D.C.’s red-flag gun seizures are low. Officials hope to change that.

Image: The Washington Post.

From The Washington Post:

On a Thursday morning this past month, a woman walked into the D.C. police 6th District station and told officers she needed help. She said she was hearing voices, according to court records, and had told a friend she was suicidal.

She agreed to seek treatment at a hospital, and police came to her home to check up on her later that night, the records show. When they opened her bedroom door, they found a Glock resting on the bed, and ammunition and shell casings scattered around the room.

Though the woman possessed the gun legally, police seized it, along with another weapon, under the District’s red-flag law, which allows law enforcement, family members and mental health professionals to petition to take guns from people deemed to pose a danger to themselves or others.

Such petitions for extreme risk protection orders have been filed 51 times since the D.C. Council passed the law in December 2018, 13 of which came from police, according to a review of D.C. Superior Court records and data from the D.C. Attorney General’s Office. Council member Charles Allen (D-Ward 6) said that the low figure suggests that many District residents may not be aware of the law — or that police aren’t invoking it as often as they could.