California Law First in Nation to Allow Police to Seize Legally-Owned Guns Without Notice

California Law First in Nation to Allow Police to Seize Legally-Owned Guns Without Notice
Officials look at confiscated guns prior to the destruction of approximately 3,400 guns and other weapons at the Los Angeles County Sheriffs' 22nd annual gun melt at Gerdau Steel Mill on July 6, 2015 in Rancho Cucamonga, California. David McNew/Getty Images
Zachary Stieber
Zachary Stieber
Senior Reporter
|Updated:

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.

An undated photo of shooter Elliot Rodger is seen at a press conference by the Santa Barbara County Sheriff in Goleta, California May 24, 2014. (Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images)
An undated photo of shooter Elliot Rodger is seen at a press conference by the Santa Barbara County Sheriff in Goleta, California May 24, 2014. Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images
Zachary Stieber
Zachary Stieber
Senior Reporter
Zachary Stieber is a senior reporter for The Epoch Times based in Maryland. He covers U.S. and world news. Contact Zachary at [email protected]
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