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Donna Nathan, a 67-year-old mother with a long history of bipolar disorder, had been cycling in and out of psychiatric wards for three months. On June 26, 2018 — after her third voluntary hospitalization that year — she bought her first gun, a Smith & Wesson revolver, from a gun store near her home in New Orleans and went to Audubon Park, where she shot herself under the Tree of the Life, the well-known live-oak tree.

Donna Nathan (Photo courtesy of Katrina Brees.)

Nathan is now the namesake of a model piece of suicide prevention legislation that is now law in four states and is gaining momentum across the country. “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 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. (Other methods of suicide are far less likely to be fatal, and most survivors do not initiate another attempt.) 

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.

Still working to get the bill out of committee in Louisiana

The bill has yet to become law in Louisiana. Working along with Vars, Katrina Brees, Nathan’s daughter, has tried twice to get the Louisiana legislature to pass Donna’s Law. But the bill stalled in 2019 when sponsored by Sen. Jimmy Harris, then a member of the Louisiana House, and stalled in committee again in 2023, when sponsored by Rep. Maddie Landry. 

The inaction seems baffling in a state where suicide has risen by 39% over the past 20 years, with a higher rate of suicide by firearm than any other means. But first, the gun lobby must understand that it is not an anti-Second Amendment bill, she said. Instead, last year the Donna’s Law bill was heard in committee during the legislature’s “Gun Day,” which labeled the bill an Anti-Gun Bill and described it as making it possible for “a person can surrender their inalienable rights to purchase and possess firearms by placing themselves on the government’s prohibited person list.”

Inaccurate, Brees said. “The law doesn’t surrender a right. It suspends it with reversibility.” Often, she said, people who oppose the law argue that the law does things that it doesn’t do, to make it seem more over-reaching. “I can’t think of why anyone would be against this if they actually studied it. And I’ve heard arguments against it for six years now.”

Faced with slow progress in Louisiana, Brees broadened her focus and talked with policymakers in other places. “If they’re not gonna let me save lives in my own state, I’ll go save lives in any state that wants to save lives with me,” said Brees, who runs a website to help spread Donna’s Law nationwide.

But now, with the law on the books in four states, she is hopeful that her home-state legislators will renew efforts to pass the bill. “Every year we get closer,” she said.

Donna Nathan and her daughter Katrina, in 1979. Brees is hopeful that her home state will eventually pass the bill. “Every year we get closer,” she said. (Photo courtesy of Katrina Brees)

Vars credits a 2023 CBS News segment on Donna’s Law for the idea’s newfound popularity. “Constituents who had seen it on TV said, ‘Hey, I want this option. This could have helped my son, my nephew, my mother, myself,’” he said. 

Donna’s Law has proven one of the few areas of gun policy where Democrats and Republicans can find common ground. Utah’s law was sponsored by state Representative Steve Eliason, a Republican, and it sailed through both chambers of the GOP-dominated Legislature.

There are roadblocks to scaling it, however, and participation so far has been low.

The Trace surveyed Washington, Utah, and Virginia and found that, as of October, 132 people had used Donna’s Law to suspend their gun rights. Of those, only 13 had later chosen to be removed from the system after waiting a mandatory minimum period ranging from a week in Washington to about six months in Utah.

Improving participation in Donna’s Law states

Vars said the level of participation has been disappointing, but he expects enrollments to increase as awareness spreads and states make it easier to sign up. 

He pointed to Washington, which initially required participants to sign up in person at their local courthouse. That was a barrier: Registering could not only require travel but also be intimidating. In 2023, state lawmakers passed an amendment allowing people to register online. A record 13 people enrolled that year. 

“What has generally been true is the bills keep getting better,” Vars said. “How easy it is to sign up is really the key variable, and that’s becoming easier and easier in each state.”

In Utah, people can sign up through their health care providers. “Two of our largest health care institutions in the state that now have over half the health care market are supportive of this and are training their clinicians on how to use it,” Eliason told The Trace.

Of the legislation considered by states in 2023 and 2024, many bills would have allowed applicants to register online. The Louisiana legislation allows people to ban themselves from gun ownership online, through Louisiana State Police, and through their health providers, Brees said. “And not just psychiatric providers either,” she said. “Suicide is a top cause of death for new mothers, alcoholics, people with HIV. Many types of providers could be discussing this tool with their patients.”

In 2025, bills will be re-introduced in Louisiana and many other states

Vars said he has spoken to lawmakers and expects the bills to be re-introduced in more than half of those states after their new sessions begin in 2025. Six or so other states might introduce the bills for the first time.

Landry, a representative from New Orleans, plans to re-introduce it in Louisiana, Brees said.

Traci Murphy, the executive director of Coalition For a Safer Delaware, a gun violence prevention group, said it took lawmakers in her state several years to agree on legislation requiring prospective gun buyers to obtain a permit and training. Donna’s Law passed in a matter of months; only one lawmaker, a Republican state senator, voted against the bill. “I think it is just a great reminder that gun violence is not a left or right issue, but a life or death issue,” Murphy said.

U.S. House members from both sides of the aisle sponsored a national version of Donna’s Law in 2022, but the bill never received a full vote.

Virginia had the most significant partisan disagreement over Donna’s Law. There, Republicans were hung up on the notion that someone could be added to the program without their knowledge or consent, even though the bill made that a misdemeanor criminal offense. The measure ultimately passed along party lines. 

State Senator Scott Surovell, a Democrat who sponsored Virginia’s bill, said it can be difficult for people to understand why someone would want to suspend their gun rights. “I don’t think a lot of people have a lot of perspective about what clinical depression or bipolar disorder is, or other kinds of cyclical mental health illnesses that can cause people to make poor choices,” Surovell said.

Murphy, who also serves on the Delaware Suicide Prevention Coalition, said the group plans to promote the new law through its member organizations for now. But she said it’s possible that lawmakers could one day provide funding for a public awareness campaign.

“We’ll go back to the Legislature in January, and there may be more of an appetite for suicide prevention,” Murphy said. “And that’s something that we can continue to invest in.”

Agya K. Aning is the inaugural editing fellow for The Trace, which is building the only team of journalists exclusively dedicated to reporting on our country’s gun-violence crisis. 

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