California gun-confiscation program seen as model for nation

A California law that allows authorities to track down gun owners who lost their legal rights to keep their weapons — and then confiscate those firearms — is being heralded as a model for the nation, according to one media report.

The state, which maintains an Armed Prohibited Persons list, is home to more 19,700 gun owners who aren’t allowed to legally possess their firearms, the state’s attorney general said in an United International Press report. The gun owners, the report continues, were once legal carriers but then lost their rights after committing crimes.

Law enforcement is allowed to track down these weapons and confiscate them — and the program has shown substantial success. In the past five years, during various neighborhood sweeps in unmarked vehicles, authorities have captured an estimated 10,000 weapons, UPI reports.

California is the only state in the nation with such a confiscation law, UPI reports. The program is being studied by other states as a possible model for legislation, UPI adds.

To go after the other 19,700 guns on the list would cost California taxpayers about $50 million, Attorney General Kamala Harris says, according to the UPI.

“This is about prevention,” the attorney general said in the UPI report.

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