💬 Discussion
Greek discussion partners examine a blank court order and a closed, locked firearm storage case.

Federal Red Flag Orders

Twenty-two states and the District of Columbia let a judge take firearms for a time from someone found to be a danger; the other twenty-eight have no such procedure [1]. Representative Lucy McBath, a Democrat from Georgia, wants the order available in federal court everywhere, backed by Everytown, Giffords and Brady; Republicans and gun rights groups oppose it. Her bill was introduced in February 2026 and lies with the House Judiciary Committee.

  • 9 in 10 people who attempt suicide by a method other than a firearm survive [2][4]
  • 4,583 removal cases in four states were linked to death records in the largest study of the orders [4]
  • 1 in 3 orders is sought over a threat to someone else rather than to the person themselves [3]

The proposal

A family member, a household member or a police officer can ask a federal court in any state to remove a dangerous person's firearms for up to 180 days, renewable.

The debate

Supporters argue that warning signs often come before a shooting or a suicide, and that families and police in every state need a legal way to act on them. Republicans answer that an order issued before the gun owner is heard takes a constitutional right without due process, and that a national procedure overrides states that chose against one. An earlier version passed the House on 9 June 2022, almost entirely along party lines, and went no further in the Senate. Congress instead paid states to run their own programs.

  • “Too often in cases of mass shootings, someone had prior knowledge of the shooter’s plan. Extreme risk protection orders are already saving lives in Republican and Democratic states, allowing law enforcement and family members to intervene before it’s too late.”

    argues for: Lucy McBath, Democrat, Georgia Press release, 12 February 2026

  • “It would allow the courts to take guns away from people without notice and without even the right to appear in the hearing to defend themselves in court.”

    argues against: Mike Johnson, Republican, Louisiana House floor, 9 June 2022

  • “These red flag laws violate our Second Amendment rights, our Fifth Amendment rights, and when they are done at the national level, they violate our Tenth Amendment rights.”

    argues against: Matt Gaetz, Republican, Florida House floor, 9 June 2022

The analysis

Federal Red Flag Orders

76% of the weight is for, 24% against.

An argument's weight combines three questions: how big the effect is, how certain it is and how much the good at stake matters. The larger the slice, the more the argument weighs.

For

Against

A federal red flag order is, on the current analysis, a good proposal: the gain is measured in lives, the costs in days without a firearm and a decision at the wrong level of government.

Very likely better

Very likely better: Under the assumptions used, the proposal brings more than it costs in 97 of 100 model runs.

 Overall effect: medium

How strongly the proposal works overall, in five steps from very small to very large, comparable across all debates. The ring is always full, even when the overall effect is small; this step says how large it is.

Like McBath, the analysis comes out in favor of the order, though not mainly for her reason. She argues from threatened mass shootings, whose prevention nobody has counted; the result rests on suicide, where an order takes the most lethal method away during the crisis. One large item stands against several small ones, led by the new condition on gun owners in states without such a law and the override of their legislatures. The order issued before a hearing, the objection Republicans press hardest, weighs little, because the hearing follows within days and is written into the bill. What could change the result is volume: courts in reluctant states that issue few orders would save few lives and impose few costs.

In detail

All arguments

Arguments for2 arguments

People who do not die

26points

Firearm suicide is the largest category of American gun death and the one where the method decides the outcome: the same act with a different method is survived nine times out of ten. An order under the bill removes the gun for up to 180 days, renewable, and so removes the method during the crisis.

Value 9.5 · LifeImpact 4.6Plausibility 6
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Value

The stream is people alive at the end of the period who would otherwise have died by their own hand, with a tenth added on the same anchor for the families, as this site does wherever it counts violent death. It sits just below the top of the scale rather than at it, because a proportion of what these orders prevent is an attempt rather than a death and the estimate used is of deaths averted. What is priced is the life, not the crisis, and not the treatment that may follow the order. Nothing is counted for the people who are removed from danger and then relapse, whose outcome the estimate already reflects. The value sits just below the maximum: the stream is life, reached by taking the method away during the weeks the danger is highest.

