California is set to become the first state in the nation to let police seize legally-owned guns without notice.
The law, which is scheduled to take effect on Friday, will enable family members to ask a judge to remove firearms from a relative who appears to pose a threat.
The bill authorizes a court to issue “a temporary emergency gun violence restraining order” if an officer and a judge finds “there is reasonable cause to believe that the subject of the petition poses an immediate and present danger of causing personal injury to himself, herself, or another by having in his or her custody or control, owning, purchasing, possessing, or receiving a firearm and that the order is necessary to prevent personal injury to himself, herself, or another,” reads part of the bill.
Democrats proposed the legislation in response to a deadly 2014 rampage near the University of California–Santa Barbara. Victims’ relatives said the parents of 22-year-old Elliot Rodger were blocked from seeking help for their troubled son before the rampage.
