California has adopted clear, mandatory, and enforceable relinquishment requirements for individuals subject to civil and criminal domestic violence restraining orders and other civil protective orders, including civil and workplace harassment, elder abuse, and gun violence restraining orders. The state has also adopted a clear, mandatory, and enforceable relinquishment law to remove firearms from people convicted of or pending trial for serious firearm-prohibiting crimes.

For information on relinquishment when a court issues a domestic violence or other restraining order, see the Domestic Violence & Firearms in California page. For information on people disqualified from possessing firearms in California, see our Firearm Prohibitions in California page.

Relinquishment of Firearms by People Convicted of Firearm-Prohibiting Crimes

Prior to passage of a ballot initiative called Proposition 63 in 2016, California law had no clear mechanism to ensure people convicted of firearm-prohibiting crimes relinquished their guns after conviction.

In November 2016, California voters passed Proposition 63 to close this gap and made California the first state in the nation to require all people convicted of firearm-prohibiting crimes to provide verification to the courts that they sold or transferred their firearms after conviction. Since January 1, 2018, Proposition 63 has required courts to order people convicted of firearm-prohibiting felonies and other serious crimes to relinquish their firearms (through a third-party designee) and to provide these defendants with a standard Relinquishment Form at the time of conviction.¹ The form among other things:

• Informs defendants that they are required to relinquish all firearms within specified time periods by selling or transferring the firearms to a licensed firearms dealer, or by transferring them to local law enforcement.
• Informs defendants that they are required to declare any firearms that they possessed at the time of conviction and to name a lawful, consenting designee or law enforcement agency to relinquish those firearms on the defendants’ behalf, if applicable.
• Requires the defendant or designee to file the completed relinquishment form with the court-assigned probation officer, along with receipts from the law enforcement agency or licensed dealer who took possession of the defendant’s firearms, verifying that the offender relinquished all firearms prior to sentencing, as required.²

This law requires an assigned probation officer to notify the court and prosecuting attorney about whether the offender properly relinquished all firearms indicated on the relinquishment form or by California’s automated database of firearm sale records.³Courts are generally required to verify that relinquishment occurred before final disposition of the defendant’s case.⁴ If the court finds probable cause that the defendant failed to relinquish all firearms, as required, the court must either order the search for and removal of the defendant’s firearms at any location where the judge has probable cause to believe the defendant’s firearms are located, or upon good cause shown by the defendant, extend the time for providing proof of relinquishment for up to 14 days.⁵

This relinquishment process provides clear and mandatory procedures to people convicted of firearm-prohibiting crimes, expressly requires proof of relinquishment, and requires further enforcement action if they illegally retain weapons after conviction.

Relinquishment of Firearms by People with Severe Mental Health Impairments

California law requires law enforcement to temporarily remove weapons found to be under the possession or control of a person who has been detained or apprehended for examination of his or her mental condition, or who is prohibited from possession of firearms by reason of a mental disorder.⁶ Law enforcement must retain custody of these firearms, issue a receipt describing them to the individual, and notify the individual of the procedure for return of the firearm.⁷ Upon release from a mental health facility, the health facility personnel must notify the individual of the procedure for the return of a confiscated firearm.⁸ Health facility personnel also must notify the confiscating law enforcement agency of the release of the detained individual, and must document that the facility provided notice regarding the procedure for return of any confiscated firearm.⁹ California law also authorizes the issuance of a search warrant when the property to be seized includes a firearm owned by, or in the possession of, a person who has been detained for examination of his or her mental condition, or who is prohibited from possession of firearms by reason of a mental disorder.¹⁰

Under California law, a person subject to any one of the following types of court orders is prohibited from owning, possessing, purchasing, receiving, or attempting to purchase or receive a firearm or ammunition until the order is no longer in effect:¹¹

• A temporary restraining order or injunction issued to a victim of harassment; aka a “civil harassment order”¹²
• A temporary restraining order or injunction issued to an employer on behalf of an employee, aka “workplace violence restraining order”¹³
• A temporary restraining order or injunction issued to a postsecondary educational institution on behalf of a student, aka “private postsecondary school violence restraining order”¹⁴
• A domestic violence restraining order, whether issued as an emergency order (EPO-001), ex parte, after notice and hearing, or in a judgment;¹⁵For information on relinquishment when a court issues a domestic violence restraining order see the Domestic Violence & Firearms in California page.
• A protective order for an elderly or dependent adult who has suffered abuse, whether the order was issued ex parte, after notice and hearing, or in a judgment, provided that the case does not involve solely financial abuse;¹⁶
• An emergency protective order related to stalking;¹⁷ or
• A protective order relating to a crime of domestic violence or the intimidation or dissuasion of a victim or witness.¹⁸

Recovering Illegally Owned Weapons – “APPS”

