“Has this been tested? Who has it helped? Who has it hurt?”: Public perceptions about California’s extreme risk protection order law

According to researchers, in California, more than 67% of 3,531 surveyed individuals had never heard of an ERPO, though non-gun owners were more likely to be familiar with the topic than gun owners. When evaluating risk-based scenarios, 82% said ERPOs would be appropriate for dementia cases and 73% said ERPOs would be appropriate if someone has threatened to harm someone else. Notably, gun owners were overall more likely to approve of ERPO use in high-stakes scenarios (between 80.6%–89.9%) as compared to their peer non-gun owners (73%–81%).