Dorothy Paugh lost her son and father to suicide by guns. (Credit: Barbara Haddock Taylor / Baltimore Sun)
Two years after taking effect, Maryland’s extreme risk gun law has been used far more than similar laws in most states that have implemented them in recent years, according to experts and a Baltimore Sun data analysis.
Nineteen states and Washington, D.C., have enacted such so-called “red flag laws,” a term discouraged by mental health advocates due to the stigma attached to the term. Specifics of the laws vary state by state, but they generally allow law enforcement to temporarily take firearms from or ban the sale of firearms to people deemed to be a risk to themselves or others.