Impact

Swanson and colleagues examined 4,583 removal cases across California, Connecticut, Maryland and Washington and estimated that one suicide is prevented for every seventeen orders issued, or every twenty-four under a more cautious assumption about how often a respondent would have used a firearm — and one for every thirteen to eighteen where the record documents suicidality [4]. That is a revision upward of the earlier and widely quoted figure of one in ten. The cautious end, one in twenty-four, is used here. How many orders a federal law would add is the softer number: the twenty-eight states without their own programme have chosen not to have one, and their courts and police would be starting from nothing. Eight thousand additional orders a year is used, in a range from three thousand to twenty thousand — well below the volume the existing state programmes now produce. The ratio was measured where orders run longer than the bill allows: up to a year or longer in the four states studied, against at most 180 days under the bill, renewable on the same standard [1]. Removing the method matters most in the weeks after a crisis, and persistent risk can be met with a renewal, so the shorter term does not halve the effect; but some of the deaths the state orders prevented would have fallen in their second half-year. A tenth of the effect is taken off for that, in a range from none to a quarter, as a setting no study has measured. Eight thousand orders divided by twenty-four, less that tenth, gives about 300 deaths a year, a Normalised Impact of 4.62 with the family surcharge. The Impact is the largest here and it is the product of three numbers: one modelled from death records, one a guess about how a reluctant state behaves, and one a setting for the shorter term of the federal order.

▸ Show calculation ▾ Hide calculation
Additional removal orders a year in the states without a programme Setting, range 3,000 to 20,000: the twenty-eight states concerned have chosen not to legislate, and their courts and police would be starting from nothing [3] eight thousand 8,000 orders a year
÷ Orders needed to prevent one suicide the cautious end of the study's estimate — one in seventeen on its main assumption, one in twenty-four on the more cautious one — modelled from linked death records across four state programmes [4] 24 333 deaths a year
× Share of the effect kept under a term of at most 180 days Setting, range 0.75 to 1: the studied state orders ran a year or until lifted, the bill's run at most 180 days and can be renewed on the same standard; the share of prevented deaths that would have fallen in the second half-year is not measured [1][4] 0.9 300 deaths a year
× Value of a life, with a tenth added for the families the value of a statistical life used across this site and the surcharge this site applies to violent death 1.4 million euro-equivalent each, plus 10 percent 462 million euro-equivalent a year
÷ Normalised Impact scale of this evaluation 100 million euro-equivalent a point 4.62
Score 4.62 Impact × 9.5 Value × 6 Plausibility ÷ 10 = 26 of 100

Plausibility

The counterfactual is not a group of people who were observed: the study links the 4,583 respondents to death records, counts the suicides that occurred among them by method, and then constructs what would have happened without the order from published case-fatality rates — it extrapolates how many attempts must lie behind the recorded deaths, and applies an assumption about how often those attempts would have used a firearm had one been available [4]. That is a modelled counterfactual on a mechanism, the lethality gap between firearms and other methods, and not a comparison against matched people who received no order; nobody was randomised, and nothing exogenous decides who is petitioned against. The confounder is that a person who comes to a court's attention differs from the average person at risk — usually towards higher danger, which would make the true effect larger than modelled, occasionally towards more family support, which would make it smaller — and the design cannot separate that from the effect. What holds the argument up is the direction: a county-level comparison of four states that passed removal laws with no other firearm legislation at the same time, against eight states that passed none, finds firearm suicide about 3.8 per 100,000 lower a year after passage, with no matching change in non-firearm suicide [6]. Reverse causation does not arise: the order follows the risk. Substitution to another method is inside the modelled ratio by construction, since the case-fatality rates are what it is built from. The shorter federal term is a question of how large the effect is, not whether it occurs, and sits in the range of the Impact. The Plausibility is at the upper end of what a modelled mechanism can carry: the ratio is built from thousands of linked death records on a well-measured lethality gap, its direction is confirmed at population level, and no design with a comparison group has yet measured it.

Evidence: Multiple precedents · plausibility at most 6 Evidence of effect: Mechanistic · at most 6

Threats that are not carried out

1.6points

About a third of removal orders are sought because someone has threatened another person rather than themselves, and prosecutors in California have documented cases in which a threatened mass shooting did not happen after an order. How often that happens has never been measured.

Value 9.5 · Life and healthImpact 0.4Plausibility 4.5
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Value

The stream is other people not killed or wounded: partners, colleagues, the crowd at an event. It sits just below the top of the scale in the class this site uses for life and protection from crime, with the family surcharge applied as for the suicides above. It is a separate argument because the mechanism is different — a suicide is prevented by removing a method during a crisis, a homicide by removing it from someone who has announced an intention against another person — and because the evidence for the two is of different quality. Nothing is counted for the fear the threat itself causes, which the order does not undo. Nothing is counted for the offender. The value sits just below the maximum, and this stands apart from the suicides because removing a method and disarming a threat are not the same mechanism.

