Come next year, defendants in some domestic violence cases will have to turn over any weapons and firearms to local authorities. And with the option for third party storage removed, law enforcement is looking to find ways to handle the expected barrage of confiscated firearms and ammunition they’ll have to properly store.

Pennsylvania’s legislature recently passed a new state law concerning cases of domestic violence and firearms. When the law goes into effect in April, it will reduce the timeline defendants have to surrender their firearms and weapons to authorities, and require judges to order the confiscation of all weapons in cases where victims obtain a protection from abuse order (PFA).

Those convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence or subject to protective orders will have 24 hours — reduced from 60 days — to turn over any firearms and weapons, according to the new law, which also places new restrictions on who can accept the weapons.

The former law allowed for a third party, like a friend or family member, to take possession of the confiscated weapons for the duration of the protection order. The new law requires that firearms be turned over to law enforcement, a gun dealer or lawyer.

“Domestic violence is often seen as a private matter but it’s a public health issue,” said Julie Bancroft, a spokesman for Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence, an advocacy organization that Bancroft said has been pushing for this kind of legislation for the last 10 years. She noted that the new legislation brings the criminal side of the court in line with civil proceedings, where a 24-hour deadline was already in place to turn over weapons.

Typically, if somebody in Butler has been attacked by a family member or involved in some other domestic situation, the victim can get a court order to help shield them from their attacker. The order is called a protection from abuse order and it typically goes through three stages.

An emergency order can be issued any time by a district judge and is only good until the next business day. Through a domestic relations filing, a temporary protection order can be issued by a Common Pleas Court judge for up to 10 days, if there is sufficient evidence of danger and abuse. In other cases, a final PFA is issued after both parties make a court appearance before a judge or if both parties make an agreement to it. A final order can be effective for up to three years.

In Butler County, there are 400 to 500 protection from abuse orders issued annually, according to Sheriff Michael Slupe.

Of those, more than 300 ultimately result in a final PFA order, which is the type of PFA to which the new restrictions apply.

Slupe noted that his office doesn’t have a dedicated facility to store confiscated weapons, including items like crossbows and swords, and that the expected increase of weapons that his office will have to seize will burden the system.

“We live in Butler County. Generally speaking, who doesn’t own guns?” Slupe said, noting that his office and Butler County commissioners are considering a budgetary increase to “retrofit an existing county-owned area for safe storage.”

State Rep. Tedd Nesbit, R-8th, who voted against the bill when it was in the state House, also expressed concern about police departments in the county shouldering the expected increase in confiscated weapons.

“Government agencies are already overworked, they don’t need more on top of that,” he said.

“We need to do a good job of protecting victims of abuse but I think we need to protect Second Amendment rights in the court process,” Nesbit said.

He disagreed with the law removing a judge’s power to decide if a defendant’s weapons should be confiscated.

“The system would work best leaving it to the discretion of judges,” he said. “That should be decided on a case-by-case basis.”

Bancroft disagrees, saying, “Anecdotally, we know that when abusers give their weapons to family or friends, they often get it back” and use it against their victims.

Slupe and Nesbit both argued that since the law doesn’t allocate funds for storing the weapons, which have to be maintained in the condition they were received, a new stream of funding sources is needed.

“We’re trying to discern what all of this might mean,” said county Commissioner Leslie Osche. “We have some time to explore what it means, what the implications might mean. It’s a storage issue.

“Certainly we’ve had bigger issues than trying to figure this out.”

In the end, she said, “They’ve passed a bill that has a cost involved on the county level and we’ll have to work it out.”