What Are Red Flag Laws?

What Is a Red Flag Law?

The phrase “red flag law” makes it sound like surveillance. It is closer to a restraining order for guns. A person who is spiraling, making threats, or in a suicidal crisis can have their firearms held for a set time, then returned when the danger passes.

How an ERPO Works

An ERPO is a civil court process, modeled on the domestic-violence restraining order. It moves in two stages that balance public safety against due process. A fast temporary order handles the immediate danger; a full hearing follows, where the state has to prove its case.

The life of an ERPO, from petition to return

1. 1 Day 1 A petition is filed A family member or officer files a sworn affidavit describing specific warning signs.
2. 2 Same day A judge reviews it Without the gun owner present (ex parte), so the person is not tipped off. The judge looks for immediate risk.
3. 3 Within hours Guns are removed Police serve the temporary order and take the firearms. New purchases are blocked.
4. 4 3 to 21 days A full hearing Both sides appear. The respondent can bring a lawyer, cross-examine, and present evidence.
5. 5 Up to 1 year A final order, or not To extend, the state must show clear and convincing evidence. The respondent can petition once to end it early.
6. 6 When it expires Guns are returned If no one renews the court order, the firearms go back automatically.

Timeframes vary by state. Sources: National ERPO Resource Center; Giffords Law Center.

Who Can Ask for a Red Flag Order

Whether a worried mother can go to a judge herself depends entirely on her state. Every ERPO state lets law enforcement petition. Beyond that, the states split three ways.

The difference matters because family members and household members usually see a crisis coming long before police do. In 4 in 5 school shootings, the attacker told someone about the plan beforehand (U.S. Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center). A law that makes the mother drive to a police station and convince a skeptical desk officer adds friction at the worst moment.

The broadest extreme risk laws reflect that. California’s Gun Violence Restraining Order accepts petitions from employers, coworkers, and teachers. New York adds district attorneys and school administrators. Colorado, Hawaii, Maryland, and Michigan let medical professionals or mental health professionals file directly about a patient they believe is dangerous. In the other states with a law, police plus family or household members can file.

The newest expansion is Virginia. On July 1, 2026, family members, clinicians, and school administrators became eligible to petition for a Substantial Risk Order; before that, only police and prosecutors could (Virginia HB901).

Red Flag Orders Are Not Mental-Health Holds

The most common confusion is between a red flag order and an involuntary psychiatric hold, like California’s 5150 or Florida’s Baker Act. They are different tools.

The distinction matters because most people in a gun crisis are not committable, and most people with mental illness are never dangerous. An ERPO targets the specific risk, the access to a firearm, without forcing hospitalization or pinning a psychiatric label on someone.

What States Have Red Flag Laws

Red flag laws are split sharply along the same lines as the rest of gun policy. Twenty-two states and the District of Columbia have one. Lawmakers in six states have gone the other way, passing laws that forbid or even criminalize enforcing an ERPO.

Has a red flag law (22 states + DC)

Bans or penalizes enforcing one (6 states)

No statewide red flag law

Sources: National ERPO Resource Center; Everytown for Gun Safety; Giffords Law Center; The Trace. Verified July 29, 2026.

