Domestic abusers in Dallas County have surrendered just 60 guns since 2015 under a program designed to disarm thousands of violent offenders.

That's a tiny fraction of the 700 to 800 firearms county officials expected to collect each year when the initiative launched two years ago.

State and federal law prohibits convicted abusers and anyone subject to a protective order from owning a gun. But the law does not dictate what they do with those weapons.

The Dallas County program allows abusers to turn over their guns to the Sheriff's Department, which stores the firearms at its gun range.

But there are flaws in the underperforming program, which began in 2015 with money from the Dallas County Commissioners Court and a matching grant from the governor's office.

Three students at Southern Methodist University's Dedman School of Law tracked how many guns were surrendered and how the program operates. Laura Choi, Rachel Elkin and Monica Harasim presented their findings Wednesday at the Conference on Crimes Against Women.

At least 7,000 domestic violence cases pass through the county's courts each year, and officials expected that guns would be surrendered in about 10 percent of those cases.

While the only way to evaluate the program is by looking at how many guns are seized, criminal court Judge Roberto Cañas believes that taking even one gun out of an abuser's hands can prevent a murder.

"This is one of those things where you're never going to know when you save a life," Cañas said.

One of the problems, the students said, is that not every judge has been ordering abusers to hand over their guns.

"The estimate was based on the hope that the program would be used evenly by all judges," Choi said.

Many of the domestic violence cases are misdemeanors, so judges in felony cases are less familiar with the program.

Cañas, who runs a misdemeanor court, has spearheaded an effort to educate other judges about the effort. He recently created a cheat sheet explaining the gun surrender procedure for judges.

He said judges, prosecutors and victims' advocates need to learn more about the program for it to grow. Advocates should ask victims whether their abuser owns a firearm. Prosecutors should inform the judge that the accused abuser owns a gun. And judges should know the policy to order that abuser to surrender the weapon.

"It just has to be part of the routine," Cañas said.

But the program can't guarantee that all abusers hand over their firearms.

Because Texas does not require gun owners to register their weapons with the state, there's no way to verify whether someone owns a gun. It's up to the domestic abusers to report truthfully and turn over any guns to the county.

"Because we realize there's no gun registry, 100 percent compliance with this program is not realistic," said Harasim, one of the SMU researchers.

In some cases, the abusers could get their guns back. Once a protective order expires, the county can give back the weapon. In other cases, the guns are destroyed.

The recent law school graduates plan to present their report to county officials to encourage them to continue funding the gun surrender program. The funding expires in August.

Dallas County District Attorney Faith Johnson said Wednesday that her office is "wholly, totally and completely in support of the program."

She asked the researchers what she can do to ensure it is being used. They asked her to encourage her prosecutors to bring up gun ownership and ask judges to order abusers to surrender their weapons.

"You have our commitment on that," Johnson said.

SMU law professor Natalie Nanasi oversaw the research and said the program needs public support as well. Taking guns away from known abusers can prevent further violence, she said.

"It's an issue that is happening ... every day in the streets of our county," Nanasi said. "We can't just pay attention to this issue when these unspeakable tragedies happen."