Impact

Roughly a third of removal petitions in the states with programmes concern a threat to another person rather than to the petitioner's subject alone [3]. One homicide prevented per hundred of those threat cases is used here — one per three hundred orders overall, in a range from one in a hundred to one in a thousand — a figure with no measured basis, unlike the suicide ratio. Applied to eight thousand additional orders, less the same tenth as above for the bill's term of at most 180 days, that is about 24 deaths a year, a Normalised Impact of 0.37 with the family surcharge. The reason the ratio is set an order of magnitude below the suicide ratio, and only on the third of orders where a threat to others is the reason, is that the suicide effect is modelled from thousands of linked death records and this one is not: what exists is a case series from California in which prosecutors documented twenty-one instances of a threatened mass shooting followed by an order and no attack, which establishes that the mechanism can operate and cannot establish how often it does [5]. Nothing is counted for non-fatal assaults prevented, which would enlarge this. The Impact is about a twelfth of the suicide argument, and the ratio behind it is the least evidenced number in this evaluation.

▸ Show calculation ▾ Hide calculation
Additional removal orders a year [3] from the argument above 8,000 orders a year
÷ Orders per homicide prevented Setting, range 100 to 1,000 orders: an order of magnitude below the modelled suicide ratio, applied only to the third of orders where a threat to others is the reason, because for homicide only a case series exists [3][5] 300 — a third of orders concern a threat to others, one in a hundred of those 26.7 deaths a year
× Share of the effect kept under a term of at most 180 days the same setting as in the suicide argument, range 0.75 to 1 [1] 0.9 24 deaths a year
× Value of a life, with a tenth added for the families the value of a statistical life used across this site and the surcharge this site applies to violent death 1.4 million euro-equivalent each, plus 10 percent 37 million euro-equivalent a year
÷ Normalised Impact scale of this evaluation 100 million euro-equivalent a point 0.37
Score 0.37 Impact × 9.5 Value × 4.5 Plausibility ÷ 10 = 1.6 of 100

Plausibility

The counterfactual is the same threatening individuals without an order, and nothing constructs it. The chain is named and complete: a threat is made, a court removes the firearms, the person does not have them during the period of highest risk. The evidence is a case series — twenty-one documented instances in California — which describes outcomes after orders without any comparison group, so it establishes possibility rather than frequency. The confounder that matters is that the same cases usually attract other interventions at the same time: arrest, prosecution, a protective order, a mental health hold, any of which could account for the absence of an attack. That is named and unresolved. Reverse causation does not arise. Since the mechanism is well described and nothing measures its size, the number rests on a complete chain rather than a finding. The Plausibility is below the middle: the mechanism is documented case by case and its frequency has never been estimated against a comparison group.

Evidence: Mechanism · plausibility at most 6 Evidence of effect: Mechanistic · at most 6 Placement: Chain closed, unevidenced · plausibility 4–5

Open: The states with programmes hold petition records with the reason for each order, and death records are linked by state. Following respondents in threat-to-others cases against matched non-respondents, as has been done for suicide, would give the first estimate and could carry this above 6.

Arguments against4 arguments

Owning under a condition

4.1points

In the twenty-eight states with no such law, forty-five million gun owners would for the first time hold their firearms subject to a procedure a relative or an officer can start against them.

Value 9 · Rights and libertyImpact 0.9Plausibility 5
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Value

The stream is a right held under a new condition: not taken from anybody in particular, but exercised from now on in the knowledge that a family member or a police officer can begin a process to suspend it. This site places that at the constitutional core, and prices it as a restriction that applies broadly and bites lightly, because for almost everyone nothing happens. It is separate from the argument above, which prices what happens to the people an order actually reaches; a rule that touches forty-five million people slightly and eight thousand heavily is two facts, and averaging them would hide both. Nothing is counted for the disapproval of people who dislike the law without owning a firearm. The value is at the constitutional core, and it is priced at the light end because for almost everyone the condition is never triggered.