Red Flag Laws by State

State	Status	Detail
California	Has a red flag law	Gun Violence Restraining Order (2016). One of the broadest petitioner lists in the country.
Colorado	Has a red flag law	ERPO (2019). Expanded in 2023 to let clinicians and educators petition.
Connecticut	Has a red flag law	Risk Protection Order (1999), the nation's first. Family and clinicians can petition directly since 2021.
Delaware	Has a red flag law	Lethal Violence Protective Order (2018), extended to 5 years in 2025.
District of Columbia	Has a red flag law	ERPO (2019).
Florida	Has a red flag law	Risk Protection Order (2018), passed after Parkland. One of the highest-use states despite police-only filing.
Hawaii	Has a red flag law	Gun Violence Protective Order (2020).
Illinois	Has a red flag law	Firearms Restraining Order (2019), extended from 6 months to up to 1 year.
Indiana	Has a red flag law	Risk Warrant (2005), an early red flag law named for a killed officer.
Maine	Has a red flag law	ERPO approved by voters in Nov. 2025, effective Feb. 2026, replacing the weaker "yellow flag" law.
Maryland	Has a red flag law	ERPO (2018); among the highest usage rates.
Massachusetts	Has a red flag law	ERPO (2018). Expanded in 2024 to let clinicians and school administrators petition.
Michigan	Has a red flag law	ERPO (2024).
Minnesota	Has a red flag law	ERPO (2024).
Nevada	Has a red flag law	High-Risk Behavior order (2020).
New Jersey	Has a red flag law	ERPO (2019). Final orders last until a court terminates them.
New Mexico	Has a red flag law	Extreme Risk Firearm Protection Order (2020). Family members report to police, who file.
New York	Has a red flag law	ERPO (2019), strengthened in 2025.
Oregon	Has a red flag law	ERPO (2018).
Rhode Island	Has a red flag law	ERPO (2018).
Vermont	Has a red flag law	ERPO (2018). Family members can petition directly since 2023.
Virginia	Has a red flag law	Substantial Risk Order (2020). Petitioners expanded to family, clinicians, and school administrators on July 1, 2026.
Washington	Has a red flag law	ERPO passed by ballot initiative (2016); a few counties account for most filings.
Oklahoma	Bans or penalizes ERPO enforcement	Prohibits local ERPO enforcement (2020), the first anti-red-flag law.
West Virginia	Bans or penalizes ERPO enforcement	Bans red flag gun seizures (2021).
Tennessee	Bans or penalizes ERPO enforcement	Prohibits adopting or funding red flag laws (2024).
Wyoming	Bans or penalizes ERPO enforcement	Prohibits red flag gun seizures (2024). Violations carry up to 1 year in prison.
Texas	Bans or penalizes ERPO enforcement	Makes serving or enforcing an ERPO a felony (2025), the harshest ban.
Montana	Bans or penalizes ERPO enforcement	Bans local red flag ordinances and ERPO enforcement (2025). Fines up to $10,000.
Alabama	No statewide red flag law	No statewide red flag / ERPO law.
Alaska	No statewide red flag law	No statewide red flag / ERPO law.
Arizona	No statewide red flag law	No statewide red flag / ERPO law.
Arkansas	No statewide red flag law	No statewide red flag / ERPO law.
Georgia	No statewide red flag law	No statewide red flag / ERPO law.
Idaho	No statewide red flag law	No statewide red flag / ERPO law.
Iowa	No statewide red flag law	No statewide red flag / ERPO law.
Kansas	No statewide red flag law	No statewide red flag / ERPO law.
Kentucky	No statewide red flag law	No statewide red flag / ERPO law.
Louisiana	No statewide red flag law	No statewide red flag / ERPO law.
Mississippi	No statewide red flag law	No statewide red flag / ERPO law.
Missouri	No statewide red flag law	No statewide red flag / ERPO law.
Nebraska	No statewide red flag law	No statewide red flag / ERPO law.
New Hampshire	No statewide red flag law	No statewide red flag / ERPO law.
North Carolina	No statewide red flag law	No statewide red flag / ERPO law.
North Dakota	No statewide red flag law	No statewide red flag / ERPO law.
Ohio	No statewide red flag law	No statewide red flag / ERPO law.
Pennsylvania	No statewide red flag law	No statewide red flag / ERPO law.
South Carolina	No statewide red flag law	No statewide red flag / ERPO law.
South Dakota	No statewide red flag law	No statewide red flag / ERPO law.
Utah	No statewide red flag law	No statewide red flag / ERPO law.
Wisconsin	No statewide red flag law	No statewide red flag / ERPO law.

Connecticut passed the first one in 1999. The wave came after the 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Florida, and most current laws date from then. Two states got theirs by ballot measure: Washington voters in 2016, and Maine voters in November 2025, replacing a weaker “yellow flag” system when the law took effect in February 2026. On the other side, Texas in 2025 made serving an ERPO a felony.

Not all of these laws are equal. Everytown for Gun Safety ranks them by who can petition and how orders are served, and the gap between the strongest (California) and the narrowest (police-only states) is wide.

The map shows the split. The table gets specific. Search for your state to see what the court order is called, who can ask for one, and how long a final order lasts.

Do Red Flag Laws Work?

This is where extreme risk laws have the strongest evidence in all of gun violence prevention, and where the story is mostly about suicide, not mass shootings.

A firearm suicide attempt is fatal 90% of the time; an overdose attempt, about 8% (Harvard Means Matter). Removing the gun during the crisis is the whole mechanism. Multiple studies show it saves lives.

The Connecticut and Indiana studies (Kivisto and Phalen, Psychiatric Services, 2018) found firearm-suicide drops of 13.7% and 7.5%. A 2025 population study in JAMA Health Forum found 3.79 fewer firearm suicides per 100,000 people and, crucially, no increase in non-firearm suicides, meaning people did not simply switch methods.

Order that prevented a suicide Orders issued

Source: Swanson and colleagues, Duke University, 2024.

On mass shootings, a California study (Wintemute and colleagues, 2019) followed 21 cases where someone threatened one and an order was issued. None carried it out. The evidence here is suggestive rather than conclusive, because you cannot prove a shooting that never happened, but the pattern is consistent.

One honest caveat: a minority of studies, including work by economist John Lott, find no statistically significant effect. The weight of peer-reviewed public-health research points the other way, but the debate is real.

The Equity Problem Nobody Talks About

The strongest critique of red flag laws is not that they fail. It is who ends up on the wrong end of them.

A UC Davis study of how orders are served in practice found a stark racial split. For white respondents, petitions were often filed by family and treated as a health intervention. For Black and Hispanic respondents, petitions were initiated almost entirely by law enforcement, came with far higher rates of a concurrent arrest, and were least likely to involve a lawyer at the hearing.

