Donna’s Law, a suicide-prevention law that allows people to temporarily suspend their own gun rights, has proven one of the few areas of gun policy where Republicans and Democrats can agree, The Trace reports. The law, now passed by four states, offers a self-made solution to a clear crisis: Gun suicides hit a record high of more than 27,300 in 2023, accounting for 58 percent of all gun deaths that year. “Donna’s Law” allows people to flag themselves in the background check system for prospective gun buyers, effectively suspending their ability to purchase firearms. They can remove themselves from the system after a set period of time. The idea is to give people who are concerned about their own mental health a means to ban themselves from buying guns until they feel better. The law was spurred by the story of Donna Nathan, a 67-year-old mother who – after struggling with bipolar disorder and voluntarily cycling in and out of psychiatric wards for three months -- bought a Smith & Wesson revolver from a gun store near her home in New Orleans and then went to a park, where she shot herself.
Delaware became the fourth state to pass Donna’s Law when Governor John Carney, a Democrat, signed the bill in August. It was one of at least 20 states and Washington, D.C., that considered a version of the law during legislative sessions in 2023 and 2024 — an “exponential” increase over previous sessions, according to Fredrick Vars, a University of Alabama law professor who came up with the idea for the law. The measure is also on the books in Washington — where Donna’s Law debuted in 2019 — as well as Utah and Virginia, which enacted their own versions in 2021.