More than 20,000 people a year die from firearm suicide. If we could decrease that by 10 percent or 5 percent, how many people is that . The 2nd leading cause of death for teenagers, think about where they get the guns. They can legally buy them. They get them from their parents. In the home typically or a Family Member. We can intervene in all kinds of ways without legislation, although we also have to have legislation, too. But from a place of caring and concern where something is going south, and rarely happens overnight. There usually signs, warning signs that someone is heading in the crisis. As neighbors, family, friends, we can take it upon ourselves to voluntarily the way we would voluntarily take our keys even from a stranger if you are out in a restaurant or bar, the bartenders will often do it. These are strangers to them, but they know it is a dangerous thing. We have to start thinking about the dangers of gun violence not through the lens of the tip of the mass shooting iceberg, as rhetoric and devastating as they are, but through a lens that looks at gun violence is a problem with many potential interventions, and the people who just keep putting Mental Illness out there as the problem are intentionally or unintentionally blocking us from developing broader perspectives that will lead us forward. And my feeling is that we need to move forward with more light, less heat, less pro and anti gun rhetoric. It is not helpful. What i would leave you with this, we need to come from a place where, as i say when i talk about this, i dont want my kid to shoot yours. I dont want your kid to shoot mine. I dont want my kids to shoot themselves. Im pretty sure we can get everyone to agree they feel that way, and we can start from there. What is the risk . , start looking at the evidence based interventions that can prevent some of these tragedies, and they happen every day. Again, from my perspective the 20,000 firearm suicide deaths, it is a staggering number. When you look at homicide deaths its about 11,000. It is almost twice the number, and that is rarely what anyone is talking about the talk about Mental Illness and suicide. To the audience member who brought up i want to thank you. I believe that is one of the most significant myths that Mental Illness is strongly associated with violence, people with Mental Illness. People with Mental Illness are rarely violent toward others. They are even more rarely violent using firearms. When they arewhen they are violent using a firearm they kill themselves much more often than anybody else and then factor of more often the victims of violence and the perpetrators of it, and anybody who tells you otherwise does not have a good handle on what the evidence demonstrates. Thank you. [applause] my name is bill nettles, United States atty. For District South carolina. Carolina. I was appointed by the president in 2011. My job is to make South Carolina safer. Take a little bit different view. I dont think my job is to put people in prison. Have you putting people in prison is one of the least effective in most expensive tools i have to make the state safer. Having said that, im from sumter, literally preaching of the congregation. Im going to try to talk a little bit about what were trying to do because i want to leave more time for conversation. I think what my job is as chief federal Law Enforcement officer is to make a better decision about who we are putting in prison and who we are not. But we need to do is take the lessons that we learned from the war on drugs which is lasted 20 years and cost a billion dollars and landed us with a generation of people in jail that had it been treated as a Public Health issue we would have productive people in the streets rather than having this longterm note. What we started trying to do comanche fallbrook is driven all the way up here because condos you have to pry people out of columbia to go to charleston. But as i say about the world the war on drugs, its about how much money it would take to make columbia look like charleston. But we were very fortunate the chief could come in from huntington, West Virginia where he had done very progressive things in terms of improving the quality of life. We are lucky to have it. He and i have started a project of it done in greenville, and they can comeau one that we have done in the pd and what we are trying to get. We are working here in columbia, charleston. What we are trying to do this, the basic landscape of South Carolina, i speak for the department of justice. One of these days im not going to be in this job, a little more interesting, but the. Is the state of South Carolina, we dont have gun laws. And whether that is right or wrong i cant speak to. Give you an example, and dental in pennsylvania as a manager, when i was speaking to him that i gun prosecutions, he was pointing out that they basically dont do gun prosecutions in federal court in pennsylvania because if you have taught cant run or whether it is two or three duis you dont get down the gun. Whether its good or bad, the department of justice, not commenting. They dont have to do federal gun cases as much. In South Carolina we are the only game. But i would like to do, and they came here intending to speak more. Im going to speak less because i want to hear more from what they have gotten say. My job is to make a decision i have prosecutorial discretion. It is often abused. Im trying not to. I was a public defender forever, so i come at this with a little bit different view. What we are doing is instituting programs and calling it a focus deterrence model for bringing people in. Right now were going to every juvenile of every time juveniles your released from jail they are going to them and saying, lets be serious about this. Lets not make it a federal case, we