Impact

About forty-five million adults own a firearm in the twenty-eight states without a removal law. The condition is priced as if it cost each owner about two dollars a year, in a range from fifty cents to nine dollars — the band this site applies to a restriction that reaches a large population and bites lightly, the same one used for the loss of anonymity in the platform evaluations elsewhere on this site. That gives a Normalised Impact of 0.9 on the scale of this evaluation, more than the argument above about the people actually disarmed, which is what happens when a small burden is spread over forty-five million people. The figure would be larger if the procedure were used more than assumed, and the number of orders is set low; the two move in opposite directions, since a law nobody uses restricts nobody in practice. Nothing is counted for owners in the twenty-two states that already have such a law, for whom the federal procedure adds little. The Impact is four times the burden on the people an order reaches, purely because there are five thousand times as many of them.

▸ Show calculation ▾ Hide calculation
Firearm owners in the states without a removal law [3] 45 million adults
× Value of the condition per owner per year Setting, range 0.5 to 8 euro-equivalent (about 0.60 to 9 dollars): the band this site uses for a restriction that reaches a large population and bites lightly 2 euro-equivalent (about 2.30 dollars at 1.16 dollars to the euro) 90 million euro-equivalent a year
÷ Normalised Impact scale of this evaluation 100 million euro-equivalent a point 0.9
Score 0.9 Impact × 9 Value × 5 Plausibility ÷ 10 = 4.1 of 100

Plausibility

The condition is definitional: the statute creates a procedure and it applies to everyone who owns a firearm in the states concerned. The counterfactual is those states as they are, with no such procedure. What is a convention rather than a measurement is the per-owner figure, which is this site's band for a broad light restriction and not anything established about American gun owners. The confounder is the one named above and it cuts both ways: if courts in these states issue very few orders, the restriction is nominal and this argument shrinks with the ones opposite; if petitions are frequent, both grow. Reverse causation does not arise. Nothing measures what a conditional right is worth to the person holding it, so the plausibility is held at the top of what a valuation of this kind can carry. The Plausibility is at the middle: the condition is certain and what it is worth to those it applies to is a convention.

Evidence: Plausibility · plausibility at most 5 Evidence of effect: Definitional

States that decided otherwise

2.7points

Twenty-eight legislatures have considered removal laws and declined to pass them, several more than once. A federal order applies in those states regardless of that decision.

Value 6 · State discretionImpact 0.9Plausibility 5
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Value

The stream is a decision taken away from the level that took it: twenty-eight legislatures that examined this question and answered no, overridden by a federal procedure that reaches into their courts. This site places that with the working order of the political system rather than at the constitutional core, because what is at stake is which body decides rather than whether a right exists. It is separate from the two arguments above, which price what the rule does to individuals; this prices what it does to the arrangement by which such rules are made. Nothing is counted for the states that already have such a law, whose choice is unaffected. Nothing is counted for the litigation the arrangement would attract, which is an administrative cost and small. The value sits in the middle-upper part of the scale, where this site places the working order of the political system, rather than at the constitutional core.

Impact

About 180 million people live in the twenty-eight states without a removal law, and their legislatures have in most cases considered and rejected one. The overridden decision is priced as if it cost each resident about sixty cents a year, in a range from about ten cents to 3.50 dollars — far below the figure this site uses where a direct popular vote is set aside, because a bill that fails in a legislature is a weaker expression of a settled choice than a referendum, and well above zero because the choice was made repeatedly and deliberately. That gives a Normalised Impact of 0.9 on the scale of this evaluation. The figure would be smaller if the federal procedure ran alongside state law rather than through federal courts, and larger if it displaced state procedures where they exist, which it does not. The Impact is the same size as the burden on gun owners in those states, which is what happens when a small per-person figure meets a very large population.

▸ Show calculation ▾ Hide calculation
People living in states that have declined to create a removal law [3] 180 million residents
× Value of the decision being overridden, per resident per year Setting, range 0.10 to 3 euro-equivalent (about 0.12 to 3.50 dollars): far below the seventy euro-equivalent this site uses where a direct popular vote is set aside, because a bill that fails in a legislature is a weaker expression of a settled choice 0.50 euro-equivalent (about 60 cents at 1.16 dollars to the euro) 90 million euro-equivalent a year
÷ Normalised Impact scale of this evaluation 100 million euro-equivalent a point 0.9
Score 0.9 Impact × 6 Value × 5 Plausibility ÷ 10 = 2.7 of 100

