More than 450 gun owners have been ordered to give up their weapons under the Florida law that went into effect weeks after the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting on Feb. 14 in which 17 were killed, Fox News reported.
In the wake of the deadly Parkland shooting, Florida Gov. Rick Scott signed the Risk Protection Order, which enables family members and law enforcement officials to request a court order to restrict a person's access to firearms should they display warning signs of posing a danger to themselves or others.
Since then roughly 200 firearms have actually been confiscated in the state along with 30,000 rounds of ammunition, Sgt. Jason Schmittendorf of the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office told WFTS-TV.
In Pinellas County, a five-man team has been created to work specifically on risk protection cases and they have filed 64 risk protection petitions in court, every one of them being granted by a judge.
That is the second highest number of cases in a Florida county, putting Pinellas County just behind Broward County, where 88 risk protection petitions have been filed.
"It’s a constitutional right to bear arms and when you are asking the court to deprive somebody of that right we need to make sure we are making good decisions, right decisions and the circumstances warrant it," said Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, according to WFTS-TV.
The legislation allows individuals and law enforcement officers to request a court order that could result in the seizure of a person's weapons for up to a year, provided they present sufficient evidence of that person being a threat.
The first order was issued in Florida a week after the law was signed.
A Broward County judge granted the temporary removal of four firearms and 267 rounds of ammunition from a 56-year-old Lighthouse Point man believed to be a potential risk to himself and others, The Sun-Sentinel reported.
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