Suffolk County, New York on Long Island has been strictly enforcing “red flag” laws that allow law enforcement officers to confiscate guns from people who are deemed threats to others or themselves, and doing so has had a positive impact on the community, a report by the New York Times shows.

One of the gun control regulations proposed by advocates including President Joe Biden to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people after a spate of mass shootings in the United States, red flag laws are opposed by people who depend on guns to define their existence, falsely claiming that it violates Constitutional rights of due process.  (In fact, with most such laws, a judge issues a court order after hearing evidence.)

Since Suffolk County’s red flag law went into effect in 2019, more than 100 cases have been brought to seize firearms from people.  Police and counselors credit the law for diffusing the danger of various situations. 

While precise data is difficult to access given the small pool of cases, the people who have been part of the process assert the law is helpful and effective.  “This is something that we can use in that gray area where we don’t have anything and we’re just walking away from a situation that we know is making the hair on the back of our neck stand up,” said Geraldine Hart, a former county police commissioner who helped direct the law’s rollout.

In one case, a 16-year-old boy told schoolmates that he was going to kill himself and that he had access to shotguns.  After a red flag allowed police to remove two shotguns from his house–the guns were legally owned by a parent–the boy received counseling and “admitted that not having the shotguns in the home is helpful to him,” according to a report made by the judge who ordered the removal.