This story is part of CT Mirror Explains, an ongoing effort to distill our wide-ranging reporting into a "what you need to know" format and provide practical information to our readers.
Original reporting by Dave Altimari and José Luis Martínez. Compiled by Yash Roy.
Editor’s Note: This article is part of CT Mirror’s Spanish-language news coverage developed in partnership with Identidad Latina Multimedia.
Connecticut was the first state in the nation to pass a red flag law in 1999, but since then, its application has varied widely throughout the state.
The law is designed to get guns out of the hands of people who pose a risk to themselves or others. Originally designed to prevent mass shootings, police across the state have increasingly begun to use it as a method to protect people deemed a threat to themselves.
An analysis by The Connecticut Mirror and a team of University of Connecticut journalism students found that the policy’s use remains very uneven. Until 2011, the law was triggered fewer than 100 times per year. The number slowly increased until changes were first made to the law in 2021. Since then, the numbers have increased from 222 orders that year to 830 orders in 2022 to over 2,200 last year.
While there are some concerns the law is being overused, some police departments use it rarely if at all.
Here’s what to know.
What is Connecticut’s red flag law?
Connecticut first passed a red flag law in 1999, the year after Matthew Beck, a disgruntled employee, stabbed and gunned down four of his bosses at the Connecticut Lottery headquarters before turning the gun on himself. There had been warning signs before the attack, but Beck had broken no laws.
The law was created so that police could prevent a person who might be a threat to others or themselves from getting a firearm.
How does Connecticut’s red flag law work?
If police make that determination, they can get a risk protection order against an individual. Then, a judge must hear the case within 14 days to determine if the RPO should be removed or extended.
When the RPO is issued, the person’s name is automatically entered into a national gun permit database and they are unable to get a permit until the RPO is lifted. The RPO also allows police to seize someone’s weapons and hold them until a judge approves the person getting them back.
In 2021, the state expanded the law to include juveniles and situations in which no gun is present. The updated law also allows health care workers, social workers and family members to directly appeal to the courts if they feel that police are not being responsive.
How did recent updates change usage of the red flag law?
The changes, which took effect June 1, 2022, led to a surge in cases.
From 96 RPOs in the first five months of the year, before the changes, the number of cases soared to 734 in the last seven months of 2022, according to state data obtained by the CT Mirror.
The CT Mirror found that many of the recent cases where risk protection orders were issued were for people deemed a threat to themselves, and in many cases, it was in a situation where a person did not have a gun but an order was sought out of precaution to prevent them from legally obtaining one.
Under the adjusted law, judges initially dismissed many RPOs if they found that no gun was involved. However, in 2023, judges upheld the orders 1,960 times and threw out only 234 orders.
Following this spike in numbers, in 2023 the legislature passed an update to the law that ends the ability of police to seek RPOs against people who do not have a gun and would otherwise be unable to legally obtain one.
Though the law took effect last Oct. 1, the number of orders have not subsided — there were 338 RPOs issued in the first two months of 2024.
What parts of the state issue the most RPOs?
Court records show that in 2023, smaller departments like Newington, Wolcott and Watertown sought from 50 to 71 RPOs each, while the state’s largest cities — Bridgeport, New Haven, Stamford, Hartford and Waterbury — combined for just 97.
Bridgeport police did not issue one RPO in 2023, records show, a number the president of the Connecticut Police Chiefs Association said was hard to believe.
Meanwhile, records show that the University of Connecticut Police Department has sought far more risk protection orders than any other college police department and more than many municipal departments. UConn police issued 58 RPOs against students from June 2022 through the end of 2023, though all but one was dismissed 14 days later.