Plausibility

The fact is not in dispute: a federal procedure applies in states that declined to create their own. The counterfactual is those states as they are. What is a convention rather than a measurement is the fifty cents, and it is the softest number in this evaluation — this site has one anchor for a set-aside popular vote and none for a legislature's decision not to act, so the figure is derived by analogy and by judgement about how much weaker the second is than the first. The confounder that matters is that a legislature's failure to pass a bill is not always a decision against it: bills die for reasons of time, procedure and committee assignment, and treating every failure as a settled popular choice overstates the harm. That is named and unresolved. Reverse causation does not arise. The Plausibility is at the middle: the override is certain and the price put on it is derived by analogy from a single anchor for a different thing.

Evidence: Plausibility · plausibility at most 5 Evidence of effect: Definitional

Disarmed before the hearing

1.5points

An interim order can issue on the petitioner's evidence alone. The respondent is heard within 72 hours of being served, or within fourteen days if they waive the quicker hearing, and until then keeps none of their firearms and has said nothing to the court.

Value 9 · Rights and libertyImpact 0.2Plausibility 7
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Value

The stream is the respondent's position: a right suspended on one side's account, property taken, and a court record naming them a danger before they have answered. This site places that at the constitutional core, because what is at stake is a right removed by the state without the person being heard first. What is priced is the deprivation itself and the finding that accompanies it, spread across everyone an order touches rather than only those later found not to meet the standard, since the interim period applies to all of them. Nothing is counted for the stigma that persists after an order is dissolved, which is real and is not measured by anything here. Nothing is counted for the property itself, which is returned. The value is at the constitutional core because a right is suspended before the person is heard, and the amount per person is what keeps the argument small.

Impact

Eight thousand additional orders a year is the same figure used on the other side. What each costs the respondent is priced at the lower part of this site's band for an unfounded suspicion recorded against a named person, as if it cost about 3,500 dollars, in a range from 1,200 to 23,000 — applied here to everyone an order touches rather than only to those later found not to meet the standard. The amount is not a price per day without firearms and does not shrink with the time before the hearing: what it carries is the record naming a person a danger, the surrender and the proceedings, which are the same whether the hearing comes after three days or after fourteen. Under the bill the hearing follows within 72 hours of service unless the respondent waives that right, and the interim order lapses after fourteen days at the latest [1]. A longer order of up to 180 days needs clear and convincing evidence, with the burden on the petitioner, so it rests on a finding against a person who has been heard and is not part of this argument. Both safeguards keep the amount near the lower end of the band rather than lowering it further. In the state programmes roughly a fifth to a third of interim orders are not confirmed at the full hearing, and those cases sit at the upper end of the band while a confirmed order sits near the lower, because the person was in fact found dangerous. That gives a Normalised Impact of 0.24 on the scale of this evaluation. Nothing is added for the cases in which firearms are not returned promptly after an order lapses, which the state programmes report as a recurring administrative failure and which nothing here measures. The Impact is a twentieth of the lives on the other side, which is the arithmetic of pricing a suspicion recorded before a hearing against a death.

▸ Show calculation ▾ Hide calculation
Additional removal orders a year [3] the same figure used on the other side 8,000 orders a year
× Cost to the respondent of an order Setting, range 1,000 to 20,000 euro-equivalent (about 1,200 to 23,000 dollars): this site's band for an unfounded suspicion recorded against a named person, applied to every respondent because the interim period applies to all of them; it carries the record and the proceedings, not a price per day, so the 72-hour hearing does not scale it down 3,000 euro-equivalent (about 3,500 dollars at 1.16 dollars to the euro) 24 million euro-equivalent a year
÷ Normalised Impact scale of this evaluation 100 million euro-equivalent a point 0.24
Score 0.24 Impact × 9 Value × 7 Plausibility ÷ 10 = 1.5 of 100

Plausibility

The procedure is written into the bill, so what happens to a respondent is not in question: an interim order, a surrender, a hearing within 72 hours of service, or within fourteen days if the respondent waives the quicker one [1]. The counterfactual is the twenty-eight states where no such procedure exists. The chain has no behavioural link carrying the quantity — the number of respondents is the number of orders, which is set on the other side and used identically here. What is a valuation rather than a finding is the amount per respondent, and it is taken from this site's own band rather than measured for this situation. The confounder that would raise the figure is the share of interim orders not confirmed, which varies widely between state programmes and is the reason the band is wide. Reverse causation does not arise. The Plausibility is high: the procedure is statutory, the number of people is the same one used opposite, and only what it is worth to each is a convention.

