Part of the allocated U.S. budget will go to judicial crisis intervention procedures and other gun violence reduction programs.
WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Justice will give more than $200 million to states and the District of Columbia to boost gun violence prevention programs as part of the gun control law passed by Congress a few months ago, officials said Tuesday.
The initiative includes funding for the implementation of “red flag” laws, or extreme risk protection orders, designed to take guns away from people with potentially violent behavior to prevent them from hurting themselves or others. Nineteen states and the District of Columbia have red flag laws.
Part of the $231 million announced Tuesday, on the fifth anniversary of the Parkland, Florida, school massacre, will go to crisis intervention court procedures and other gun violence reduction programs.
Red flag laws have been promoted by President Joe Biden and activists as an effective tool to prevent gun violence before it occurs. However, an analysis by The Associated Press found that they are rarely used, even as gun violence is on the rise across the country. This could be due to a lack of awareness of the laws or a reluctance to enforce them.
For example, the suspect in the massacre at an LGBT club in Colorado Springs, Colorado, in November had allegedly threatened his mother a year and a half earlier, but there is no record that either police or other family members tried to use that law in effect in Colorado.
Laws vary from state to state, but generally allow family members or police to ask the courts to issue an order to take away a person’s guns for up to one year. Some complain that the law could violate the constitutional right to bear arms. The Justice Department says the program contains measures to prevent it from being abused.
The funds are part of the $1.4 billion approved by Congress for the Justice Department to use over five years for gun violence prevention measures.