Professor Fredrick Vars has an idea that could significantly reduce the number of firearm suicides every year.
He wants anyone at high risk of suicide to confidentially add their names to a federal background check system, making it more difficult for them to buy a gun during a suicidal crisis. The database would give the power to protect lives to the very people who may take their own.
Vars has launched StopGunSuicide.com, and his idea was recently endorsed by Yale Law professor Ian Ayres at Forbes.com.
“There is every chance that Vars’s registry could save hundreds of lives each year – without causing a huge new bureaucracy, but merely by supplementing the national list that already exists,” Ayres said.
After names are entered into the database, participants would not be able to purchase firearms from licensed dealers.
“Participants could have their names removed after a seven-day delay or, if they choose greater protection up front, only after a judicial hearing,” Vars said.
Vars has started a petition on change.org, urging Congress to enact his proposal.
For more, read “Stop Gun Suicide.”
