Donna’s Law is a voluntary registry that lets people flag themselves, prohibiting them from purchasing a firearm. The registry is meant to allow people who are concerned about their own mental health and safety to restrict their own gun rights. At least 20 states have considered the law, while three states have successfully passed the measure. Washington, Utah and Virginia all have Donna’s Law in place, but new reporting from The Trace shows that within the past six years, only about 132 people have participated in the program since October. Agya Aning is an editorial fellow with the news organization. He joins us to share more on how Donna’s Law works and the barriers some face when trying to access it.
Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.
Dave Miller: From the Gert Boyle Studio at OPB, this is Think Out Loud. I’m Dave Miller. We turn now to Donna’s Law, which is intended to prevent suicide. It lets someone who’s concerned about their own mental health be put on a registry that temporarily prohibits them from purchasing firearms. Washington became the first state in the country to enact such a law in 2019. Utah and Virginia followed two years later, and Delaware enacted their version of the law this past summer.
Agya Aning wrote about this recently as an editing fellow with the news organization, The Trace, and he joins us now. It’s great to have you on the show.
Agya Aning: Thank you so much for having me.
Miller: This law is named after a woman named Donna Nathan. Can you tell us her story?
Aning: Donna Nathan was a mother of two, who had unfortunately suffered from a pretty severe bipolar disorder for three decades of her life. And in the last year of her life, she had checked herself into and out of voluntary psychiatric care three times in pretty short order. On the third time, she simply had reached her limit. She decided she couldn’t deal with the mental anguish anymore. She went home, searched on her phone for nearby gun stores, drove to the nearest one, bought a Smith & Wesson revolver and then went to one of her favorite spots in New Orleans, a local park. And she shot herself.
Miller: I should mention here, just to take a break from our conversation, that if you or someone you know is struggling right now, you can call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. It’s available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Agya, I understand that there are a few differences in the way this law has been written in different states, but what are the basics of how Donna’s Law works?
Aning: In every state that it’s been enacted in and for the other states that are trying, it’s very important that people are only able to register themselves, as opposed to putting their brother or parents on it. In some states, you have to go to the local courthouse and sign up, or the local law enforcement agency, but some places are trying to make it easier. For instance, being able to sign up through your medical provider or being able to do it online. And you just need to submit some basic biographical information, ID, and this will be entered into the federal background check system to purchase firearms. And if you attempt to buy a gun from a licensed gun dealer, your name will be flagged in the system and you’ll be prevented from buying a gun.
Miller: I’m thinking about this as analogous to a kind of advanced directive. In other words, if my future self is not able to make an important decision for my life, I am making that decision ahead of time because I don’t want something bad to happen or I want to, now, have some control over my future choices. Is that a fair way to think about it?
Aning: It definitely is. And for people who deal with suicidal ideation, they know how intense those feelings can be, even if during better times they realize they actually want to live. What’s important to understand about suicide is that it can be an extremely brief experience. Some can last under only five minutes. And the thing about firearms is that it is far and away the most effective way to take your life. Different studies have shown different numbers, but it’s somewhere in the 85% to 90% range of being effective, compared to pills, or hanging, or other methods that have a far, far lower chance of success. And we also know that when people survive suicide attempts, the vast majority do not attempt to take their lives again. It’s an impulsive decision and action, and most people who do survive it are glad they survive.
Miller: What does it take for someone to take themselves off of one of these registries?
Aning: In the individual states, you’ll just have to go through the same person or path you took to get on there. If you went to the courthouse or something like that, in most cases, you’ll need to just go back and ask for your name to be removed. However, there are differing wait times in different states, so it can range from about a week to six months you have to wait before you can be taken off. But you can be taken off and your existence on this “do not sell” firearm list is confidential. It can’t be used against you, say, for hiring purposes, applying for a house or anything like that.
Miller: As I noted in my intro, versions of this law have passed now in four states, including two of Oregon’s western state neighbors – Washington, which is reliably blue, politically; and Utah, which is very red. What do you see as the politics of this law?
Aning: It’s really interesting. As you stated, it’s passed in legislative bodies that have a quite different makeup. I guess I would see it honestly as kind of a libertarian law, because it’s completely voluntary and no one’s forcing you to go on or off of it. I think that that is what accounts somewhat for why we see it being such a bipartisan thing because there’s just such a low barrier of entry to get behind this law. In most places, it’s passed pretty easily.
I did ask State Rep. Steve Eliason why, in his state, Republicans are so behind it compared to, say, Virginia, which is the one place where there was a very strong party division behind it. And honestly, it’s something that I’m interested in learning more about myself. It’s hard to account for these different tendencies in different state bodies. But, by and large, it’s a bipartisan push.
Miller: Donna’s law has not been enacted in Oregon, but lawmakers here in Salem did put forward a different suicide prevention idea. House Bill 3513 was introduced last year. It would have allowed a firearm owner to enter an agreement with anyone who can lawfully own a firearm to hold their guns temporarily. In other words, if people already had guns and they wanted to give them to somebody else because they didn’t trust themselves, they could have done that. That bill did not get out of committee.
So, to go back to Washington – the first state to pass this law – how often has it actually been used there?
Aning: In Washington, it has been used, I think, 30 or 40 times. I’m sorry, I don’t remember off the top of my head.
Miller: But something like 10 or 15 times a year – so, not that many. What have you heard from champions of this bill about how often it’s actually being used?
Aning: It’s definitely lower than what most people would have hoped and there are a few reasons for that. Originally, in Washington, you did have to go to the local courthouse to sign yourself up. But they passed an amendment, I think it was last year, that allows you to do it electronically, and numbers seem to tick up after that. So there’s this element of, people have to take time out of their day to go travel somewhere, then go through a bureaucratic process.
There is also the intimidation factor of going to a police station or a courthouse and saying, “Hey, I’ve experienced suicidal thoughts before or I’m afraid that I might in the future. Can you keep an eye on me?” And I think that’s understandably a pretty uncomfortable situation to put yourself in. We’re not the most comfortable talking about suicide and mental health in this country. So it can be kind of intimidating, imposing. If people can do it easily and without any watching eye from the comfort of their home on their computer, that should make it easier.
Then the last thing is there hasn’t … When these laws pass, getting any law passed is a struggle, but getting a law passed with a budget behind it to promote it to the general public is another thing. And so far, no state has done that. There is just this aspect that there’s a lack of awareness about them, so that has also been keeping the numbers down. But these laws are new, and the advocates, those legislators and the people who write them are hoping for, whether it’s organic or top down from the state, just a push to kind of get the word out there.
Miller: Agya Aning, thanks very much.
Aning: Thank you so much for having me, Dave.
Miller: Agya Aning wrote about Donna’s Laws in Washington state and around the country, as an editing fellow with the news organization The Trace. And, as a reminder: If you or someone you know is struggling right now, you can call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. That help is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Contact “Think Out Loud®”
If you’d like to comment on any of the topics in this show or suggest a topic of your own, please get in touch with us on Facebook, send an email to thinkoutloud@opb.org, or you can leave a voicemail for us at 503-293-1983. The call-in phone number during the noon hour is 888-665-5865.
