TALLAHASSEE — After 17 students and teachers were massacred in one of the nation’s deadliest school shootings, their families begged Florida lawmakers for change.

Legislators, some of whom had walked through bloody halls at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, put together a bipartisan gun safety package that then-Gov. Rick Scott signed into law, breaking Florida away from the National Rifle Association.

Now, seven years after that shooting and the bill’s passage, Gov. Ron DeSantis wants to repeal one of its key tenants: the red flag law.

The goal of the law is to let courts consider and authorize the seizure of guns from people who pose a threat to themselves or others.

But DeSantis, on the first day of Florida’s legislative session this week, raised the idea of repealing it. He has said he thinks the law violates people’s rights.

The governor’s ask is unlikely to get any traction this session.

DeSantis was a U.S. representative running for governor at the time of the shooting and was further from the emotion of Tallahassee. But many Florida lawmakers grappled firsthand with the intensity of those first few post-shooting weeks. And the Senate president has called the red flag law important for removing weapons from people who may harm themselves or others.

Here’s what you need to know about Florida’s red flag law and other gun issues that could be on the table this session.

What is the red flag law?

Florida’s red flag law, known formally as risk protection orders, allows courts to temporarily require that someone surrender their firearms if they pose a danger to themselves or others.

Twenty-one states have some version of a red flag law, according to Everytown for Gun Safety.

In Florida, only law enforcement officials can petition the court for a risk protection order.

The petition needs to detail the types of firearms and ammunition a person owns and where they keep them as well as an affidavit with specific facts about why the officer has reasonable fear someone will be a danger.

That can include information about whether someone is seriously mentally ill, has been convicted of domestic violence, has abused controlled substances or made violent threats.

A civil court must hold a hearing within 14 days to hear evidence and decide whether to issue the risk protection order for up to a year. A person can choose to retain an attorney for the hearing.

Law enforcement can also ask for a temporary risk protection order ahead of the hearing if someone poses “a significant danger of causing personal injury to himself or herself or others in the near future.”

The state statute governing red flag laws has not been changed or amended since its passage in 2018.

How have red flag laws been used?

Law enforcement officers across Florida filed nearly 10,000 protection order petitions from July 2022 through the end of last year, according to a report from the Office of the State Courts Administrator.

Hillsborough accounted for 800 of the petitions. Pinellas accounted for 1,035.

Hillsborough County’s first risk protection order, in 2018, was applied to a man who drunkenly kicked in the door to his girlfriend’s sister’s mobile home.

He carried a rifle and pistol, threatened to “kill all of you and then kill myself,” according to the arrest report.

In another case out of Hillsborough, a school resource officer in 2022 dealt with an angry parent at Palm River Elementary who said he would come back and “shoot everyone.” Though the man wasn’t arrested, law enforcement officers filed for a risk protection order, which a court granted, removing his shotgun from his possession.

What do lawmakers think?

No bill has been filed in either the House or Senate this year to repeal the red flag law.

Senate President Ben Albritton, R-Wauchula, said law enforcement in Florida sees risk protection orders as invaluable. He said the law could help stop shooters like the one at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High.

Albritton voted for the post-Parkland bill in 2018. So did House Speaker Danny Perez.

“I say we just hold tight and let the thing work,” Albritton said.

What is DeSantis’ concern?

DeSantis said he thinks red flag laws put the burden on an individual to prove that they are not a danger.

“That’s not the way due process works; the burden’s always on the government, yet they’ve shifted the burden for doing that,” DeSantis said.

Luis Valdes, the Florida director of Gun Owners of America, said his organization has heard from people who feel the red flag law process is being used in a “duplicitous manner.” He did not mention specific cases, but said the orders are being used in “simple processes” like divorce and custody proceedings and said the orders can lead to people who are abused being disarmed.

Though only law enforcement can initiate a petition, Valdes said officers can be swayed by bad information. Valdes said if someone is a threat, their case should be handled through the criminal justice system.

“Red flag laws are a political Band-Aid that swept the issue under the rug,“ Valdes said. ”And that issue is that there’s a mental health issue in Florida that is not being addressed.”

What does law enforcement think?

Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, who is chairperson of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission, said law enforcement has “unquestionably averted violence” by using risk protection orders.

Gualtieri, a Republican, said people misunderstand red flag laws and think that law enforcement takes people’s firearms.

But he said even if a risk protection order is granted, a person being disarmed doesn’t have to give their guns to the cops. They can instead choose to have a family member or someone else hold them.

He dismissed due process concerns, saying that the system does have protections. Both sides get to call witnesses and can present evidence at the hearing, he said.

“Where’s the concern, unless we’re saying we don’t trust judges?” Gualtieri said.

Gualtieri said risk protection orders frequently save people from harming themselves. The Baker Act, which involuntarily commits someone who is threatening to harm themselves, does not allow for disarming someone after they’re released.

“They’re going right back home to where that gun is,” Gualtieri said.

What other gun issues are on the table this year?

DeSantis said he would like to see a law allowing for the open carrying of firearms passed, and for the ban on people younger than 21 from buying a rifle to be lowered back to 18.

Albritton has rejected the idea of passing an open carry bill this year. But lowering the rifle-buying age might have some juice.

A bill undoing that law has passed through the Florida House the last two sessions but never got a hearing in the Senate. Speaker Perez said Tuesday that he supports the measure. Albritton has been less clear on that proposal but said he was thinking it through.

“I’m a pro-Second Amendment leader, and when government gets involved in our constitutional rights, I’m always skeptical of it,” Perez said. “And so I think we have to look at everything, of course.”