Which states actually take the guns.
Every state will give you a protection order. Only some of them will do anything about the firearms. We read all fifty statutes and set out, plainly, what each one does — and what it does not.
A protection order is not a single thing. Every state will restrain contact; what varies enormously is whether anything happens to the firearms in the house. We read all fifty statutes for this page, and the honest summary is that the gap between the strongest state and the weakest is the difference between a police officer arriving with a search warrant and nobody being told anything at all.
The short version6 points · tap one to jump to it
- How to read this — Note that mandatory means it attaches automatically; discretionary means a judge must decide to impose it — which in practice usually means you have to ask.
- The states that prohibit possession and have a way to collect
- The states that prohibit possession but have no way to collect
- The states where federal law is the whole of it — Nine states have no state possession prohibition and no surrender procedure attached to a protection order.
- Five things this comparison shows that a single state page cannot
- What to do with this — The procedure exists. Ask the judge to write the deadline on the face of the order, list the firearms you know about in your petition, and check the docket after the filing deadline passes.
In this subject 6
How to read this
The short version6 points · tap one to jump to it
- How to read this — Note that mandatory means it attaches automatically; discretionary means a judge must decide to impose it — which in practice usually means you have to ask.
- The states that prohibit possession and have a way to collect
- The states that prohibit possession but have no way to collect
- The states where federal law is the whole of it — Nine states have no state possession prohibition and no surrender procedure attached to a protection order.
- Five things this comparison shows that a single state page cannot
- What to do with this — The procedure exists. Ask the judge to write the deadline on the face of the order, list the firearms you know about in your petition, and check the docket after the filing deadline passes.
In this subject 6
Three questions, and they are separate
Whether state law makes it unlawful for the restrained person to have a gun. Note that mandatory means it attaches automatically; discretionary means a judge must decide to impose it — which in practice usually means you have to ask.
The most misunderstood column. Many states’ prohibitions bite only after a hearing. The window between your emergency order and your final hearing is often the most dangerous period and the least protected.
A prohibition without a surrender procedure creates a crime, not an outcome. Nobody is dispatched, no inventory is taken, and nothing is checked. This is the column that separates the top of this page from the bottom.
One thing is true everywhere and does not appear in the table: the federal prohibition at 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(8) applies in all fifty states, to an order made after a hearing the respondent had notice of and could attend, restraining them in relation to an intimate partner, and carrying either a credible-threat finding or an express prohibition on the use of force. Even in the states at the bottom of this page, that is real and it is prosecuted. We set the federal rule out in full here.
The states that prohibit possession and have a way to collect
Twenty-seven states. These have both halves — a prohibition, and a procedure with a recipient and, usually, a deadline. If you are in one of them, the machinery exists; the job is to make sure it is used.
| State | Possession ban | Attaches | Surrender deadline | The thing to know |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| California | Mandatory | Ex parte | Immediate on officer request, else 24h | 48h receipt filed in two places; failure to file is itself a violation |
| Colorado | Mandatory | Ex parte | 24h if served in court, 48h otherwise | Affidavit within 7 business days; non-compliance = mandatory arrest warrant |
| Illinois | Mandatory | Ex parte | At service, else 24h | Judicial search warrant, 96h execution; transfer to a friend banned |
| Washington | Mandatory | Ex parte | Same day if served in court, else 24h | Officer files receipt in 24h; respondent files proof of surrender in 24h |
| Pennsylvania | Mandatory (final) | Ex parte only if ordered | 24h or close of next business day | Sheriff, dealer, or a narrow third party; affidavit if guns cannot be retrieved |
| Rhode Island | Mandatory | After hearing | 24h | 72h receipt or attestation; felony for a transferee who hands them back |
| Louisiana | Mandatory (final) | After hearing | 48h to the sheriff | Proof of transfer filed in 10 days, or declaration of non-possession in 5 |
| Wisconsin | Mandatory | After hearing | 48h | On-the-record inquiry; missing receipt = presumption of violation |
| New Jersey | Mandatory (final) | Discretionary ex parte | Immediate | Officer takes custody on the spot; prosecutor has 45 days to seek forfeiture |
| Minnesota | Mandatory | After hearing | 3 business days | Proof of transfer in 2 business days; notarized affidavit for third parties |
| Nevada | Discretionary | Extended orders only | 24h | Receipt filed in 72h or 1 business day; violation is a category B felony |
| New York | Mandatory in listed cases | Ex parte | Set by the order itself | Court names the place and the deadline; police report compliance back |
| Maine | Discretionary ban, mandatory surrender | Ex parte | 24h | 24h certification if held by a private individual; search warrant available |
