• by Les Luchter , August 10, 2023

Extreme Risk Protection Orders (ERPOs), aka Red Flag Laws, allow for the temporary suspension of a person’s access to firearms if they’re deemed to have a high and imminent risk of using them to harm other people or themselves.

ERPOs have now been enacted in 21 states and Washington, DC. But, as they “gain ground across states, the true potential of these measures remains untapped due to the lack of public awareness,” Derrick Feldmann, lead researcher and managing director of the Ad Council Research Institute (ACRI), tells Marketing Daily.

“Marketers, particularly those in state and local government, health, and nonprofit sectors, hold the power to educate the public on these laws and help them use these measures when in need,” Feldmann adds.

With that aim in mind, ACRI and The Joyce Foundation have just released an ERPO “Communications Toolkit,” based on a nine-month joint qualitative and quantitative survey of 10,000 gun owners, non-gun owners, veterans and law enforcement officials living in ERPO regions .

The study found that while 65% of people were aware of ERPOs, only 7% were very familiar with them.

But, when provided with more information about the laws, 75% were positive about them – especially when messaging emphasized the prevention of suicide and mass shootings

Messages that included a real scenario as well as state-level info proved to be informative and easy-to-understand, the study found.

Who should deliver this messaging?

While law enforcement groups were the top choice overall, preferred by 42% of the study, key differences emerged among demographic and behavioral groups:

Gen Z, millennials, Blacks and Hispanics were less likely to trust local law enforcement (29%, 32%, 33%, 29% respectively).

Those who know someone in crisis and Democrats were more likely to trust mental health organizations (56% and 55% vs. 43% overall)

Gun owners and rural respondents were more likely to trust national gun associations (33% and 28% respectively vs. 23% overall).

The new toolkit says three groups should be the primary targets in communications about ERPOs: those who know someone in crisis, gun owners, and the military, both active-duty and veterans.

‘If more people closest to those in crisis knew about this tool, and when and how to use it, more lives could be saved, and more tragedies prevented,” Tim Daly, The Joyce Foundation’s gun violence prevention and justice reform program director, said in a statement. “If done right, we can unlock the full potential of ERPOs, and meaningfully reduce gun violence in our communities.”

The Ad Council, meanwhile, has announced plans to launch its own campaign addressing gun violence issues that will include ERPO education and take the coalition-based, multi-audience approach previously employed for COVID-19 vaccine education and mental health.

Gun owners and military folk, the toolkit says, are “more worried than the general public about potential negative impacts the law could have on individuals,” citing such concerns as “the law being inappropriately used (e.g., to get someone in trouble or for revenge), a negative impact to a person’s future housingoption or employment opportunities, or damage to a person’s criminal record.”

But, “as a civil (and not criminal) procedure, the research team has evidence that these negative beliefs are purely points of misperception to address.”

The secondary audience should be “the general public in the states and Washington, D.C. where ERPO laws are currently enacted,” the toolkit says.

The toolkit, available here, provides key messaging principles and tips for each one:

Provide detailed information. Inform, don’t overcomplicate.

Incorporate real scenarios and how ERPOs prevent them. Show the human side.

Localize details by area/state.

Don’t overlook crisis information. Remember what ERPOs are solving for (preventing firearm-related tragedies).