For gun owners convicted of domestic violence in DeKalb County, the choices are few.
They can’t keep their guns. And they can’t sell them. Under the firearm surrender program run by the DeKalb County State Court Probation Department, anyone convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence must surrender his or her weapons to probation officers.
Only those sentenced under the Georgia First Offender Act can reclaim their guns after serving their sentences. For all others, "we never give (the weapons) back because it's a lifetime ban," said Jennifer Waindle, a supervisor in the DeKalb state court's probation office.
Sounds tough. Yet the program, which just passed its two-year mark, has so far seized 22 firearms — far fewer than Waindle would like.
“But I knew from the beginning that we weren’t going to get a ton,” Waindle said.
That's because it's an honor system. While the program calls for convicted domestic violence offenders to surrender every firearm they own, people don't readily admit they own as many guns as they do.
Convicted defendants are given 24 hours to surrender their guns at DeKalb’s probation office. No surprise, though, that “people still get arrested later with firearms … they never turned in,” Waindle said.
A critic, meanwhile, takes issue with other aspects of the program that is thus far unique to DeKalb.
“It’s definitely wrong,” said John Monroe, lawyer for the gun-rights group GeorgiaCarry.org.
One problem, he said, is that a state court cannot enforce federal law. Federal law prohibits gun possession by anyone convicted of domestic violence but state law does not.
“That would be like the state deporting illegal aliens,” Monroe said.
Solicitor Sherry Boston, whose office prosecutes misdemeanor domestic violence cases, disagrees.
“Courts have authority to order the forfeiture of weapons as a term of sentence when warranted, and to mandate that offenders not violate any laws during their period of probation,” Boston said.
Monroe also found fault with the portion of DeKalb’s program that calls for the destruction of gun owners’ firearms. He said owners should be compensated for the weapons they’ve surrendered.
“If you didn’t use a particular gun to commit the crime of domestic violence, it is not contraband that can be forfeited,” Monroe said. “To go and just take them and not reimburse (the gun owners) is wrong. They can’t just destroy them.”
The rules call for confiscated firearms to be destroyed once they have been held in a vault for 24 months. The program is 2 years old, however, no weapons have been in the program’s possession for that long. So none have been destroyed.
"We're a very gun-friendly state and we don't like to take people's guns away," Waindle said.
But getting the guns is a key concern for advocates focused on domestic violence. According to the 2015 Georgia Domestic Violence Fatality Review Annual Report, a gun was involved in 80 percent of 139 domestic violence-related deaths last year.
It was Kenneth Favors, a man found guilty of misdemeanor domestic violence, who unwittingly helped spur creation of DeKalb’s firearm surrender program, Waindle said. Favors was sentenced in 2012 to 12 months’ probation. Then a rap video produced later that year surfaced online showing him repeatedly firing an assault rifle at an Atlanta area shooting range. Once a judge saw that, Favors was sent to jail for the 11 months that remained on his probation sentence.
“Every gun we take and every person we hold accountable is a life we save,” Waindle said.
Other counties have looked at launching similar programs, but for now there have been no joiners.
“We’re not set up like DeKalb is,” said Jack Cote with the Bibb County State Court probation office. “We would love to do that, but we’ve just got to get the manpower and the judges (on board).”
In the meantime, Cote says, offenders are told to get rid of their guns and then produce proof that they were sold or given away.
Cobb County Solicitor Barry Morgan said judges in that circuit typically just tell domestic violence offenders that they can’t own or possess a gun.
