Courts Could Jam Up Gun Control Measures Sought by L.A.
Around Los Angeles, those who want to put an end to gun violence will light candles tonight at 7 p.m., joining a bigger effort taking place at the Washington National Cathedral in the nation's capitol. The flames will be placed where others can see them, whether in windows or posted to social media and tagged #LightLA.
The demonstration comes as the Los Angeles City Council is poised to pass two divisive gun control laws, and is readying a third. But the measures' approval doesn't necessarily mean gun control advocates or the city council will get what they want -- courts could stand in the way. The laws have little precedent and are ripe for legal challenge.
One of the measures calls for gun owners to lock up guns in the home when not in use. Another calls for digital records of ammunition sales to be kept and transmitted to police. A third draft ordinance would ban high capacity ammunition magazines.
The state supreme court, 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and the U.S. Supreme Court have either recently ruled on similar laws or are considering doing so. Those rulings could determine if L.A.'s laws will be permitted to go forward.
Last spring, justices in the 9th Circuit weighed in on a challenge to San Francisco's version of the locked gun storage law, passed in 2007. They upheld it, but the U.S. Supreme Court could eventually consider the case and take a different view.
"This requirement that people lock guns at home is unconstitutional and will be found as such and cost the city of L.A. millions to try this case just to have their decisions overturned," said Sam Paredes, executive director of Gun Owners of California, a pro-gun lobby.
Allison S. Anderman, a staff attorney with the San Francisco-based Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, doesn't see it that way. "These laws can have a direct impact on [accidental shootings, suicides and other incidents involving children] and make sure guns aren't stolen in case of a burglary," said
The state legislature has passed a bill that requires ammunition dealers to keep sales records. But legal challenges have placed the law before the state Supreme Court, which has yet to make a ruling. The law cannot take hold unless the court deems it constitutional.
L.A. already mandates that ammunition sellers keep records of ammunition sales. The new law would require these records to be kept digitally.
"It helps law enforcement ID people that are not supposed to have firearms but are purchasing ammunition," Anderman said.
Paredes criticized the measure as "silly." "Gun stores will have to report to law enforcement every time someone buys ammunition, and there will be hundreds of thousands or millions of transactions reported, and they're supposed to filter through those to see if someone's purchasing illegally," he said. The measure does nothing to stop people from purchasing ammunition outside of the city of Los Angeles, he added.
Passing the law would place L.A. alongside Sacramento, which requires digital record keeping, and numerous cities and counties that require records to be kept at all, such as San Francisco, Santa Ana, Santa Monica, West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Inglewood, Oakland Pomona, Santa Cruz, Sunnyvale, and others.
L.A.'s ammunition measure may have come before the city council because efforts to pass a statewide ammunition bill during the last legislative session, SB 53, which included provisions to keep records of ammunition sales, proved unsuccessful.
"L.A. is a role model for other jurisdictions and the state and we are hoping the state will pass ammunition purchasing regulations as well," said Margot Bennett, executive director of the L.A.-based Women Against Gun Violence.
At a hearing, City Councilmember Paul Krekorian, who proposed the ammunition measure, said there were a number of reasons why someone would be ineligible to buy ammunition, including restraining orders or mental illness.
He said that under the current ammunition record-keeping law, records are often hand-written and not even legible to law enforcement officers. That is "obviously not time efficient, it's not cost effective, and it doesn't allow them to do the job they would like to do," Krekorian said at the hearing.
The council is likely to take up a third measure that would ban high-capacity magazines, though such measures, including one enacted in San Francisco, have fared well under legal challenges. Ian Thompson, a spokesman for Paul Krekorian, said the councilman will try to get the motion back before the Public Safety Committee early next year.
L.A.'s Current Gun and Ammo Motions
Safe gun storage: (CF 14-1553)
The measure asks city attorney to draft an ordinance requiring "gun owners to either store their firearms in a locked container or disable it with a trigger lock when not in use."
Electronic reporting of ammunition sales: (CF 13-0241):
The measure asks city attorney to draft an ordinance requiring "automatic, time-of-sale electronic reporting of all ammunition sales" to law enforcement.
High capacity ammunition magazine ban: (CF 13-0068)
This measure would make the possession of high-capacity ammunition magazines "a misdemeanor," effective one year after the measure is adopted, and allow 60 days after adoption during which high capacity magazines must be "legally surrendered."