Evidence: Precedent · plausibility at most 8 Evidence of effect: Definitional

Somebody has to serve them

0.39points

Every order means a petition, a hearing, an officer at a door and a store for the firearms until the year is up. Serving removal orders is also among the more dangerous things an officer is asked to do.

Value 5 · Enforcement costImpact 0.1Plausibility 6.5
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Value

The stream is the court and police time an order consumes: the petition, the interim decision, the full hearing, the service, the storage and the return. It is priced at the middle of the scale, like other money spent on running a rule. The danger to the officers serving the orders is a different good — life — and is not folded into this figure: at the rates the state programmes have experienced, eight thousand services a year produce well under one death, which is below what a separate argument on this site's life anchor could carry, so it is left uncounted rather than hidden inside a money figure. Nothing is counted for the respondents' own legal costs, which are inside the argument about what an order costs them. The value is the middle of the scale, the level this site uses for the cost of running a rule.

Impact

Eight thousand additional orders a year at about 1,700 dollars each — a petition, an interim decision, a hearing with both parties, service by officers, and storage for up to 180 days, longer where an order is renewed — comes to about 14 million dollars a year at the ordinary weight for public money. The per-order figure is taken from what the existing state programmes report spending, which varies by a factor of three between states with dedicated units and states where the work falls on ordinary patrol. The risk to the officers who serve the orders is not in this figure: at the rates the state programmes have experienced, eight thousand services a year produce well under one death, and it is left uncounted rather than mixed into a money figure, because it belongs to a different good. Nothing is added for the storage facilities themselves, which the state programmes report as their most persistent shortage and which would raise the figure where none exist. Nothing is deducted for the police time that would have gone into the same cases anyway, since most of these people are already known to somebody. The Impact is the smallest in this evaluation, about a fiftieth of the lives it buys.

▸ Show calculation ▾ Hide calculation
Additional removal orders a year [3] the same figure used on the other side 8,000 orders a year
× Court, police and storage cost per order what the operating state programmes report spending, which varies by a factor of three between dedicated units and ordinary patrol [3] 1,500 euro-equivalent (about 1,700 dollars at 1.16 dollars to the euro) 12 million euro-equivalent a year
÷ Normalised Impact scale of this evaluation 100 million euro-equivalent a point 0.12
Score 0.12 Impact × 5 Value × 6.5 Plausibility ÷ 10 = 0.4 of 100

Plausibility

The costs are observed rather than predicted. The counterfactual is the same courts and police without the procedure. The state programmes publish what they spend and how many orders they process, so the per-order figure is a precedent transfer rather than a projection; what is uncertain is which end of the observed range a new federal procedure would sit at, and it would probably start at the expensive end because no dedicated units exist. That is named. The chain has no behavioural link carrying the quantity beyond the number of orders itself, which is set on the other side and used identically. Reverse causation does not arise. The Plausibility is above the middle: the per-order cost is observed in operating programmes and the transfer to a new federal procedure is the only uncertainty.

Evidence: Multiple precedents · plausibility at most 7 Evidence of effect: Definitional

How robust the result is

Under the assumptions used, the proposal brings more than it costs in 97 of 100 model runs.

gains more than it costscosts more than it gains

Each dot stands for 200 of the 20,000 model runs.

The whole positive side rests on one ratio: how many removal orders it takes to prevent one suicide. The study of 4,583 cases across four states puts it at one in seventeen, or one in twenty-four on a more cautious assumption, revised upward from an earlier figure of one in ten [4]. It is modelled from linked death records rather than measured against a comparison group [4][6]. The cautious end is used, with a modest guess of eight thousand orders a year in states that chose against such a law, and a tenth off for the bill's shorter term of 180 days [1][3]. With those three numbers the order comes out ahead in 97 of 100 runs. Double either number and the measure is twice as strong; if courts in states hostile to the idea issue almost none, it does almost nothing at all.

Show the distribution of the model runs

20,000 simulated futures

Very likely better · 97 %

In 97 of 100 simulated futures the proposal brings more than it costs.

No effect is known exactly; every argument has a range. The calculation draws a possible size for each argument from its range 20,000 times and counts how often the benefits exceed the costs.

