In The Trace’s analysis, California, Connecticut, Hawaii, New York, and Washington all limit guns for people who have been subject to an emergency hospitalization. But the laws vary widely from state to state, and it’s difficult to assess whether they prevent shootings. There are no statistics on how often these laws are implemented or how many prospective gun purchasers fail a background check for that reason.
Ayres, the Yale professor, said the laws are probably not being implemented as often as they could because health care providers may be unaware that they exist. For his study, Ayres and his team surveyed 485 psychiatrists in nine states and Washington, D.C. They found that, in the states that ban guns for emergency hospitalizations, more than half of the doctors—56 percent—didn’t know about it.
In New York, where the Lewiston gunman was treated, a firearm prohibition takes effect when a person is formally admitted to a hospital by mental health care providers; that prohibition is indefinite. New York’s law requires the state Office of Mental Health to report any emergency mental health admissions to the state’s database of prohibited purchasers, which forwards the information to NICS. The Lewiston gunman’s 14-day stay in a psychiatric facility doesn’t appear to have been reported to NICS. Authorities haven’t yet explained why.