MENTAL PATIENTS AND WEAPONS; Plus “Return of Confiscated Firearms” and “California’s Red Flag Statutes”

MENTAL PATIENTS AND WEAPONS;
Plus “Return of Confiscated Firearms”
and “California’s Red Flag Statutes”

ROBERT C. PHILLIPS
Deputy District Attorney (Ret.)    
May, 2021

Introduction:

In 1968, the California Legislature passed the “Lanterman-Petris-Short Act,” Welfare and Institutions Code, sections 5150 et seq., for the purpose of reforming commitment laws pertaining to mental health treatment.  The goal was to balance the rights of the community with the rights of the individual mental patient to freedom and due process of law.

Access to “firearms” and “other deadly weapons” by persons with mental disorders (i.e., those who are a danger to themselves or others, or who are “gravely disabled”) in particular poses a difficult and potentially dangerous circumstance for law enforcement, as well as for anyone else who comes into contact with such persons.  As a result, the State Legislature has sought to provide some tools for law enforcement to block, or at least minimize, such access. 

The following is a synopsis of the many and complicated statutes, with applicable case law, dealing with this difficult issue.

Also, at the end (Part 3, below.), are the so-called “Red Flag” statutes (P.C. §§ 18100 et seq.), describing the necessary procedures for filing petitions for gun violence restraining orders as a prerequisite to the confiscation of firearms, ammunition, and other deadly weapons, from ....

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