are the federal government. So here is what happens or can happen to you if you get , the gun. Here is what can happen. We are doing that. Every everythat. Every time a juvenile gets released they are putting them on notice about the ramifications of being a felon in possession of a handgun. We need to be smart about that. Imthat. Im not interested in picking up 18 euros and giving them ten years in federal prison. The next step is for my office and the chief policymaker to figure out who we can start focusing on is really,really, really really the people that are adversely affecting the communities. The way were starting to do that and chief homework and i have done one in columbia. Getting ready to do one in charleston, all of the state , bringing people in, and i will at lunch basically threatened to have the marshalls not let these people leave the airport until they agree to help me because i can do that. Is to help us have a better understanding. I heard the questions from over here. We can do with gun violence what we did on the war on drugs, to use it as another means to incarcerate a race of people. We have got to do is make learn what we failed to learn and take that forward and have better understanding of who we need to be focusing on, who we need to be locking up into we need to be giving help to. That is how we need to do it , and thats what i hope to do on this. To that end, we have started identifying people, bringing the men in bringing the community in. But we do is what have this thing we brought them all in comeau one side of the table as Law Enforcement. Fbi, secret service, all the local Law Enforcement, atf. We had the Law Enforcement people. On the other side of the podium we had a number of different programs people like jobs, Mental Health, and in the audience we identified about 50 people that have the requisite felonies, had violence in the history command we wanted to say to them command we have the Community Behind the. They said we know who you are. This is the community. The community is tired of people getting shot. You have got to stop it. It. There will come a time where you have the opportunity to have a gun command im asking you not to do it for a whole host of reasons. It makes your Community Less safe. We are doing focus deterrence, and i dont mind , one of the great things about talking like this is when you go up north they all think your stupid. I can tell you whenever we have gone talk about the type of things were doing we have been routinely told there on the front edge of it. The problem is theres know road map. So i am extraordinarily happy that we have these folks here today and you have my commitment to try to design the way so that the people that we can do a better job of deciding who we need to be incarcerating. Thank you. [applause] hello again. I am going to be talking to you all about something that i dont think gets enough attention when we talk about gun violence in the us. Thats what im going to call removal. So people in this country get per have a from purchasing and possessing firearms for a number of reasons. On the federal level felons, persons convicted of Domestic Violence, persons adjudicated mentally defective but what happens after that . These persons are prohibited from purchasing and possessing weapons. They can go buy a new one. She was going and check. Or have Law Enforcement go and possess the person. The reason i think that removal is so important is because we have already identified these people as being too dangerous to have firearms. I will tell you a story about Kristen Palmer component. The sufferers of years of physical and mental abuse at the hands of her husband kevin palmer. In an affidavit she wrote, he has kicked me, strangled me, trying to drown me, slapped me, trust me by the hair and bit metering arguments. He has kicked, with, pulled his hair and have my child when disciplining them. On february 19, 2014, kristen anger consigned criminal complaints that resulted in the arrest of kevin palmer. Kristen was granted an emergency protective order against her husband. Her parents with whom she and griffin were staying in virginia were also granted a protective order against kevin palmer. Hours after these protective orders were issued kevin palmer shot and killed Kristen Palmer, griffin palmer, and nancy griffin. He also shot Terry Griffin it was the only survivor who crawled all the way from his house to our neighbors. In Virginia Protective orders prohibited from purchasing and transporting park firearms. Nobody went to kevins house and told him he was no longer able to possess firearms and no one took them from him. And that is part of the reason this was allowed to happen. I want to talk to a little bit about what states are currently doing. Doing. Thirteen states that have no statutory explicit authority. Particularly im going to talk to you about Domestic Violence restraining orders. There are 12 states12 states that authorize judges to order the removal of firearms from subjects with protective orders, final protective orders, and there ar5 states that require judges to order suspects term of firearms. Much smaller number of states that authorize and require judges to order this during ex parte proceedings which are usually an emergency repetition ago the request in order to make a case to say they are in such immediate danger that the respondent cannot be there to be heard at that time. And this is a multifaceted process. In order is issued. Issued. The person is told they are no longer able to possess firearms and are told how to remove them. Questions arise about who these people surrender to my legs onto the guns during the duration of the order. Typically that is Law Enforcement, but we have states that allow licensed dealers to hold on to firearms for