SAN JOSE, Calif. — The day after an 18-year-old fatally shot 19 young pupils and two teachers at an Uvalde, Texas, elementary school and reignited the nation’s firearms debate, Los Gatos police said a middle school boy claiming access to guns had threatened to “shoot up the school.”
Later that day, police arrived at his father’s home with a court order to seize any firearms and left with the man’s shotgun. It was one of a half a dozen times in just the past six months that police in Santa Clara County used the state’s “red flag law” to head off threats of potentially deadly school shootings.
With Congress poised to expand such laws nationally — a bipartisan bill package would mark the most significant federal gun legislation in decades — the cases offer a window into how and why California’s law has been used locally. Police employing their red flag powers were able to quickly assess and respond to the threats, although the individuals involved in the cases didn’t always turn out to have firearms.
