For example, California law requires that when a court issues an IPV-related restraining order, it orders respondents to surrender all firearms in their possession within 24 hours by transferring them to a law enforcement official or a federally licensed gun dealer ( 15). These laws typically enhance enforcement by putting offenders on official notice that surrender of their firearms is required and by specifying a time by which the transfer must take place.
One way that some states have done this is by enacting legislation that explicitly requires persons prohibited from possessing firearms due to an IPV-related misdemeanor or restraining order to surrender firearms already in their possession (we refer to these as “relinquishment” or “surrender” laws) ( 14). Recently, however, some states have taken steps to enforce their gun restrictions by going beyond federal law. Few state legislatures have taken any meaningful steps to actually enforce their criminal gun restrictions by ensuring that armed offenders give up their firearms after they are convicted of serious crimes” ( 14). As the Law Center stated in its recent report on this loophole, “One of the most glaring gaps in the nation's gun laws-even in states with the strongest gun laws in the country, like California-is the lack of an effective firearm relinquishment policy. This loophole has been termed the “relinquishment gap” by the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence ( 14). Without statutory authorization, law enforcement cannot confiscate the firearms. In other words, in some states, a person may technically be prohibited from possessing a firearm, but it is up to the person to go to a police station to relinquish the weapon. Although the federal statute prohibits certain IPV offenders from possessing firearms, it does not explicitly require them to surrender guns already in their possession ( 12, 13). However, a substantial loophole in the federal statute limits the ability of states to enforce these laws, even if they have codified the federal statute into their own laws. Therefore, several states have enacted their own statutes to mirror these federal laws and explicitly authorize state officials to enforce the restrictions curtailing IPV perpetrators' possession of firearms (we refer to these as “possession” laws). However, there is limited federal capacity or willingness to enforce these restrictions. In addition, the 1994 Violence Against Women Act barred firearm possession by persons subject to permanent IPV-related restraining orders ( 11). This legislation was augmented in 1996 to extend the prohibition to those convicted of an IPV-related misdemeanor ( 10). Because of the association between firearm access and IPH, regulating the possession of firearms by IPV offenders is one approach to reducing IPH ( 3, 6–8).įederal legislation enacted in the United States in 1968 prohibited firearm possession by persons convicted of an IPV-related felony ( 9). Several studies ( 4–7) have shown that in situations of intimate partner violence (IPV)-which may include physical violence, sexual violence, stalking, and/or psychological aggression-abusers' access to firearms increases the risk for IPH as much as 5-fold ( 5). Approximately 85% of victims of intimate partner homicide (IPH) are women, and IPH accounts for nearly 50% of all homicides involving women in the United States each year ( 2, 3). Every year, more than 1800 persons in the United States are killed by their intimate partners, and approximately 50% of these homicides are committed with firearms ( 1).