Michigan ‘red flag’ gun law, year 1: 287 confiscation orders, 84 denials
Nearly 300 gun confiscation orders were issued in the first year of Michigan’s extreme risk protection law. Photo credit: Kiattipong/Shutterstock.
by Jordyn Hermani (Bridge Michigan)
LANSING — Police and individuals requested nearly 400 extreme risk protection gun confiscation orders last year under Michigan’s new “red flag” gun law, according to new state data.
Most — but not all — of the orders were approved by judges, often before a court hearing, because the owner appeared to pose an immediate risk of hurting themselves or others.
A total of 391 extreme risk protection orders were requested between Feb. 13, the date the law took effect, and Dec. 31, according to a report from the State Court Administrative Office. Of those, 384 requests were filed against adults and seven against minors.
Judges across the state issued 287 orders – granting about three-quarters of all requests – but denied 84 others and rescinded eight previously issued orders following a court hearing.
While the new state data does not specify why judges issued gun confiscation orders, at least 31 individuals — or just over 11% of all people subject to the orders — were charged with a combined 74 criminal offenses within one month of a requested risk protection order.
The most frequent charge was domestic violence, followed by resisting, obstructing or otherwise assaulting a police officer. Additionally, the new law makes it a crime for petitioners to make false claims when seeking an extreme risk protection order – but no one was charged with that offense last year.
“It looks, to me, like it’s working exactly the way we intended,” state Rep. Kelly Breen, a Novi Democrat who was key in pushing the legislation into law in 2023, told Bridge Michigan late Wednesday.
Republicans largely opposed the law upon its passage in 2023, including House Speaker Matt Hall, R-Richland Township, who voted against the measure while serving as minority leader.
Hall said Thursday he still has “constitutional concerns about a lack of due process” when it comes to red flag orders. Before drawing conclusions, he said he wanted more data on the actual act of law enforcement serving orders and confiscating guns.
Breen, a Democratic sponsor, said she’d like to build on the law — allowing magistrates to oversee the red flag process, in addition to judges, for instance — but was overwhelmingly relieved by what the report indicated.
“We can’t know specifically how many lives have been saved because of this law,” Breen said, “but given the fact we have these other correlating data pieces that shows criminal activity around the same time that these were issued, I think we can make some intuitive leaps here and say that some lives have been saved and that maybe some people have been spared additional pain and anger.”
In the majority of the 384 requests for an extreme risk protection order, the petitioner asked a judge to issue the order before holding a hearing. That included 237 ex-parte requests, and 111 “immediate emergency” requests by law enforcement officers.
There is a higher evidentiary threshold for requesting pre-hearing orders, such as proving that there will be an immediate and irreparable injury or loss should law enforcement not immediately remove firearms from a person.
People whose guns are confiscated through an ex parte order are still entitled to a hearing after the fact, however.
Through the end of 2024, no red flag orders had been renewed, and at least two orders were rescinded by a post-order motion. That means a person had their firearms taken away, but was able to petition the court to return them before the one-year confiscation period concluded.
Under Michigan law, someone with a red flag order taken out against them has the right to petition the courts once every six months to try and have their guns returned to them.
Data surrounding race, age and gender of red flag requesters and subjects is inconclusive, however. While the request form includes fields for demographic data, the petitioners are not required to provide that information. As a result, the state says much of that data is “unknown.”
The data does indicate that the majority of individuals who were the subject of confiscation orders were male — at least 201 out of 391, with 158 “unknown.”
The report does not specify who requested the orders, however a Bridge Michigan investigation found that the bulk of the initial orders were requested by law enforcement officers.
The law took effect on Feb. 13, 2024, one year to the day after a shooting at Michigan State University left three students dead and several others injured.
It was part of a trio of gun safety laws a Democratic-led Legislature passed in 2023, alongside safe storage efforts and universal background check requirements, meant to make it harder for firearms to end up in the hands of someone other than a law-abiding gun owner.
The law specifies who can petition the court for a confiscation order: Someone with either a personal familial or romantic relationship with the gun owner, a roommate or a mandatory reporter, such as a police officer or health care provider.
If granted, the orders last one year, but a person can contest an order during the first six months in effect if they feel it was improperly granted. A judge could also be compelled to either extend, or preemptively end, an order at any point if asked by the initial petitioner.
Police agencies and courts have in recent months issued procedural guidance on the new law, including suggestions for when to issue an order and how to initiate contempt proceedings if an individual violates a protection order.
This article is being republished through a syndication agreement with Bridge Michigan. Bridge Michigan is Michigan’s largest nonprofit news service and one of the nation’s leading and largest nonprofit civic news providers. Their coverage is nonpartisan, fact-based, and data-driven. Find them online at https://www.bridgemi.com/.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login