California law also requires the state Department of Justice (DOJ) to establish and maintain the Armed Prohibited Persons System (“APPS”),¹⁹ an electronic database identifying individuals who once legally purchased a firearm or registered an assault weapon but then subsequently became illegally armed by keeping those weapons after they became legally disqualified from possessing them under state or federal law. (This occurs, for example, when a gun owner is convicted of a domestic violence offense but fails to relinquish their firearms properly).²⁰

California law requires the California Department of Justice, in conjunction with local law enforcement, to conduct enforcement actions to proactively recover and remove firearms from illegally armed individuals identified in APPS.²¹

The information contained in APPS can only be made available to certain entities–primarily law enforcement agencies–to actively identify people who are identified as unlawfully armed.²²

In 2017 and 2018 alone, APPS enforcement efforts recovered nearly 6,000 illegally owned firearms, and hundreds of thousands of rounds of illegally owned ammunition.²³ The number of people listed in APPS has grown over time, reaching over 24,509 people in 2022. ²⁴ However, the California Department of Justice has begun to make progress on reducing the backlog of individuals still in APPS. In 2023, the DOJ removed more people than it added for the second year in a row–it is now at 23,451 people.

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1. See Cal. Penal Code § 29810(a).[↩]
2. Cal. Penal Code § 29810(b).[↩]
3. Cal. Penal Code § 29810(c)(1)-(c)(2).[↩]
4. Cal. Penal Code § 29810(c)(3).[↩]
5. Cal. Penal Code § 29810(c)(4). For the findings form used by the court for firearm relinquishment, see https://www.courts.ca.gov/documents/cr210.pdf[↩]
6. Cal. Welf. & Inst. Code § 8102.[↩]
7. Cal. Welf. & Inst. Code § 8102(a)-(b)(1).[↩]
8. Cal. Welf. & Inst. Code § 8102(b)(2).[↩]
9. Cal. Welf. & Inst. Code § 8102(b)(3) . The administrative procedures regarding the return of a firearm after an individual’s release from a mental health facility are detailed under Cal. Welf. & Inst. Code § 8102(c)-(h).[↩]
10. Cal. Penal Code § 1524(a)(10).[↩]
11. See Cal. Penal Code § 29825(a).[↩]
12. Cal. Civ. Proc. Code § 527.6. Harassment is defined as unlawful violence, a credible threat of violence, or a knowing and willful course of conduct directed at a specific person that seriously alarms, annoys, or harasses the person and serves no legitimate purpose. The course of conduct must be such that it would cause a reasonable person to suffer substantial emotional distress, and it must cause substantial emotional distress to the person. Id.[↩]
13. Cal. Civ. Proc. Code § 527.8. An employer may seek a restraining order on behalf of employees where an employee has suffered violence or a threat that can reasonably be construed to be carried out or to have been carried out at the workplace. Id.[↩]
14. Cal. Civ. Proc. Code § 527.85. A postsecondary educational institution may seek a restraining order on behalf of a student where a student has suffered a credible threat of violence made off the school campus or facility from any individual, which can reasonably be construed to be carried out or to have been carried out at the school campus or facility if the student consents. “Postsecondary educational institution” is defined to mean a private institution of vocational, professional, or postsecondary education. Id.[↩]
15. Cal. Fam. Code §§ 6218, 6389. See also § 6304 (requiring notice of the firearm prohibition if both parties are in court).[↩]
16. Cal. Welf. & Inst. Code § 15657.03.[↩]
17. Cal. Penal Code § 646.91.[↩]
18. Cal. Penal Code § 136.2. Although Cal. Penal Code §§ 136.2 and 646.91 do not mention ammunition, a separate provision of California law prohibits any person from possessing ammunition if the person is ineligible to purchase or possess firearms under state law. Cal. Penal Code §§ 29825, 30305.[↩]
19. Cal. Pen. Code § 30000. State law also refers to APPS as the “Prohibited Armed Persons File.”[↩]
20. Cal. Pen. Code § 30005.[↩]
21. Cal. Pen. Code §§ 30005-30015.[↩]
22. Cal. Penal Code § 30000(b), this section references Cal. Penal Code § 11105(b), (c).[↩]
23. See California Department of Justice, “APPS 2017 Annual Report to the Legislature,” Revised Mar. 9, 2018, http://oag.ca.gov/sites/all/files/agweb/pdfs/publications/sb-140-supp-budget-report.pdf; California Department of Justice, “APPS 2018 Annual Report to the Legislature,” Mar. 1, 2019, https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/attachments/press-docs/apps-2018.finaldocx.pdf.[↩]
24. California Department of Justice, Armed and Prohibited Persons System Report 2023 at pg. 16 https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/media/2023-apps-report.pdf[↩]