The Story of ERPO

The real history of the extreme risk law — as told by its creators.

On Monday, Donald Trump addressed the nation regarding the tragic shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio. He accepted no responsibility for his role in inspiring and emboldening armed white supremacists. He called people with mental illness “monsters.” He blamed video games for our nation’s gun violence epidemic. In short, he got it almost completely wrong. Almost.

The one thing Trump got right was our country’s need for Extreme Risk Protection Orders (ERPO) — sometimes called extreme risk laws.

As of August 2019, 17 states and the District of Columbia have enacted ERPO: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington. But before this policy gained present-day popularity among policymakers and constituents, ERPO was being tested, developed, and discussed by experts.

The first ERPO was Connecticut’s “risk warrant,” which passed in 1999 following a mass shooting at the state’s lottery headquarters. Six years later, in 2005, Indiana passed another early version of ERPO. Nearly a decade passed. Then, in 2014, following the mass shooting in Isla Vista, California, the concept began to take…