Florida Carry Sues Palm Beach County Sheriff and 14 Police Agencies, Says Red Flag Gun Seizures Skipped the Sworn Proof the Law Requires

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

WEST PALM BEACH, FL — Florida Carry has sued the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office and 14 other local police agencies, alleging they seized firearms under Florida’s red flag law using petition forms and sworn statements that do not meet the requirements the Legislature wrote into the statute. The group filed two complaints in the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit in and for Palm Beach County, one on October 3, 2026 against Sheriff Ric Bradshaw and one on October 4, 2026 against 13 municipal departments and the Florida Atlantic University Board of Trustees.

Florida’s red flag law, passed after the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, lets police file a risk protection order petition asking a judge to strip someone of their guns for up to a year if officers show the person may use them to harm themselves or others, as reported by Stet News, which also notes the petitions are rarely questioned by the judges who review them. What Florida Carry challenges is not the existence of that process but how these agencies ran it.

Here is the core of the complaint in plain terms. Florida law, section 790.401, says the state court system creates one standard petition form and that form must be used for every red flag case filed after January 1, 2019. Florida Carry says these agencies threw out the standard form and built their own local versions instead, stripping out the mandatory structure the state form requires. On top of that, section 790.33 is Florida’s firearm preemption law, which means only the state gets to regulate firearms and local governments cannot write their own rules in that space. By running a homemade process, the complaint argues, each agency stepped into territory the state reserved for itself.

The second problem is sharper. When police ask a judge to seize guns on an emergency basis before the other person even gets a hearing, which the law calls a temporary ex parte order, section 790.401(4)(a) requires detailed allegations based on personal knowledge that the person is a near-future danger. In plain language, the facts have to come under oath from someone who actually witnessed them. Florida Carry alleges that in case after case the officer filing the petition simply summarized what other people said, without a sworn statement from anyone who personally saw the events.

The suit against the sheriff is the heavier one. Florida Carry teamed with plaintiff Ryan Gartner to bring it as a class action, meaning a case brought on behalf of a large group of people harmed the same way. The complaint says a review of PBSO filings from 2022 through 2026 turned up 1,388 separate proceedings where the office petitioned to take someone’s guns using its substitute form rather than the state’s. The class seeks actual damages of up to $100,000 per person, capped by law at four years of claims. Gartner’s own case shows the stakes. His firearms were seized, his Florida concealed weapon license was suspended, and deputies seized and later incinerated a pistol brace the complaint values at $39.

Beyond the forms, the sheriff’s complaint goes further into the mechanics, alleging the office used a watered-down certification on its affidavits, let affidavits be filed without the named affiant actually swearing to and adopting them, and completed notary steps without the signatures, seals, and safeguards the law requires. If a concealed carry license matters to you, it is worth understanding how a Florida carry license can be suspended the moment one of these orders lands, as Gartner’s was.

Both complaints ask the court for declaratory relief, which is a formal ruling that the practices are illegal, and injunctive relief, which is a court order forcing the agencies to stop and to use the correct statewide form going forward. Florida Carry is also asking that Bradshaw and several municipal chiefs each pay a $5,000 civil fine for what it calls knowing and willful violations. Section 790.33 authorizes that fine against the official in charge when a violation is deliberate.

These are allegations in two complaints, and no court has ruled on any of them. The agencies will get their chance to answer, and contacted cities said they either do not comment on pending litigation or did not respond.

More from USA Carry:

• Calguns Foundation Sues Merced County, Sheriff Mark Pazin Over Unlawful Carry Application Policies
• Contra Costa Sheriff Banned Red Dots, Weapon Lights, and 1911s From Concealed Carry. SAF Settlement Forces the County to Drop All Three
• DOJ Sues Montgomery County Over 100-Yard Gun-Free Buffer Zones That Make It Almost Impossible to Legally Carry Down the Street
• Florida Homeowner Catches Armed Suspect Rummaging Through Vehicles at 3:30 A.M., Holds Him at Gunpoint Until Deputies Arrive
• Florida Man Uses Backup Gun to Shoot Robber After Primary Gun is Stolen

What I keep coming back to is the sworn-knowledge requirement. The Legislature did not bury it. It put the personal-knowledge rule directly on the face of the standard form and warned, in capital letters on that form, that facts supporting near-future danger must come from someone with personal knowledge. A temporary ex parte order takes a person’s firearms before they ever stand in front of a judge. That is exactly the point at which the sworn-proof requirement matters most, and it is exactly the step Florida Carry says these agencies skipped roughly 1,388 times.

I will continue tracking both cases as they move through the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit.

Read the original story: Florida Carry Sues Palm Beach County Sheriff and 14 Police Agencies, Says Red Flag Gun Seizures Skipped the Sworn Proof the Law Requires