NY schools first to have 'red flag' petition power on guns
- 5 years ago
Schools across New York began the academic year with a new tool intended to prevent student suicides and violence: the ability to ask a court to remove a troubled person's access to firearms.
About a third of U.S. states have so-called "red flag" laws, which allow courts to temporarily seize guns from people believed to be a danger to themselves or others, but New York is the first to empower schools to petition a court themselves for such an order, rather than go through local law enforcement.
In New York, school principals are now allowed to petition the court for an "extreme risk protection order" requiring the safe storage of firearms the youth might have access to, such as a parent's gun. Supporters of the law say educators are uniquely suited to pick up on the kind of troubling behavior seen before school shootings, like the 2018 attack in Parkland, Florida, in which an expelled student killed 17 people at his former high school.
About a third of U.S. states have so-called "red flag" laws, which allow courts to temporarily seize guns from people believed to be a danger to themselves or others, but New York is the first to empower schools to petition a court themselves for such an order, rather than go through local law enforcement.
In New York, school principals are now allowed to petition the court for an "extreme risk protection order" requiring the safe storage of firearms the youth might have access to, such as a parent's gun. Supporters of the law say educators are uniquely suited to pick up on the kind of troubling behavior seen before school shootings, like the 2018 attack in Parkland, Florida, in which an expelled student killed 17 people at his former high school.