Stanislaus County sheriff’s office wants to seize more illegal guns. This grant would help.
A $568,600 grant through the Attorney General’s office could support the Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Department in seizing guns from people who illegally possess them.
The effort to reduce gun violence would target more than 1,000 firearms in the possession of owners who are prohibited because of criminal convictions, restraining orders or mental illness.
The proposed effort would mainly seek to recover guns from people who purchased them legally but then became prohibited owners due to criminal convictions, domestic violence restraining orders or other reasons.
The Stanislaus County Board of Supervisors could approve accepting the $568,604 grant at its meeting Tuesday.
In August, a report from the state Department of Justice Bureau of Firearms said 413 prohibited people possess a total of 1,008 weapons in Stanislaus County. Nineteen of those weapons are assault guns.
The state’s Gun Violence Reduction Program awards grants for local law enforcement agencies to seize firearms from individuals who are prohibited under state and federal gun laws.
If the Board of Supervisors approves the item Tuesday, the county Sheriff’s Department will use a state database, called the Armed Prohibited Persons System, to find those who are possessing firearms in violation of the laws.
California law disqualifies people from buying or possessing firearms if they have been convicted of felonies, domestic violence or other crimes. The state also prohibits gun ownership for people with a history of severe mental illness or who are the subject of domestic violence or workplace restraining orders.
“This will help reduce the number of armed prohibited persons in the county by monitoring and increasing contact with APPS offenders,” a county staff report says.
As a storm battered the county Monday, a Sheriff’s Department spokesman said the agency was not prepared yet to comment on Tuesday’s board agenda item.
County Supervisor Terry Withrow said he’s in favor of gun ownership rights, but supports an effort to recover firearms from people who have violated the registration rules.
“I would definitely support that,” Withrow said. “I am very much a gun rights advocate but not for those who don’t follow the rules of gun ownership.”
According to the county staff report, the program would aim to recover 100% of the assault weapons and at least 50% of the handguns from prohibited owners this year.
As a first priority, the Sheriff’s Department will contact 186 prohibited people in the state database who have mental illness to “verify that they do not have firearms,” the staff report says.
The grant will pay for one deputy sheriff position, a crime analyst, equipment and training. It will fund gun violence reduction activities over through Jan. 1, 2025.
The state’s APPS database stores information on firearm purchases and registration. The information is collected from registered gun dealers, firearm ownership paperwork and assault weapon registrations.
The records include people who purchased or transferred firearms legally in California. Owners are moved into the “prohibited file” of the state database when they have been convicted of crimes or disqualified from gun ownership for other reasons.
An Attorney General’s office online post says that 24,509 people in the database are prohibited from owning guns, or less than 1% of the 3.2 million registered owners in California.
Law enforcement agencies that applied for a piece of the $10 million in state grant funding were encouraged to have strategies for identifying gun owners immediately after they become prohibited from owning or possessing firearms and ammunition, such as after a criminal conviction, a court order or probation order.
The state’s grant instructions also favored agencies that would increase communications with local courts and district attorneys to have prohibited owners surrender their firearms and ammunition during the court process.
This story was originally published January 9, 2023 at 1:59 PM.
