Many times, it started with a threat of self harm. Sometimes, an ex-lover showed up with a gun. More than one teenager talked about shooting people. So did a military veteran. And on a few occasions, a wife called in fear of a husband with a diagnosis of dementia — and access to guns.
Those are among the calls in San Diego last year that prompted authorities to turn to the state’s red-flag laws to get guns out of the hands of someone who posed a credible threat of violence.
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San Diego uses gun violence restraining orders more than any other county in the state. The use of such court orders are hailed by supporters as a vital public safety measure to intervene in dangerous behavior but disparaged by critics as overreach and an affront to the Second Amendment.
Last year, the City attorney’s Office secured long-term orders separating 118 people from their guns for up to five years. It was tied for the highest annual total of gun violence restraining orders secured by the office since it first obtained one in early 2018.
Domestic and family violence threats accounted for about 30 percent of the long-term orders granted last year by a San Diego Superior Court judge in cases brought by the City attorney’s Office. About a quarter of the orders arose from threats of self-harm.
Encounters with strangers also led to loss of guns — it happened in about 22 percent of the city attorney-led cases that resulted in long-term orders last year. They included road-rage encounters during which a driver pulled out a gun, according to a review by the Union-Tribune of scores of cases.
In one instance last year, a customer flashed a holstered gun after a dispute with a fast-food worker. And in another, a man out with his elderly father parked in disabled spot without putting up his father’s placard — prompting someone to point a gun at the two men.
Gun violence restraining orders, or GVROs, are approved by judges and are intended for crisis intervention. They require a person to surrender or sell their firearms and bar them from having guns or ammunition for the duration of the order.
The orders are handled in civil court, not criminal court. They are often obtained very quickly after an incident and start out as temporary 21-day orders, followed by a court hearing for a judge to consider extending them.
Many of those do not turn into long-term orders, and it’s not uncommon for the temporary order to be dissolved. Last year, the City attorney’s Office sought 226 GVROs. The office says 118 of them — just over half — were granted as long-term orders from one to five years.
Critics argue that gun violence restraining orders can be handled through other measures, such as criminal cases.
Michael Schwartz, executive director of San Diego County Gun Owners PAC, said most of the orders the City attorney’s Office pursues are “fine,” in the sense that the person is doing something that should enable law enforcement to be able to intervene and remove the weapon. But he alleges Elliott’s office overuses them, “using them in instances where they (law enforcement) can already take firearms because the person is breaking the law.”
Schwartz said the orders are supposed to be used as “an additional tool when nothing else could apply.”
“A red-flag law meant that there was nothing else out there that could help prevent somebody that was showing a red flag,” Schwartz said. He later added, “They were never intended to be standard- operating procedure.”
City attorney Mara Elliott says there are several situations in which a gun cannot be quickly removed. She also said it is up to a judge to decide whether to strip someone of their weapons.
Since it first started using them, the City attorney’s Office has secured long-term court orders against 589 people. While the orders can run up to five years, several recent cases reviewed by the Union-Tribune ended with the order set to run three years.
But deals can be reached with defendants to get their guns back through what is called a less restrictive alternative. That was the case for the San Diego woman who flashed her gun to a fast-food worker. Court documents indicate attorneys negotiated a deal to get the order lifted after the woman completed a gun safety course.
Elliott has embraced the use of gun violence restraining orders. She said earlier this month that the orders allow authorities to act quickly in the face of a potential threat. An officer can pick up a phone and immediately request a judge to sign an order allowing guns to be removed.
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City attorney Mara Elliott speaks about gun violence restraining orders with California attorney General Rob Bonta at a roundtable discussion on July 13, 2021, at San Diego police headquarters.
(Nelvin C. Cepeda/The San Diego Union-Tribune)
“We do not have to prove that a crime has occurred,” she said. “We have to show that there is a potential that gun violence may occur because somebody is a danger to themselves or to others.”
She said the biggest shift she’s seen since her office started using the orders is more awareness and understanding of restraining orders as a prevention tool.
“That’s a huge shift because when we first started the work in 2017, nobody seemed to know what to do when they saw something,” Elliott said.
There is interest by the public, but there is concern about reaching out to authorities for help.
“But often what we hear is ‘I don’t know who to call, I don’t know if this is enough to make a report, I don’t want to get somebody in trouble,’” Elliot said.
“So we have to try to explain the process. No, just because you made a call doesn’t mean that we’re going to be able to get a GVRO. What it does mean is we’re going to look at this and if there is something there, we’re going to pursue it,” she said.
Data from the state Department of Justice from 2022 (the most recent data available on the state’s Open Justice portal) shows San Diego County had a state-leading 496 gun violence restraining orders sought, although not all were sought by the City attorney’s Office.
Santa Clara County was second with 405 cases that year. Third place saw a huge drop in numbers, with 180 cases filed in Sacramento County.
Staffers with the City attorney’s Office travel to other California counties to train people how to use them.
Despite those trainings — which Elliott is thrilled to be invited to do — “I’m still not seeing the programs started like I’d like to,” Elliott said.
“There’s something happening, there’s some obstacle that we’re trying to identify because we thought that showing them how easy it is, we’ll make it happen — and that was not enough. I can’t answer the question for why not enough.”
Politics, budgets, lack of a champion?
“That’s really important before I leave office, because if I can try to take away all the excuses not to do something about gun violence, I feel like I’ve moved that needle in a sustainable way.”
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