AB 824 (2025): Protective Orders and Firearms Surrender

What the Bill Would Do

AB 824, authored by Assembly Member Catherine Stefani (D) with Senator Sabrina Cervantes (D) as coauthor, would amend multiple sections of the Code of Civil Procedure, Family Code, and Penal Code to strengthen the connection between civil protective orders and firearms-surrender requirements ^[1].

The bill proposed clarifying and conforming changes that explicitly include ammunition in relinquishment procedures for covered protective orders. Its digest identifies the underlying relinquishment duty as existing law, rather than a new requirement created by AB 824. The covered orders include civil harassment, domestic violence, elder or dependent adult abuse, gun violence, postsecondary school, and workplace violence restraining orders. The bill text retained a 24-hour relinquishment deadline for covered civil orders, permitting surrender to local law enforcement or sale to a licensed gun dealer. For GVROs, surrender is immediate when requested by the serving officer, with a 24-hour rule when service is by someone other than an officer and no officer requests surrender. It also proposed requiring peace officers to take temporary custody of ammunition in plain sight or discovered through a consensual or otherwise lawful search during specified domestic violence incidents or enforcement of domestic violence or gun violence restraining orders.

The unpassed bill text included operative dates that did not make AB 824 law.

The proposed amendments to the relinquishment procedures specified January 1, 2026.
The proposed Judicial Council remote-appearance notice requirement specified July 1, 2026. The proposed no-cost remote-appearance provisions for postsecondary and workplace-violence restraining-order hearings were in sections specifying January 1, 2026.

The bill text retained provisions permitting the court to grant use immunity for relinquishment when a respondent invokes the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination.

Current Status

AB 824 did not pass in the 2025-26 session and was not chaptered. Its last recorded action was being held under submission in the Senate Appropriations Committee on August 29, 2025. The operative dates written in the unpassed bill did not enact its provisions.

Context

California already has some of the nation's strongest laws connecting protective orders to firearms restrictions. Under Family Code section 6389, a person ordered to relinquish firearms or ammunition must surrender them immediately upon an officer's request after service of the protective order. If no officer requests surrender, the person must relinquish them within 24 hours of service by surrendering them to local law enforcement or selling, transferring, or relinquishing them for storage to a licensed gun dealer. AB 824 proposed clarifying and conforming changes to the existing relinquishment procedures, including explicit references to ammunition. The bill passed the Assembly and both Senate policy committees without opposition, but did not pass in the 2025-26 session after the Senate Appropriations hold.