California Requires Officers to Seize Ammunition Under Protective Orders

California Requires Officers to Seize Ammunition Under Protective Orders

Governor Newsom signed AB 1753 on September 26, 2026. Chapter 458, Statutes of 2026 conforms California's protective order relinquishment rules to reach ammunition throughout, requires officers to seize ammunition in plain sight, lets any restraining order court run a firearms database search, and phases in remote hearings, e-filing and interstate extreme risk order enforcement through January 2028.

Information last verified on September 27, 2026. This is a developing story; we update it as the record changes.

Jurisdiction scope: This article addresses California protective order procedure under the Code of Civil Procedure, Family Code, Penal Code and Welfare and Institutions Code as amended by AB 1753. It does not address federal firearm prohibitions under 18 U.S.C. 922(g), and it does not address how any other state handles relinquishment. For the rules where you live, see our state-by-state guide to protective orders.

What Happened

The California Legislature passed AB 1753 on August 27, 2026, when the Assembly concurred in Senate amendments by a vote of 63 to 5. The bill had cleared the Senate the day before, 30 to 1. It was enrolled and presented to the Governor at 4 p.m. on September 4, 2026. The Legislature's official bill history records two entries on September 26, 2026: "Approved by the Governor." and "Chaptered by Secretary of State - Chapter 458, Statutes of 2026."

The lead author is Assemblymember Catherine Stefani, with Senator Catherine Blakespear as principal coauthor and ten Assembly coauthors. The measure was signed as part of a ten-bill package the Governor's office announced the same day.

AB 1753 is not a single-provision bill. Its official title runs to six amended Code of Civil Procedure sections plus one new one, five amended Family Code sections plus one new one, a repealed-and-replaced Government Code section, and nine amended Penal Code sections plus two new ones. The Legislative Counsel's Digest breaks it into twelve numbered parts. The changes that matter most to someone who holds or is subject to a California restraining order fall into four groups.

Ammunition is now named alongside firearms

California already required a restrained person to relinquish any firearm and ammunition in their immediate possession or control when a protective order issued. Code of Civil Procedure section 527.9 has said so since that section became operative on January 1, 2026. AB 1753 makes the conforming change the Digest describes as "explicitly requiring the restrained person to relinquish, in addition to any firearm, any ammunition in that person's immediate possession or control."

The same word appears on the enforcement side. Where existing law required a peace officer at a domestic violence scene, or enforcing a domestic violence or gun violence restraining order, to take temporary custody of any firearm or other deadly weapon in plain sight or found in a lawful search, the act adds ammunition to what the officer must take.

This is drafting cleanup, and only the enforcement half is new. Section 527.9 already reached ammunition, but several of its downstream references, including the sale-to-a-dealer option, the receipt requirement and the text printed on the face of the order, still said "firearm" alone, and the act conforms them. The substantive change is on the enforcement side: officers previously had no statutory authority to seize ammunition they could see.

Any restraining order court can now order a firearms search

Before AB 1753, the mandatory pre-hearing database search lived in Family Code section 6306 for domestic violence orders and Penal Code section 18110 for gun violence restraining orders. Judges hearing civil harassment, elder abuse, workplace violence or school violence petitions had no equivalent statutory hook.

New Code of Civil Procedure section 527.13 supplies one. Its stated purpose is:

"to clarify that a court adjudicating a protective order or restraining order described in subdivision (e) of this section may order a search to be conducted of the Department of Justice Automated Firearms System and other databases, as described in Section 6306 of the Family Code, if the court is not otherwise required to cause a search to be conducted pursuant to that section or Section 18110 of the Penal Code." Cal. Code Civ. Proc. 527.13(a), as added by Stats. 2026, ch. 458

The court may order the search on receiving the petition, before a hearing on issuance, renewal or termination, or before a hearing on the respondent's compliance or violation. Section 527.13(e) lists the orders covered: civil harassment orders under CCP 527.6, domestic violence orders under Family Code part 4, elder or dependent adult abuse orders under Welfare and Institutions Code 15657.03, gun violence restraining orders under the Penal Code, and juvenile court restraining orders, among others.

Subdivision (d) carries the privacy backstop. After ruling, the court must give the parties the Family Code 6306(c) advisement and must keep whatever the search returned confidential under 6306(d).

Note the verb. Section 527.13 says the court "may" order the search. It does not create a new mandatory search outside the domestic violence and gun violence contexts where one already exists.

