How Effective Are California's 'Red Flag' Gun Laws? San Francisco and San Diego Are Trying to Find Out

Three mass shootings in California this month have brought renewed attention to the state’s gun violence prevention laws, known as red flag laws, that allow courts to remove firearms from someone deemed a danger to themselves or others.

But many California residents don’t know about the laws, according to researchers at UC Davis, limiting their potential. And it’s been a slow rollout training and staffing law enforcement agencies to enforce gun violence restraining orders, which temporarily prohibit someone from having a firearm.

“Often in the aftermath of tragedies such as mass shootings, we hear about red flags displayed by the perpetrator that could have signaled an impending crisis or trauma,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a public statement this week. “Criminal and civil orders that result in the removal of firearms are critical tools that can help save lives, but they are severely underutilized. When you have concerns that someone may pose a threat, we encourage you to act.”

San Francisco and San Diego are two cities trying to boost utilization of red flag laws to help get guns out of potentially dangerous situations.

“Red flag laws are an incredibly important tool,” said San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu, whose office processes requests for gun violence restraining orders. “In our first few years, we have removed firearms in several dozen highly dangerous circumstances.”

In 2016, California became one of the first states to enact a red flag law, following the 2014 mass shooting in Isla Vista that killed seven people. California is now among the 19 states and the District of Columbia with such laws, also often called “extreme risk protection orders.”

The law allows law enforcement, household members, family, teachers, employers and co-workers to request that a judge temporarily remove access to another person’s firearm if they pose a significant threat.

The request is typically made to local law enforcement, who, along with attorneys, investigate and build a case for whether the individual should be brought to court for a hearing before a judge.

Since 2016, San Francisco has recovered more than 50 firearms, both registered and unregistered, through gun violence restraining orders, according to Chiu, as well as thousands of rounds of ammunition.

But nearly two-thirds of Californians surveyed have still never heard of gun violence restraining orders, according to a 2021 study from UC Davis.

However, the same study found that once surveyors were given a description of the policy, they supported it.

“So what we see there is really this willingness of individuals to take action once they know something is in place. But, a lot of people don’t know this exists or even the process of going about that,” said Nicole Kravitz-Wirtz, who studies gun violence at UC Davis and is the lead author of the study.

In San Francisco, the red flag law has been utilized in situations such as when a man strangled his mother and threatened to kill her, according to Chiu. In another case, San Francisco authorities confiscated firearms and six rounds of ammunition from someone who was experiencing hallucinations and began firing a pistol inside his house, believing someone was coming out of the fridge to take his wife and kid.

“We are not talking about trivial situations,” Chiu said. “These are incredibly volatile situations and any could lead to horrific and tragic results.”

Chiu believes San Francisco is just getting started. Last year, the City Attorney’s Office received city funding to hire a full-time staff member to oversee gun removal requests and help increase awareness and capacity for follow-through on requests.

San Diego has started down that path already. There, a team of around eight attorneys and investigators are assigned to gun violence restraining orders.

‘This is a crisis intervention tool’

“The idea is to give a cooling-off period to the individual. Usually, the person for whom guns and access to guns is an issue is going through some kind of a traumatic event. And it could be a breakup of a relationship, maybe they got out of the military and they have post-traumatic stress disorder,” San Diego City Attorney Mara Elliott told KQED. “We work closely with Alzheimer’s here in San Diego because once-responsible gun owners could become irresponsible because their health deteriorated.”

In 2021, San Diego accounted for about 31% (435 out of 1,384) of all gun violence restraining orders issued across the state, according to the state Attorney General’s Office. The city has issued more than 1,000 gun violence restraining orders since the law was enacted in California in 2016, according to Elliott.

She estimates that roughly a third of those confiscations were in situations where the individual had shown signs or expressed thoughts of self-harm, and another third has been related to domestic violence and intimate partner trauma. Other situations where the restraining orders have been approved include workplace and school threats, Elliott said.

“This is a crisis intervention tool. If someone is going through a really hard time, let’s get the guns out of their home and help them get better,” Elliott said. “We don’t have any interest in [removing guns from] responsible gun owners.”

Part of the work that San Diego’s gun violence prevention office does is assess whether a gun violence restraining order is the best intervention. In some cases, anger management or mental health treatment might be more appropriate.

“If we are only dealing with the threat and not what led to it, we could miss something really important,” Elliott said.

Law enforcement officials in San Francisco said the request alone can provide a useful heads-up about behaviors before a violent incident occurs.

“We have people who purchased guns legally but may be in crisis or experiencing a mental health issue that may not have come up in the background process. So it’s literally a red flag to us to take that firearm out of their possession,” said San Francisco Sheriff Paul Miyamoto.

James Dudley, a former deputy chief with the San Francisco Police Department, now teaches criminal justice at San Francisco State University. He thinks California could be doing more to utilize its red flag law and enforcement.

“I remember during my own time as a law enforcement officer, we would get stuck and had to tell victims we didn’t have enough evidence to get a court order to seize guns. There were so many different cases where if we could have got ahead of the game, we could have prevented some violence,” Dudley told KQED. “Shootings can often be repeat offenders and we don’t do nearly enough for people with the highest propensity for firearms violation.”

Do you know someone with access to a firearm who may be a risk to themselves or others?

SpeakforSafety.org, a campaign to raise awareness of gun violence restraining orders, has resources to walk you through the necessary steps of how to obtain an order. The site includes support for employees, family or household members, teachers and others.

More information can also be found through the California Courts website in English and in Spanish.