| Delaware | Discretionary | After hearing | 24h | 48h certification filed with the court |
| North Carolina | Mandatory | Ex parte | Immediate, else 24h | NICS check before anything is returned; storage fees payable first |
| North Dakota | Discretionary | Either stage | 24h, or on officer request — whichever is sooner | Needs probable cause they might use weapons in further violence; new ch. 14-07.7 since 2026 |
| Connecticut | Mandatory | On service | 24h | To a dealer or the state Commissioner; failure is a class D or C felony |
| New Mexico | Mandatory | After hearing | 48h | Receipt or declaration filed in 72h; you get a copy of the receipt |
| Oregon | Mandatory | After hearing | 24h | Declaration in 2 judicial days; failure to file is contempt only |
| Arizona | Discretionary ban, mandatory surrender | Ex parte | Immediate, else 24h | Law enforcement only; no receipt requirement |
| Tennessee | Mandatory | After hearing | 48h to dispossess | Affidavit required but with no deadline of its own |
| Iowa | Mandatory | After hearing | “By a date certain” set by the judge | Ask for a short date — the statute sets none |
| Vermont | Discretionary | Ex parte | Immediately on service | Receipt with serial numbers; custodian signs an affidavit |
| New Hampshire | Mandatory (final) | Discretionary ex parte | No stated deadline | Search warrant available to seize |
| Massachusetts | Mandatory on a finding | Ex parte | “Immediate”, no number | License suspended too; review hearing within 10 court days |
| South Dakota | No ban | — | Discretionary, no deadline | You must ask. Court can take weapons and the carry permit |
| Indiana | Discretionary | After hearing | No deadline stated | Surrender to a named agency; no certification |
The states that prohibit possession but have no way to collect
Fifteen states. The prohibition here is often strong — West Virginia’s is the broadest in the country and attaches from the emergency order onward — but there is no surrender procedure behind it. No deadline, no recipient, no receipt. Enforcement depends on possession being discovered.
| State | Possession ban | Attaches | Surrender deadline | The thing to know |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| West Virginia | Mandatory | Ex parte | None | Broadest prohibition in the country — and no way to collect |
| Alabama | Mandatory, automatic | After hearing only | None | Class C felony; but nobody is told and nobody collects |
| Texas | Mandatory, automatic | Criminal emergency orders only | None | A Family Code ex parte order does not trigger it |
| Utah | Mandatory, automatic | After hearing only | None | Third-degree felony; discretionary ex parte term available |
| Kansas | Automatic (criminal code) | After hearing only | None | The PFA judge has no firearms power at all |
| South Carolina | Discretionary, double-conditional | After hearing only | None | Judge must make findings and enter the ban; max 30 days / $500 |
| Nebraska | Discretionary | Either stage | None | Court may enjoin possessing or purchasing |
| Michigan | Discretionary | Ex parte | None | Purchase-license denial is mandatory; possession ban is not |
| Hawaii | Mandatory | After hearing | Relinquish to county police, no stated hours | Ask for a handover time on the face of the order |
| Maryland | Mandatory | After hearing | No hour count | Surrender ordered on every final order; § 4-506.1 governs storage |
| Virginia | Mandatory | Ex parte (purchase/transport) | 24h | Possession ban applies to final orders; purchase ban to all |
| Florida | Via § 790.233 | After hearing | None | § 741.30 carries a notice requirement and nothing else |
| Alaska | Discretionary, conditional | After hearing only | None | Needs a finding a weapon was used in the abuse; carved out of ex parte relief entirely |
| Montana | Discretionary | Either stage | None | Reaches only “the firearm used in the assault” |
The states where federal law is the whole of it
Nine states have no state possession prohibition and no surrender procedure attached to a protection order. Several have a concealed-carry disqualification, which is a real thing but a narrow one — and in the many permitless-carry states among them, close to meaningless.
| State | Possession ban | Attaches | Surrender deadline | The thing to know |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arkansas | None | — | None | § 9-15-207(b)(3) looks like a ban but only recites federal law |
| Georgia | None | — | None | No possession ban, no surrender, no carry disqualification |
| Idaho | None | — | None | Concealed license barred; permitless carry makes that thin |
| Kentucky | None | — | None | Carry license surrendered on an EPO or DVO — the guns are not |
| Mississippi | None | — | None | Nothing anywhere in the code. The most complete gap of the fifty |
| Missouri | None | — | None | Carry-permit bar on full orders only |
| Ohio | None | — | None | Only consequence is a carry-license suspension on a temporary order |
| Oklahoma | None | — | None | Handgun license barred on a final VPO, plus a 60-day tail |
| Wyoming | None | — | None | Permit rules reach it only by reference to federal law |
Five things this comparison shows that a single state page cannot
1. “Discretionary” means you have to ask
In South Dakota, Indiana, Nebraska, Michigan, Montana, Vermont and Arizona the firearms remedy exists but a judge applies it only if asked. Nobody will raise it for you, and it is not on most petition forms as a prompt. If you take one thing from this page: find out whether your state’s provision is mandatory or discretionary before your hearing, and if it is discretionary, ask for it out loud and by name.