There is a second, quieter problem: the laws are barely used in many places. Surveys find only about 7% of the public, and a majority of physicians, know how to use them. In some states a handful of counties account for most filings while others never file at all. A law on the books that no one knows about saves no one.

How Red Flag Laws Survived the Supreme Court

Red flag laws had to survive a Supreme Court that has reshaped the right to keep and bear arms, and they did.

1. 2008 District of Columbia v. Heller The Court establishes an individual right to keep a handgun at home (5-4).
2. 2022 NY State Rifle & Pistol v. Bruen A new "history and tradition" test: gun laws must match a historical analogue (6-3).
3. 2024 United States v. Rahimi The Court upholds disarming people under a domestic-violence restraining order (8-1), the logic that protects ERPOs.

Sources: Supreme Court; SCOTUSblog.

The Second Amendment cases behind red flag laws: 2008 — District of Columbia v. Heller (The Court establishes an individual right to keep a handgun at home (5-4).). 2022 — NY State Rifle & Pistol v. Bruen (A new "history and tradition" test: gun laws must match a historical analogue (6-3).). 2024 — United States v. Rahimi (The Court upholds disarming people under a domestic-violence restraining order (8-1), the logic that protects ERPOs.).

After Bruen, every Second Amendment case turned on finding a historical analogue. In United States v. Rahimi (2024, 8-1), Chief Justice Roberts clarified that a modern law needs a historical principle, not an identical twin. Founding-era courts disarmed people found dangerous, so disarming a person a court finds dangerous today fits the tradition. That reasoning is the legal ground extreme risk laws stand on. The remaining due process challenge targets the ex parte first stage, which advocates answer with the fast follow-up hearing.

Common Myths About Red Flag Laws

Several myths drive the opposition, and clearing them is the honest case for the laws.

They are not gun confiscation. The order is temporary, the guns are returned, and there is no registry of gun owners. While an order is active, the person fails a firearm background check, which is what blocks new purchases; when it expires, that block lifts.

They are not based on a diagnosis. The test is dangerous behavior, not mental illness, which is why most people with mental illness are never affected.

They are not a tool for spurned exes and angry neighbors. A judge must find clear and convincing evidence, and filing a false petition is a crime. Studies find false or improper filings are rare and nearly always denied.

They are not, by themselves, enough. Without training for police, awareness campaigns for family members, and funding to implement them, extreme risk laws sit unused, which is their biggest real-world failure.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can the police take my guns without warning me? Only temporarily, and only after a judge reviews sworn evidence of immediate danger. A full hearing with your lawyer follows within days, and the state must then meet a high evidentiary bar to keep the order.

Do I have to be mentally ill for an ERPO? No. Red flag laws are based on dangerous behavior, not a diagnosis. That is the main difference from an involuntary psychiatric hold.

How long does a red flag order last? A temporary order lasts until the hearing, usually within a few weeks. A final order typically lasts up to one year, then the firearms are returned automatically unless a court renews it. The state-by-state table above lists each state’s order length.

How do I get my guns back after an ERPO? Wait out the order or petition to end it early; most states allow one early challenge. When the order expires without renewal, return is automatic and a background check no longer flags it, though some states require picking the firearms up from law enforcement or a licensed dealer.

Does Texas have a red flag law? No, and it passed the opposite. In 2025, Texas made serving or enforcing an ERPO a felony, the harshest of the six state bans. A Texan worried about someone in crisis can still call 988 or ask police about emergency mental-health options, but no gun-removal order exists there.

Are red flag laws constitutional? So far, courts have upheld them. United States v. Rahimi (2024) blessed the core logic, disarming people a court finds dangerous, by 8-1. Challenges to the ex parte first stage continue, and no ERPO case has reached the Supreme Court directly.

Can a red flag order protect a gun owner in crisis? Yes, and that use is growing. Stateline reported in 2025 that orders are increasingly filed to protect gun owners at risk of suicide, sometimes at the family’s request, with the guns returned after the crisis passes.

What You Can Do

1. Back a federal framework. The Federal Extreme Risk Protection Order Act (H.R. 7599) would create a federal ERPO process and fund state red flag programs. Ask your U.S. House member and senators to co-sponsor it. Use the letter below.
2. Push for funding and training, not just a law. The biggest failure is underuse. Tell your state lawmakers and local police to fund officer training and public-awareness campaigns, and to send clinicians or social workers to serve orders. Find them at openstates.org.
3. Know your state’s red flag law. If someone you love is in danger, you may be able to petition, or ask police to. The National ERPO Resource Center explains each state’s process, and the table above shows who can file where you live.
4. If someone is in crisis, act now. Call or text 988, the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. If your state has a red flag law, ask law enforcement about an emergency order. Removing access to a gun during a crisis is the single most effective step.