Press Releases

Today, a bipartisan majority of the U.S. House of Representatives voted to approve legislation written by Congressman Salud Carbajal aimed at expanding use of red flag laws nationwide to reduce gun deaths.

Rep. Carbajal’s Extreme Risk Order Protection Act creates a grant program at the U.S. Department of Justice to encourage states to adopt ‘red flag’ laws and support the 19 states that have already implemented them.

‘Red flag’ laws allow for the temporary removal of firearms from a person who may pose a danger to others or themselves, and can also prevent them from purchasing a firearm.

“In so many school shootings, from Parkland to Sandy Hook and Columbine to last week’s tragedy in Uvalde, there have been stark warning signs that red flag laws could have helped intervene and prevent these unspeakable tragedies. These laws have been shown in my home state of California to take guns away from violent individuals, saving lives,” said Rep. Carbajal. “These laws can prevent mass shootings, reduce suicides, disarm extremists, and protect our communities. That is why I have pushed for my bill to expand and improve use of these emergency measures—and am proud to see members of both parties voting to advance it out of the House earlier today.”

Rep. Carbajal’s remarks on the House Floor ahead of the final vote can be found HERE.

Carbajal has championed this legislation since coming to Congress in 2017, not long after the 2014 U.C. Santa Barbara shooting inspired California to adopt one of the country’s first red flag laws. California’s law has been used to prevent mass shootings at workplaces and in hundreds of other instances of threatened violence.

Since Florida’s Republican legislature implemented their red flag law in the wake of the Parkland school shooting in 2018, law enforcement have used extreme risk laws more than 8,000 times to restrict and remove firearms from dangerous situations with known threats of violence and suicide, undoubtedly saving countless lives in the process.

In states like Indiana and Connecticut, passage of a red flag law was followed by a notable decline in suicide by firearm.

 In past years, Carbajal’s measure has enjoyed bipartisan support in the House and has received the endorsement of multiple law enforcement agencies, teachers, and doctors.

Rep. Carbajal’s measure passed the House in combination with H.R. 2377, Congresswoman Lucy McBath’s Federal Extreme Risk Protection Order Act.

The red flag measure comes in addition to a range of gun safety measures that Rep. Carbajal and House Democrats voted to pass yesterday, which included proposals to:

• Raise the purchasing age for certain semi-automatic weapons from 18 to 21 years old

• Crack down on gun trafficking and straw purchases to get illegal guns off our streets

• Strengthen safe storage requirements to protect children from accidental shootings

• Outlaw bump stocks and high-capacity magazines for civilian use, as these only make mass shootings more deadly

• Close the ghost gun loophole