How is Karina's Law working to remove guns from accused domestic abusers one year later?

Monday marks one year since Illinois enacted Karina's Law — legislation aimed at taking firearms out of the hands of people accused of domestic abuse.

The law was named after Karina Gonzalez after her brutal murder in Little Village in 2023.

For her son, Manny Alvarez, the one-year mark of Karina's Law comes at a complicated time.

His father has been charged with killing both his mom and 15-year-old sister, Daniela, and is facing health complications while awaiting trial.

The shooting motivated Manny to fight to get guns taken away from domestic abusers. He pushed for passage of the law named after his mom.

What did Karina's Law taking effect mean to him?

"I remember why this is a thing, and it's not great, right, what had to happen to get here," he said.

Multiple law enforcement agencies failed to take his father's gun away before police said he used it to shoot and kill Manny's mother and sister in July of 2023, even though Gonzalez had obtained an order of protection against her husband, and his FOID card should have been revoked. Her husband, Jose Alvarez, had not been served with that protection order before he allegedly killed her.

Manny was also shot in the ankle and still lives with a bullet in his body.

Karina's Law, named after his mother, is designed to make it easier to get guns taken away from accused domestic abusers after an emergency protection order is filed.

New data has provided a closer look at how often the law is being used and whether it's working as intended.

Two years ago, a CBS News Chicago investigation found that during the previous 10 years, nearly 112,000 emergency orders of protection were granted in Cook County. No one tracks the number of domestic violence survivors requesting guns be removed, but the Circuit Court Clerk's records showed only 85 gun seizure warrants were granted.

In the year since Karina's Law was passed, there were 148 gun seizure warrants tied to that legislation.

"It's a big difference. I mean, 85 over 10 years, that's 8 a year?," Manny said.

But that data also shows nearly half of the warrants issued in the past year – 70 of them – were thrown out. Sources said one problem is survivors have to fill out their own warrants, which is not always a simple process.

In total, 58 guns were taken away through Karina's Law in Cook County last year.

"The work is never done, right? There is always going to be more after this," Manny said.

What Manny is facing now is a complicated relationship with his dad. At times they were a happy family. Now part of his healing focuses on having empathy for the man charged with taking everything from him.

"It's kind of hard to picture someone that you at one point idolized really be known to the rest of the world as a murderer," Manny said. "I mean, it's tough, and I hope that we can just kind of move on at one point. More or less that I can move on and just kind of remember him for the good times and not the bad, right?"

His mother's murder led to Manny's current career, working at a community violence intervention program, where he mentors young people shaped by trauma.

Meantime, advocates said while Karina's Law has increased the number of firearm removal warrants being sought, they believe more work is needed to make sure those orders are consistently enforced and that survivors are not left navigating the system alone.