the duration of an order. In states that allow 3rd parties to hang on to those. And to appear in court for the judge and the judges on to say yes or no you are a good person any others. Before nor has expired which is great. The judges have what i call implicit authority. That would include ordering the surrender of firearms. Touchstone typically use that authority well, either they are not aware that they can or unwilling. There was a study done on protective orders and reliant in rhode island, even in cases where petitioner stated that they were afraid of the respondent because of guns, because they had used comes on them before and held them to the head hit them with it , judges refused to order and surrender the firearm. Its a big problem in the United States. I would like to talk to you more about this concept of the gun violence restraining order. It is something that we have discussed a lot and was pioneered by the consortium for firearm policy, and there are two statutes right now then do a similar process, one in connecticut and when indiana for Law Enforcement only where Law Enforcement officer or prosecutor can go seek a warrant for the removal of firearms. As you have heard other panelists mentioned, california has enacted a oneofakind law called the gun violence restraining order. What is so interesting is that allows Family Members to act as petitioners as well. Family members can go to court and petition, and we have talked a lot about some of the reasons why they can go do that, immediate danger to self or others, but based upon a number of factors that researchers like daniel and others have identified as being good risk factors for future violence including reason threats of violence or acts of violence , the violation of the protective order, a conviction for a violent offense and patterns of violent acts. Judges can also consider the reckless use, display, or brandishing a firearm, the history of use or attempt of use of physical force, any violation of an order, drug and alcohol abuse, recent acquisition of firearms. What is so great is that like the crises that are faced by these individuals, the provisions are temporary. Unlike a Mental Health education which will result in a lifetime prohibition unless that person petition for restoration the temporary order last 21 days the final order lasts one year, and respondents respondents are for the opportunity to terminate your where they go to court and say im no longer in crisis, let me show you. Ofof course petitioners can also apply for the renewal of an order to come back and say, sorry,say, sorry, but this person is still in crisis, still in danger and the judge will reevaluate and decide whether or not thats true. So these are really, really interesting developments. I would love to talk to you more about it at lunch. Hopefully mike all your questions here, you will have more later. So without any more time, i would like to get writing the questions. The 1st one i would like you to answer the person asks, mass shooters may not be insane. I understand their actions, but they seem to have behavioral or personality deficiencies, a lot of anger, hate, racism, can anything be done in a Public Education system to help . I think that there are a lot of things that can be done to help, and i think that the questioner has put a finger on one of the changes in perspective that need to happen, which is that if you cast a wide net you are likely to catch a lot of fish. If you cast a small net trying to find mass shooters your likely miss everybody. So i think that the more we teach people about anger, coping skills, recognizing signs of depression, destigmatize Mental Illness so that people are not afraid or dont want to be identified and go for help or treatment, Family Members or less afraid of identifying people due to the stigma of Mental Illness , and put these in place and the kind of places where people are, schools, religious organization, community organizations, boy scouts, girl scouts, the more people become conversant and understanding the better off we are going to be in terms of preventing all kinds of gun violence, suicide, general homicide, the vast majority of which is interpersonal and that very small sliver that also is mass shooting. There is never one intervention that will fix everything, but to my understanding i do not think Public Health success is measured by 100 percent anyone intervention being 100 percent effective which is why i dont understand any time someone makes a suggestion they say that would not have stopped this or that mass shooter. 100 percent effectiveness is not the metric by which we measure. The changing social attitude , Public Education, those are very powerful tools. Look at what they have done in regard to smoking, in regard to wearing seatbelts and cars, childproofing homes, created a billion dollar industry and those little plastic things. No one would have a baby putting this little plastic things in the sockets. So that is what we have to be looking forward which is part of why the Public Health approach to the problem would do. You know, Mental Health and Behavioral Health is about professionals from all about change. The helplessness that we cant change anything needs to be challenged. We can change so many of these things, and it does not require billions of federal dollars to do. It requires a better understanding of the nature of the problem and the better understanding for all of us on the individual and committee level. Yes, all of those things i think would be very helpful. Our next question is california is the 1st day to enact gun violence restraining order. What is there data on this success and shortcomings . The bill was passed and signed by the governor in september of 2014. It will not go into effect until january 1 of n