Protective orders, state by state.
Who can ask for one, what a judge can actually order, what it costs, and what happens if it is broken — quoted from the statute, one state at a time.
Every state calls it something different — a protective order, an order of protection, an injunction for protection, a PFA — and every state writes the rules differently: who qualifies, how fast you can get one, how long it lasts, and what a judge can actually order. What does not change is federal law underneath all of it: an order from one state has to be honored in every other, and the rule about when it reaches someone’s guns is more specific, and more often misunderstood, than almost anything else on this subject. Every state page below covers all of it, quoted from the statute rather than summarized, plus that federal layer at the bottom.
All fifty states are live
Forty-nine of fifty, each built the same way: the relationship and grounds that qualify, the emergency order you can get the same day, the order after a hearing and how long it lasts, the full list of what a judge can order, firearms specifically, what it costs (almost always nothing), and what happens if it is violated — every answer quoted from the state’s own statute, with the citation. Where we could not reach the statute itself in full, we say so plainly rather than fill the gap with a guess.
A note about California
California is now on the list above. An earlier California page was researched and then discarded rather than published, because part of it had been retrieved by a method this site does not allow, and the rule here is that such a page goes back to square one rather than being patched. It was rebuilt from scratch. On 15 September 2026 every passage it quotes from Cal. Fam. Code ss. 6320 and 6389 was re-read against California’s own legislative site, including the 2025 amendments — SB 50, which added the enumerated coercive control list, and SB 857 — and the page is now linked here on the same footing as the other forty-nine. We are leaving this paragraph up rather than quietly deleting it, because how a page got here is part of whether you should trust it.
If your state is not up yet
Two places will not leave you guessing while we build it out: your state court’s self-help center (search “[your state] courts self-help protective order”) and the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233, who can walk you through your specific state’s process by phone. Both are free, and neither one requires a lawyer.
If there are children involved
What your state presumes about custody, and the emergency jurisdiction that exists when someone has to leave the state.
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.
Domestic violence coalitions, shelters, legal aid programs, courts, law libraries and newsrooms
may reproduce this material, in whole or in part, online or in print, free of charge and without asking permission. Permission is granted only on all three conditions below. Reuse that does not meet them is not permitted.
- Name The Cusp as the source.
- Include the address of this page with it. Online it must be a working link a reader can follow; in print, or anywhere a link is not possible, the address must appear in full as text. Not optional — a rule nobody can check is a rule nobody should rely on.
- Show the date it was last checked, which is printed on this page. Protection-order statutes change, and a rule without a date is worse than no rule at all in this subject.
One thing we ask that is not a condition. This is general information about how statutes are written. It is not advice about anyone’s own situation, and safety planning is not something a web page can do. If you reproduce it for people in danger, please put your own advocates’ contact details next to it.
We ask for nothing in return. No payment, no reciprocal link, no account, no sign-up. The Cusp is free to read and nothing is behind a paywall. We link out only to primary sources — statutes, courts and agencies.
If you find an error, tell us and we will move fast on it. hello@thecusp.app. Corrections are published at /corrections/ with the date they were made.
Commercial republication — a brokerage, a law firm, a legal-forms company or a lead-generation site — is not covered by the above. Write to hello@thecusp.app and we will almost certainly say yes, on the same conditions, in writing.