Advance notice cannot be demanded before an ex parte filing, from 2028

Amended CCP section 527 adds a new subdivision (d):

"Commencing January 1, 2028, and notwithstanding subdivision (c), the court shall not require notice to be provided to the party to be restrained in advance of accepting a filing for, or deciding, an application for an ex parte restraining order pursuant to the statutes listed in paragraph (2) if the applicant or the applicant's attorney certifies to the court under oath that providing notice to the party to be restrained in advance of filing the petition would likely endanger the safety of the petitioner or other persons." Cal. Code Civ. Proc. 527(d)(1), as amended by Stats. 2026, ch. 458

Paragraph (2) lists the petitions this reaches: civil harassment under 527.6, workplace violence under 527.8, postsecondary school violence under 527.85, elder and dependent adult abuse under Welfare and Institutions Code 15657.03, and gun violence restraining orders under Penal Code chapter 3 of division 3.2. Paragraph (3) closes the local-practice loophole: "A court shall not adopt or maintain any rule, form, or practice that is inconsistent with this subdivision."

Readers who followed our coverage of AB 1657 and advance notice in domestic violence cases will notice the overlap and should also notice the difference. The two bills address the same problem in different statutes for different order types. AB 1753's subdivision (d) does not list Family Code part 4 domestic violence petitions, and amended subdivision (h) of the same section puts the point beyond doubt: "This section does not apply to an order issued under the Family Code."

Interstate extreme risk orders, remote hearings and e-filing

Commencing January 1, 2028, a California law enforcement agency or officer may seek enforcement of a valid extreme risk protection order issued by another state or jurisdiction. The act defines that term as an injunction, restraining order or other civil or criminal court order from another jurisdiction that "does not name a protected individual" but bars the subject from possessing, owning, controlling, purchasing or receiving firearms based on evidence that the subject is a danger to themselves or others. If a law enforcement officer or other petitioner requests it, a valid order of that kind must be registered with a California court.

Also commencing January 1, 2028, courts must permit a party or witness to appear remotely, at no cost, at a hearing on a postsecondary educational institution or workplace violence restraining order, must develop local rules and instructions for those appearances and post them online, and must accept electronic filings for those orders. A second, contingent version of section 527.85 carried a July 1, 2029 date, but it was keyed to SB 1374 being enacted first. AB 1753 was chaptered on September 26, 2026 and SB 1374 has not been chaptered, so that version cannot take effect. The surviving July 1, 2029 date sits in Penal Code section 422.88, which from that date lets a court in a hate crime case issue a firearm-prohibition protective order that names no protected person.

Two further changes take effect on the general January 1, 2027 timeline. Prosecutors handling a domestic violence charge must now search the Department of Justice Automated Firearms System in addition to the protective order databases they already check. And each prosecuting agency must ensure that protected persons are notified of the issuance, terms and duration of an order, with written policies to be adopted on or before January 1, 2028.

What the Law Actually Says

California's protective order system is not one statute. It is at least six, each with its own petition, standard and forms: domestic violence orders under Family Code section 6300 and following, civil harassment orders under CCP 527.6, workplace violence orders under CCP 527.8, postsecondary school violence orders under CCP 527.85, elder and dependent adult abuse orders under Welfare and Institutions Code 15657.03, and gun violence restraining orders under Penal Code division 3.2. Our California protective order guide walks through which petition fits which relationship.

The firearm consequence has been attached to these orders for years. CCP section 527.9 sets the relinquishment machinery: on issuance of a qualifying order the restrained person must surrender firearms, and now ammunition, and certify compliance to the court. Penal Code section 29825 makes possession while subject to such an order a separate offense.

What AB 1753 changes is less the rule than its plumbing. The recurring finding behind bills of this kind is that relinquishment orders are entered and then nobody confirms they were obeyed. The act responds with three mechanisms: a search authority so the court can find out whether guns exist, a designated human at each law enforcement and prosecuting agency responsible for receiving court notifications that someone violated a relinquishment requirement, and an obligation on the clerk's contact list to stay current.

