California Gun Removal Order Recipients Describe Mixed Consequences in Interviews

People who have been subject to California's extreme risk protection orders report a wide and often conflicting range of outcomes, according to a qualitative study based on interviews with 24 respondents whose orders were issued between 2016 and 2020. Extreme risk protection orders, or ERPOs, temporarily prohibit the purchase and possession of firearms by people judged to be at high risk of harming themselves or others. Between March and November 2024, the researchers carried out semi-structured interviews with respondents to ERPOs issued in California.

From a pool of 250 respondents whose court case data had previously been abstracted, the team purposively sampled to ensure representation across demographic and geographic domains, inviting participants by mail. All interviews were recorded, double coded, and thematically analyzed. The participants described consequences spanning four domains: violence risk, legal and economic outcomes, opinions and attitudes, and social and emotional wellbeing.

The accounts on violence risk were strikingly uneven. Only two participants believed their ERPO had prevented violence, and one was unsure; the remainder believed they would not have committed violence regardless of the order. That perception does not establish whether the orders averted harm, since respondents' own judgments of their risk may differ from the assessments of courts and petitioners, but it highlights a gap between the law's premise and how recipients experienced it.

Some participants perceived the ERPO to have had negligible effects on their lives, while others described both positive consequences, including self-reflection and behavior change, and negative ones, including employment or housing difficulties, stigmatization, damaged relationships, and loss of trust in legal institutions. Some participants even perceived the order as exacerbating their violence risk. A consistent finding concerned services: participants reported that they were not connected to mental health care or other supportive services through the ERPO process.

The authors conclude that participants perceived ERPOs to have varied and mixed consequences, and that these accounts identify outcomes warranting consideration in ERPO research, policy, and implementation. Because the study involved a small, self-selected sample of respondents from a single state, the findings describe perceived experiences rather than measured effects of the law. The researchers call for future work to assess the prevalence and distribution of these consequences and to evaluate whether policy refinements can reduce adverse experiences without compromising the public health benefits that these laws are intended to deliver.

Subject of Research: Perceived consequences of extreme risk protection orders among California respondents

Article Title: Perceived consequences of extreme risk protection orders: A qualitative study of respondents from California

Article References: Pear, V. A., Knoepke, C. E., Geller, L. B., Barnhorst, A., Davis, A., Kim, R., & Wintemute, G. J. (2026). Perceived consequences of extreme risk protection orders: A qualitative study of respondents from California. PLOS One, 21(10), e0361337. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0361337

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0361337

Keywords: extreme risk protection orders, ERPO, gun violence prevention, firearm policy, qualitative research, California, mental health services, public health, Perceived, consequences, extreme, risk