State, Sacramento County authorities arrest 10 off list of prohibited gun owners

After weathering criticism for doing little to address the state's ballooning catalog of prohibited gun owners, the California Department of Justice has whittled its naughty list to an almost six-year low.

On Monday, the California Attorney General's Office announced that dozens of state agents and Sacramento County sheriff's deputies seized 82 firearms and arrested 10 people during a three-day operation that targeted county residents whose names appear on the Armed Prohibited Persons System.

The joint operation brought the state's tally of prohibited gun owners down to 13,918 names, the lowest since January 2009.

The automated system flags people who bought guns, but “later became prohibited from legally owning them because they were convicted of a felony or a violent misdemeanor, placed under a domestic violence restraining order or suffer from serious mental illness,” the state Attorney General's Office explains on its website. “The database was completed in November 2006, and instantly created a queue of thousands of investigations.”

The A.G. credits additional funding from two state bills, including a $24 million appropriations measure, for helping state agents chisel their backlog.