LOS ANGELES : City Crackdown Urged for ‘Kitchen Table’ Gun Dealers
A former Los Angeles police commissioner urged the panel and Chief Willie L. Williams on Tuesday to enforce two new city ordinances designed to get “kitchen table” gun dealers off the streets.
Ann Reiss Lane, who now works with Women Against Gun Violence, said the Police Commission and LAPD need to work with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to ensure that those people with federal firearms licenses have a city police permit and business license to sell guns.
“Holders of federal firearms licenses, euphemistically called kitchen table gun dealers, have been operating in residential neighborhoods,” she said.
She also urged the LAPD to investigate where every fourth gun confiscated in arrests had come from. “The purpose is to see if crime guns are coming from the same source,” Lane said.
On Dec. 20, the City Council passed an ordinance requiring federally licensed gun dealers to obtain a police permit and business license.
Lane estimated that there are about 1,200 people with federal licenses in Los Angeles, but only 123 are in compliance with the tougher requirements.
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