The Penal Code 29805 change is a different kind of provision. It is a new categorical disqualification. Under the enacted text, "Any person who is convicted on or after January 1, 2027, of a misdemeanor violation of Section 273.65, 422.3, 422.7, 422.77, 18205, 29815, 29825, or 30305, or of subdivision (c) or (d) of Section 166, or any other offense that is defined as a hate crime under Title 11.6 of Part 1, and who, within 10 years of the conviction, owns, purchases, receives, or has in possession or under custody or control, any firearm is guilty of a public offense ..." The listed sections include violating a protective order, violating a gun violence restraining order, and unlawful ammunition possession. The date matters: the prohibition attaches to convictions on or after January 1, 2027, not to older ones.

AB 1753 also contains contingent-enactment clauses keyed to AB 2179, AB 1961, SB 1374, SB 99, SB 1395 and SB 1220, each of which proposed competing changes to the same code sections. Which version of a doubly-amended section ends up operative depends on which measures were enacted and in what order. That is a question for the chaptered code, not for a news article, and we do not attempt to resolve it here.

Analysis: Why This Matters

The following is analysis from the Recording Law Editorial Team.

The headline change in AB 1753 is the word "ammunition," and it is the least interesting thing in the bill. Adding cartridges to a relinquishment order closes a gap that was more theoretical than practical, because a restrained person who kept ammunition and surrendered the gun was already in a weaker position than one who kept both.

The provisions that will actually change outcomes are the procedural ones, and they share a theme: the Legislature is treating the protective order system's failure mode as informational rather than substantive. The law already said the respondent may not have a gun. What the law did not reliably do was tell the judge whether the respondent had one, tell the police that the respondent had failed to surrender it, or tell the protected person that an order existed and what it said. Section 527.13, the designated-recipient requirement and the prosecuting-agency notification duty are all answers to those three questions.

That framing has a limit worth naming. Section 527.13 is permissive. A judge in a civil harassment case may order an Automated Firearms System search; nothing in the section requires it, and subdivision (c) conditions the development of search protocols on being "practicable with available resources." Whether the authority gets used will depend on county-level practice and funding, not on the statute.

The ex parte notice provision is the one with the clearest immediate stakes for petitioners, and it is worth being precise about what it does. It does not create a right to an order without notice. Subdivision (e) still requires the matter to be made returnable on an order to show cause within 15 days, or 22 on good cause, and still requires service on the opposing party. What it removes is a court's ability to demand advance notice as a gatekeeping condition on the filing itself, in the categories it lists, where the applicant certifies under oath to a safety risk. Certifying under oath carries the ordinary consequences of a false oath; the Digest notes the act expands the crime of perjury.

The interstate extreme risk provision is the quiet structural change. Extreme risk protection orders name no protected person, which is exactly why they have travelled badly across state lines: the usual full-faith-and-credit machinery for protection orders is built around a named protected party. Giving California law enforcement an express route to enforce and register another state's order addresses a real recognition problem, and the two-year runway before January 1, 2028 suggests the Legislature expects registration mechanics to need building.

Finally, note the staggered dates. A reader who learns that "California signed a protective order bill" on September 26 and assumes the rules changed that day will be wrong about nearly every provision discussed above. January 1, 2027 is the default. The remote-appearance, e-filing, ex parte notice and interstate enforcement provisions wait until January 1, 2028, and the Penal Code section 422.88 rewrite waits until July 1, 2029.

How This Affects You

If you hold a California protective order, nothing about your existing order changes because of AB 1753. Orders in force continue on their own terms. If a new order issues against someone on or after the operative date of the relevant provision, the relinquishment obligation expressly reaches ammunition.

If you are preparing a petition, the practical change in 2028 is that a court in the listed categories cannot make advance notice to the other party a condition of accepting or deciding your ex parte application where you certify under oath that notice would likely endanger someone. Until then, existing practice governs. Courts vary in how they handle these filings, and local rules and self-help centers remain the place to confirm current practice in your county.

If you are subject to an order, the practical change is that more courts have express authority to check a state firearms database before your hearing, and that from January 1, 2027 the 10-year firearm prohibition reaches several protective-order-related misdemeanors it did not previously cover, including violating a juvenile court protective order, contempt under Penal Code 166(c) or (d), and violating a gun violence restraining order. A conviction under Penal Code 273.6, the general protective-order-violation misdemeanor, already carried that prohibition.

Code of Civil Procedure section 527.9 attaches the relinquishment duty to the issuance of the order rather than to any later demand, so a restrained person who has not surrendered a firearm or ammunition is not in the clear merely because nobody has followed up. None of this is advice about your case. Which statute your situation falls under, and what any given county requires, are questions for a lawyer licensed in California.