Net effect in points per future. Left of zero the drawbacks outweigh the benefits, right of zero the benefits win. Eight in ten futures fall between +7.8 and +32 points.
Scale and assessment

Scale of this evaluation: Normalised Impact, unitless and calibrated to this topic. For comparison, one point here corresponds to about 100 million euro-equivalent a year.

Size class:small

Effect medium (+1.9) · 76 % of the effect is positive

Areas show individual argument weights. The positive share of the effect nets out money transfers between the two sides; the probability of a positive net effect is determined separately.

How we score →

Review and sources

AI evaluation · not yet reviewed by a human

This evaluation was produced and sourced by an AI model; a human review is still pending. Figures and conclusions may still change. The review log is at the foot of the page.How review works →

Last reviewed by Claude Opus 5.5 · October 29, 2026 · 8× AI, not yet reviewed by a human
  1. October 29, 2026AI reviewClaude Opus 5.5record updated

    Page texts for the new page layout (draft G) with quotes from primary sources; numbers unchanged.

  2. October 21, 2026AI reviewClaude Fable 5.1record updated

    Money amounts in argument texts stated in dollars per style-en.md; scores, chains and balance unchanged

  3. October 20, 2026AI reviewClaude Fable 5.1record updated

    Summary and scale note rewritten to the style of 20 Oct 2026; numbers unchanged

  4. October 16, 2026AI reviewClaude Opus 5.5no change needed

    Range of the state-discretion argument checked: it is the stated range of its single setting, not multiplied bounds, and stays above factor 25 by design.

  5. October 14, 2026AI reviewClaude Opus 5.5re-scored

    Prüfbericht 11.10. H03: Verfahren nach H.R.7599 § 935 (Anhörung binnen 72 h, Langfrist-Anordnung höchstens 180 Tage, clear and convincing evidence, Initiatorin McBath); pro-1/pro-2 um ein Zehntel für die kürzere Geltungsdauer gekürzt (Setzung 0,75–1), con-1 neu begründet ohne Zahlenänderung; r 0,781 → 0,762.

  6. September 14, 2026AI reviewClaude Opus 5re-scored

    Gesamtprüfung 08.09.: pro-1 Swanson-Quote als modelliertes Kontrafaktum (mechanistisch, P 6,5→6, 1:24, I 0,536→0,513), Richtung durch Brown et al. 2026 belegt; pro-2 Drohungs-Quote nur auf Drittfälle (I 0,123→0,041); Beamtenrisiko aus Geldkosten gelöst; r 0,82 → 0,78.

  7. September 6, 2026AI reviewClaude Opus 5record updated

    i_spanne an allen 6 Argumenten, normalisierung an 3 von 6 (leben mit Angehoerigen-Zuschlag, eur-nennwert) — die drei Grundrechts- und Foederalismus-Setzungen haben keinen Anker und bleiben ohne Block, kein de-Anker gebraucht. eintritt_gruppe orders-actually-issued, kein Transfer im Record. Kategorie kippt von Deutlich besser (r 0,82) auf Ausgeglichen (P(D>0) 0,64) — vier Con-Karten sind definitorisch, nur die Pro-Seite zieht ein Eintrittslos.

  8. September 6, 2026AI reviewClaude Opus 5First evaluation

    First evaluation: the conservative end of the one-in-seventeen-to-twenty-three suicide ratio, with a deliberately low guess at order volume.

Evaluations are produced with AI support and reviewed on a schedule for new developments; human passes are marked separately.How we review →

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  1. GovTrack: H.R. 7599, Federal Extreme Risk Protection Order Act of 2026. govtrack.us
  2. Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions: Gun violence in the United States 2023. publichealth.jhu.edu
  3. Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health: Research on extreme risk protection orders. publichealth.jhu.edu
  4. Swanson and colleagues, Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law: Suicide prevention effects of extreme risk protection order laws in four states. jaapl.org
  5. Wintemute and colleagues, Annals of Internal Medicine: Extreme risk protection orders intended to prevent mass shootings: a case series. acpjournals.org
  6. Brown, Kaplan, Yan and Xiao, JAMA Health Forum: Extreme risk protection orders and firearm and nonfirearm suicides in the US (county-level difference-in-differences, four states with ERPO laws passed 2018–2020 and no concurrent firearm legislation, 2026). pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

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