Federal Extreme Risk Protection Order Act of 2021

Floor Speech

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Mr. CARBAJAL. Madam Speaker, I thank Representative McBath for yielding time.

Madam Speaker, 8 years ago, my own community of Isla Vista near UC Santa Barbara saw firsthand the horror and the trauma that a mass shooting brings. In 8 years since that attack, we have stood in solidarity with other communities reeling from the hundreds of mass shootings in our schools, our shopping malls, our houses of worship, and our Main Streets.

Madam Speaker, I share the outrage and frustration of the majority of Americans and many of my colleagues here in Congress that there are some in Congress who have kept us from doing our job to protect children by blocking commonsense gun safety measures.

I stand before you today as the author of a gun safety measure that has enjoyed bipartisan support, that has been implemented in Republican- and Democratic-led States alike, and that has been proven to reduce gun deaths and stop mass shootings before they happen. I am speaking about extreme risk protection orders or, as they are more commonly known, red flag laws.

These laws are simple. If an individual is showing signs that they may be a danger to themselves or others, a police officer or a family member can, through due process, go to a judge and request an extreme risk protection order, which temporarily bars that person from owning or purchasing a firearm. These laws are already on the books in 19 States and the District of Columbia, and in those places, they have saved lives.

Part of the reason these laws work is because warning signs of mass shootings are not as rare as you might think. In fact, a U.S. study of school violence found that the majority of incidents come with clear warning signs, which we have seen before in some of our most infamous school shootings: Columbine, Sandy Hook, Parkland, and even Uvalde.

That is why, in the wake of these tragedies, Republican- and Democratic-led States have approved red flag laws that have gone on to intervene in thousands of potentially violent attacks before they happen.

Florida residents, for example, have used ERPOs more than 8,000 times since they implemented their red flag law after the Parkland shooting. California implemented their red flag law after the UCSB Isla Vista attack in my community.

Police officers have used it to prevent numerous workplace attacks and other violent incidents. These red flag laws are also critical to reducing the largest form of gun deaths in our country, suicide by firearm.

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Mr. CARBAJAL. Madam Speaker, as someone who lost one of my own siblings to suicide by a gun, I personally am proud to stand in this Chamber today in her memory, Carmen, to see my bill come to a vote.

This measure is popular, bipartisan, and common sense. That may be why Republican Senators have introduced similar legislation in the past, to incentivize States to expand red flag laws and support States that already have them.

There is no bill that we can pass that would be the panacea to solve our violence overnight, but with this measure and those that we passed yesterday, we can make a major difference. We need to do this now.

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