How does Minnesota's red flag law work?
Nicole Hockley, a mother who lost her son in the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, 13 years ago — and is now the CEO of Sandy Hook Promise — says red flag laws can help save lives.
"We advocate for things like extreme risk protection orders which in time we'll figure out if that could have been used here to help prevent this tragedy," Hockley said.
Minnesota does have a red flag law. It allows family, law enforcement or city and county attorneys to ask for an extreme risk protection order, or ERPO. The law is designed to take guns out of the hands of people in a moment of crisis. They can petition the court to have a person's guns removed or to temporarily prohibit someone from buying a gun for a period of time.
In the first year of the law in Minnesota, which was 2024, 138 petitions were filed for people who were at risk of hurting themselves or someone else. A judge granted a petition to remove a gun or restrict the ability to buy one most of the time. It ranged from 14 days to one year. Some of those have been extended.
A family member, usually who lives in the same house, can file a petition. It can also be a parent or child. It extends to law enforcement and a county or city attorney. A family member can bring their concerns to law enforcement to have them do it, which is the most common way a petition has been filed and approved.
In 2024, the first year someone could raise a red flag, we discovered five instances where a petition was filed on someone who threatened to shoot people at a school or daycare, or mentioned a school shooting or shooter. Some of the threats were in person, others caught online. In these cases, WCCO found they were all filed by police or a county attorney's office. An ERPO was granted for the longest allowed time: one year.
One has been extended a year. In two of the cases, criminal charges were brought, and both people were convicted of threats of violence. One person was civilly committed following the petition.
Lawmakers say the goal of the red flag law is to save lives. Experts in this area say they believe this law is saving lives. Earlier this year, WCCO spoke with Dr. Jillian Peterson, director of the Violence Prevention Project Research Center.
"There's so many warning signs, especially if we look at school shooters. Ninety-one percent of the time, they tell somebody that they're planning on doing it. And so people know this, but it's not a crime to say you're thinking about doing something. And so law enforcement's hands are tied in a lot of these cases," said Peterson. "So I think having a resource to get firearms away from that person just in that moment of crisis. And we know you should not have immediate access to firearms in that moment. One-hundred percent, I think it has the ability to save lives."
If someone is in immediate danger, experts say to call 911.
Here are resources to learn more about Minnesota's red flag law.