Photo by David Ohmer flickr cc
Gun homicides grab headlines, especially the kind of headlines generated by the latest mass murder at a community college in Oregon.
But in Wisconsin, gun homicides are vastly outnumbered by tragedies that don’t make the front page—gun-involved suicides.
In Wisconsin, between 70-80% of all gun deaths are self-inflicted. In 2011, there were 343 gun-involved suicides compared to 146 gun-involved homicides. Guns were used in 45% of all suicides between 2007 and 2011 and more than half of all males’ suicides, according to a 2014 report by the Wisconsin Department of Health Services, the Injury Research Center at the Medical College of Wisconsin and Mental Health America of Wisconsin. About 90% of those who live through a suicide attempt do not ultimately die by suicide, but those who use a firearm when attempting suicide are almost always successful.
Yet there is little to nothing that a concerned friend or family member can do to take a loved one’s gun away from them during a crisis, short of having the individual involuntarily hospitalized.
That’s precisely what the Lethal Violence Protective Orders bill attempts to fix. Authored by state Sen. Nikiya Harris Dodd (D-Milwaukee) and state Rep. Mandela Barnes (D-Milwaukee) and proposed in September, the bill would allow a friend or family member to petition the courts to remove the firearms from a loved one who threatens to harm themselves or others. The individual would get a court hearing and if a judge deems necessary that individual would need to surrender their firearms temporarily, likely for one year.
Harris Dodd said the court process would ensure that someone in a vulnerable state of mind could stay safe until the crisis passed and they could possess a gun without posing harm to themselves or others. She said the bill would allow friends and families members who are concerned about a loved one to keep that person safe so that they can get help and cope with their suicidal thoughts.
“The law currently doesn’t allow for any kind of meaningful intervention when there’s a crisis situation,” Harris Dodd said. “This bill would give Wisconsin families the right to protect their loved ones, themselves and their communities by giving them the ability to take action before it’s too late.”
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The bill has 14 cosponsors as of this writing, all of them Democrats, including Milwaukee-area Assembly members David Bowen, Jonathan Brostoff, Evan Goyke, LaTonya Johnson, Christine Sinicki, Leon Young and JoCasta Zamarripa, as well as state Sen. Lena Taylor. It hasn’t been assigned to a legislative committee as of this writing.
California lawmakers passed similar bill last year following a mass shooting in Santa Barbara.
Although she proposed the bill long before last week’s shooting, in response to the tragedy in Oregon Sen. Harris Dodd released a statement to the Shepherd, saying, “With the recent events in Oregon, I find myself wondering how many tragedies our nation will have to face before our elected officials start taking violence seriously. Lethal violence protective orders are a new way of looking at gun violence. These protective orders will allow Wisconsin families to take tangible steps to prevent a crisis before it is too late. We should not have to look back at tragedies and stress about what we could have done differently to prevent such horrible situations.”
No Movement on Gun Control
Wisconsin has been the site of grisly gun violence, from the Sikh Temple massacre in Oak Creek and Azana Spa rampage in Brookfield, both in 2012, to the Menasha bridge shooting in May of this year, to the uptick in gun-involved homicides in Milwaukee.
In the past four years the Republican-dominated Legislature has loosened gun restrictions, including establishing a concealed carry program, passing the Castle Doctrine and eliminating the 48-hour waiting period to purchase a gun. It’s also failed to close the gun show loophole, which allows individuals to purchase firearms from dealers who aren’t federally registered and therefore don’t need to do a background check. That allows those who can’t pass a background check to purchase firearms legally.
Jeri Bonavia, director of the Wisconsin Anti-Violence Effort (WAVE), said allowing families to intervene before a crisis situation would be helpful in getting guns out of the hands of those who intend to do harm.
“It’s not going to impact the vast majority of gun owners,” Bonavia said. “It’s hopefully just there to impact those people who anyone would agree at this moment in time should not have a gun.”
Shel Gross, public policy director of Mental Health America Wisconsin, said temporarily removing guns from an individual who is suicidal would respect that person’s civil liberties and prevent him or her from being involuntarily hospitalized while providing an opportunity to get help.
“For most people who are suicidal, hospitalization is not an evidence-based practice,” Gross said. “It can keep people safe but you can keep people safe in other ways. This is one way to keep people safe without having to go through the involuntary commitment process, which is very traumatizing to people and can really impact trust within the family.”