What Happens Next

The Secretary of State has chaptered the act, so no further legislative step is required. The dates to watch are January 1, 2027 for the default provisions and the Penal Code 29805 prohibition, January 1, 2028 for remote appearances, electronic filing, the ex parte notice rule, peace officer service procedures, interstate extreme risk order enforcement and the prosecuting-agency notification policies, and July 1, 2029 for the rewritten Penal Code section 422.88. The Judicial Council must create the statewide service-request forms on or before January 1, 2028.

This is general legal information, not legal advice. It covers California protective order law as amended by AB 1753 (Stats. 2026, ch. 458) and reflects sources verified on September 27, 2026. Laws change, operative dates in this act run from 2027 to 2029, and this story is developing. Consult a lawyer licensed in California about your specific situation.

Related articles

• California restraining orders, step by step
• How protective orders differ from state to state
• The other 2026 California bill on ex parte notice

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Last updated: 2026-09-27. This is a developing story; details verified as of 2026-09-27.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is AB 1753 law in California now?

It is enacted but almost none of it is operative yet. The Legislature's bill history shows it was approved by the Governor and chaptered as Chapter 458, Statutes of 2026 on September 26, 2026. The act contains no urgency clause, so its provisions take effect January 1, 2027 unless a section states a later operative date. Several key sections are expressly delayed to January 1, 2028 or July 1, 2029.

Does a California restraining order now require surrendering ammunition?

Yes, and that was already true before AB 1753. Code of Civil Procedure section 527.9 has required a restrained person to relinquish any firearm and ammunition in their immediate possession or control since January 1, 2026. AB 1753 conforms the statutes' remaining firearm-only references to match. A peace officer responding to a scene must also take temporary custody of ammunition in plain sight or found in a lawful search.

What is new Code of Civil Procedure section 527.13?

It authorizes a court adjudicating a civil harassment, domestic violence, elder or dependent adult abuse, gun violence or juvenile court restraining order to order a search of the Department of Justice Automated Firearms System and the other databases described in Family Code section 6306, where the court is not already required to order one. The court may do so on receiving the petition or before a hearing on issuance, renewal, termination, compliance or violation.

Does AB 1753 make the firearms database search mandatory in every restraining order case?

No. Section 527.13 says the court 'may' order the search, and subdivision (c) says courts and law enforcement partners may develop search protocols 'to the extent practicable with available resources.' The mandatory searches under Family Code section 6306 and Penal Code section 18110 are unchanged.

Can a California court still require me to notify the other party before I file for an emergency order?

Until January 1, 2028, existing practice governs. From that date, in the categories listed in amended CCP 527(d)(2), which are civil harassment, workplace violence, postsecondary school violence, elder and dependent adult abuse and gun violence restraining orders, a court may not require advance notice before accepting a filing for or deciding an ex parte application if the applicant or their attorney certifies under oath that notice would likely endanger the petitioner or others. Domestic violence petitions are not covered: subdivision (h) of the amended section states that it does not apply to an order issued under the Family Code.

What is an extreme risk protection order and why does AB 1753 address out-of-state ones?

The act defines it as an injunction, restraining order or other civil or criminal court order from another state or jurisdiction that does not name a protected individual but prohibits the subject from possessing, owning, controlling, purchasing or receiving firearms based on evidence that they pose a danger to themselves or others. Because these orders name no protected party, they have not fit neatly into the usual interstate recognition rules. Commencing January 1, 2028, California law enforcement may seek enforcement of a valid one, and it must be registered with a California court if requested.

Does a misdemeanor protective order violation now cost a person their gun rights for 10 years?

Under the enacted text, a person convicted on or after January 1, 2027 of a misdemeanor violation of the sections listed in Penal Code 29805, which include violating a protective order and violating a gun violence restraining order, or of an offense defined as a hate crime, commits a public offense by owning or possessing a firearm within 10 years of that conviction. The prohibition attaches to convictions on or after that date.

How does AB 1753 relate to AB 1657, the other 2026 ex parte notice bill?

They address the same problem in different statutes. AB 1657 (Chapter 368) deals with advance notice in domestic violence restraining order applications. AB 1753's new CCP 527(d) covers civil harassment, workplace violence, postsecondary school violence, elder abuse and gun violence restraining orders, and does not commence until January 1, 2028.