MADISON, Wis. — With September designated as Suicide Prevention Month, Democrats hope that their latest bill, named after a former colleague, will help people who are depressed or have suicidal thoughts.
The recently released legislation would establish a voluntary “do not purchase” list for people who do not want to be able to buy a handgun.
Jonathan Brostoff, a former state representative and Milwaukee alderman, committed suicide last November. He frequently advocated for mental health services and gun control measures designed to prevent deaths.
Now, those who once served alongside Brostoff are proposing legislation they claim will help people protect themselves from gun violence.
“If you have access to a firearm, have thoughts of self-harm, and attempt suicide, you have a 90% chance of dying,” State Sen. Kelda Roys, D-Madison, explained.
Roys, who introduced the bill with State Rep. Lee Snodgrass, D-Appleton, said she hopes to build on Brostoff’s work by allowing Wisconsin residents to place themselves on a “do not buy” list for handguns, similar to Virginia, Utah, and Washington.
“He talked really openly about the struggles he faced with depression, and about how not having access to a firearm was the reason that he was alive, and I think he would have given anything to have had this law in place before he faced the last crisis,” Roys said when asked about Brostoff.
According to the proposal, the Wisconsin Department of Justice (DOJ) would maintain the list with $150,000 in state funding.
Those who self-register would have the option of a one-year, five-year, or twenty-year prohibition. However, regardless of how long they chose, they would have to remain on the “do not sell” list for at least a year. A person could then request to be removed from the registry, but the DOJ would have to wait 48 hours before removing them from the database.
“We’ve looked at this legislation, and we’re not opposed to the concept of self-registration, but there are a number of loopholes that are kind of built into this legislation that might need to be tweaked, and I don’t think they’re intentional loopholes,” Rob Kovach, president of Wisconsin Firearm Owners, told Spectrum News 1.
Kovach stated that he wants to ensure that people who do not voluntarily register cannot be added to the registry. He also questioned why the registry is limited to handguns and expressed concern about the length of the prohibitions.
“It seems like if this thing is really going to be voluntary, that having these tiers of carve out, that doesn’t make a lot of sense, so keeping it easy to administer is going to be important,” according to Kovach.
Brostoff is not the only Wisconsin lawmaker to commit suicide in recent years. Rick Gudex, a state senator from Fond du Lac, committed suicide in 2016.