2. The emergency-order window is the gap almost everywhere
Federal law does not reach ex parte orders at all — there has been no hearing. Alabama, Utah, Kansas, Texas and South Carolina likewise attach their state prohibitions only after a hearing. So in those states, during the days between your emergency order and your final one, no firearms prohibition applies to the person you are afraid of.
The states that close this gap deliberately — West Virginia, Colorado, Illinois, Washington, California, New York, Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont, Arizona, North Carolina, Michigan — are doing something federal law does not do, and it is the single most protective design choice in this whole area.
3. The paperwork is where enforcement actually lives
Compare two states with the same 24-hour deadline. In Arizona there is no receipt requirement, so nothing is filed and nothing is checked. In Colorado a missing affidavit is a violation of the order carrying a mandatory arrest warrant; in Wisconsin a missing receipt creates a presumption of violation; in California a failure to file is two separate violations, because the receipt goes to two places.
If your state has a filing requirement, check the docket after the deadline. A missing document is far easier to prove than an argument about whether guns exist.
4. The friend who “holds” the guns is the oldest hole in the system
Only a handful of states have closed it. Illinois bans transfer-in-lieu-of-surrender outright. Rhode Island makes it a felony with a one-year mandatory minimum for a transferee who hands the guns back. Oregon requires the third party to pass a background check and sign a declaration acknowledging criminal exposure. Pennsylvania limits third-party safekeeping to an attorney or a commercial armory. Minnesota requires a notarized affidavit.
Everywhere else, a relative who takes the guns and quietly returns them is a real and common failure mode — though note that under 18 U.S.C. § 922(d)(8) it is a federal offense to give a firearm to someone you know is subject to a qualifying order, wherever you live.
5. A carry-permit bar is not a possession ban, and the difference is usually academic
Idaho, Kentucky, Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma and Wyoming all have some protection-order consequence for a concealed-carry license. It reads like protection and mostly is not: every one of those states permits carry without a license. Taking away a permit that was never required changes very little.
We mention it because these provisions are what state summaries often point to when they want to avoid saying that a state does nothing.
What to do with this
If your state is in the first table
The procedure exists. Ask the judge to write the deadline on the face of the order, list the firearms you know about in your petition, and check the docket after the filing deadline passes.
If your state is in the second or third
Three things carry most of the weight:
- Get to a final order. Do not stop at the emergency stage — almost every prohibition, state and federal, needs a hearing.
- Ask for an express credible-threat finding and for it to be written into the order. That single sentence is what engages 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(8), and it is what the Supreme Court upheld in Rahimi.
- Tell law enforcement what exists and where. The federal charge is real, but somebody has to find the gun for it to matter.
Authority: The state provisions are cited on each state’s own page, linked from the tables above. Federal law at 18 U.S.C. ss. 922(g)(8), 922(d)(8), 921(a)(32) and 925(a)(1); United States v. Rahimi, 602 U.S. 680 (2024). Where a state provision sits outside its domestic violence chapter we say so on that state’s page — Alabama s. 13A-11-72, Connecticut ss. 29-36k and 53a-217, Iowa s. 724.26, Kansas s. 21-6301, Louisiana C.Cr.P. art. 1002, Minnesota s. 624.713, Pennsylvania 18 Pa.C.S. s. 6105, Tennessee s. 39-13-113, Texas Penal Code s. 46.04, Utah s. 76-10-503, Vermont 20 V.S.A. s. 2307, Washington ss. 9.41.800 to 9.41.804. Alaska’s weapons paragraphs are at AS 18.66.100(c)(6) and (7), and are expressly excluded from ex parte relief by AS 18.66.110(a). Checked 29 Aug 2026.
How we checked this page
Every entry in these tables was read in the state’s own statute, and each links to the state page where the provision is quoted in full with its citation. We searched each state’s criminal code as well as its domestic violence chapter, because eleven states put the firearms provision somewhere other than where you would look for it. Every “none” was cross-checked against an independent source before we printed it.
One caution:
- A table compresses. Several entries carry conditions that do not fit in a cell — South Carolina’s ban needs the judge to make findings and enter the prohibition; Pennsylvania’s ex parte prohibition bites only if the order actually ordered relinquishment; Texas’s automatic ban reaches a criminal emergency order but not a Family Code ex parte one. Follow the link to the state page before relying on a row.
This is a comparison, not advice about your situation, and the law changes. If anything here does not match what a clerk or judge tells you, the court is right and we are wrong — tell us and we will fix it.
We keep a public record of every time we have got the law wrong on these pages, what caused it, and how long it was live: where we were wrong.
The federal rule, in full
Three conditions, two of them widely misunderstood, and a Supreme Court decision that settled less than the headlines suggested.
Advocates and shelters: you may reuse this. You do not need to ask.
Every state publishes its own rule. Almost nobody publishes the comparison, and this is one of the places where the difference between two states is the difference between a weapon being surrendered and a weapon staying in the house. It is more use to a victim advocate than it is to us, so take it.
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