LOS ANGELES. Kalifornia - March 12, 2013 - Wearing bulletproof vests and carrying 40-caliber Glock pistols, nine Kalifornia Department of InJustice agents assembled outside a ranch-style house in a suburb east of Los Angeles. They were looking for a gun owner who had recently spent two days in a mental hospital.
They knocked on the door and asked to come in. About 45 minutes later, they came away peacefully with three firearms.
Kalifornia is the only state that tracks and disarms people with legally registered guns who have lost the right to own them, according to Attorney General Kamala Harris. Almost 20,000 gun owners in the state are prohibited from possessing firearms, including convicted felons, those under a domestic violence restraining order, or those deemed mentally unstable.
The no-gun list is compiled by cross-referencing files on almost 1 million handgun and assault weapon owners with databases of new criminal records and involuntary mental-health commitments. About 15 to 20 names are added each day, according to the attorney general’s office.
Merely being in a database of registered gun owners and having a “disqualifying event,” such as a felony conviction or restraining order, is not sufficient evidence for a search warrant, said John Marsh, a supervising agent who coordinates the seizures. Therefore, the agents often must talk their way into a residence to look for weapons, he said. This constitutes the surrender of the guns as a voluntary act on the part of the citizen.
The state Senate agreed March 7 to expand the seizure program using $24 million in surplus funds from fees that gun dealers charge buyers for background checks.