Dallas County OKs plan to confiscate guns from domestic abusers
Officials say the man accused of using a gun to kidnap his children and threaten their mother this week is a “prime example” of the offenders Dallas County will target when it starts confiscating guns from domestic abusers this fall.
Previous family violence convictions made it illegal for Steven Douglas, 29, to have a gun when police say he rammed into his ex-girlfriend’s car, took his 9-year-old and 1-year-old at gunpoint and then pointed the pistol at a police officer Monday. He died when that officer shot him.
“There was no check on him at all,” said criminal court judge Roberto Cañas, who’s leading the effort to create a gun confiscation program. “That’s not the way the system should be working.”
Cañas said Tuesday that county officials will soon begin holding offenders accountable when they require certain domestic abusers to surrender their firearms to a local gun range. Dallas County commissioners unanimously voted Tuesday to back the judge’s plan and partially fund the program, giving Cañas the green light to move forward with an October launch date.
The pilot program is scheduled to begin five months after The Dallas Morning News reported that the county regularly fails to enforce laws that forbid convicted abusers and subjects of protective orders from having firearms. Most domestic homicides are committed with guns.
http://www.dallasnews.com/news/crime/headlines/20140826-dallas-county-oks-plan-to-confiscate-guns-from-abusers-starting-in-october.ece