L.A. Council OKs Stricter Rules on Sales of Bullets : Violence: Gun dealers would require IDs, keep records of buyers. Mayor hasn’t said if he will sign ordinance.

Moving to impose local regulations on bullets that claim hundreds of lives each year, the Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday voted to require people to present identification and provide personal information when they buy ammunition for handguns.

The measure, modeled on an ordinance passed this year in Pasadena, will go to Mayor Richard Riordan, who has 10 days to sign it, veto it or allow it to become law without his signature. Riordan was in New York on Tuesday. Press secretary Noelia Rodriguez said the mayor favors responsible laws to control gun violence but had not yet decided how to respond to the measure.

Signaling that approval was not assured, a source in the mayor’s office on Tuesday raised questions about whether the law could be implemented effectively. It would take a two-thirds vote of the City Council to override a mayoral veto.

Although the Pasadena law attracted widespread attention when it was passed--shortly after a 16-year-old girl was killed at a Valentine’s Day party--a similar law in Los Angeles, the nation’s second-largest city, would be more likely to influence other municipalities considering such measures.

The measure was sponsored by council members Rita Walters and Mark Ridley-Thomas.

“We need to bring a little sanity to the streets,” said Walters, who told her colleagues that she had once seen bullets for sale next to pinball machines that teen-agers were playing in a pawnbroker’s shop in her Downtown/South-Central district.

Some gun dealers said the law would be ineffective and burdensome. “It is not a panacea,” Ridley-Thomas said. “(But) we are duty-bound to create an environment of intolerance to gun violence. I see no one’s rights being violated.”

The ordinance has the backing of the Los Angeles Police Department. Police officials say the measure would help them enforce a state law that since Jan. 1 has prohibited certain kinds of people--including convicted felons and the mentally deranged--from purchasing bullets. The city law also could help police home in on sales to minors, who are legally barred from buying bullets.

Under the law, the city’s 120 licensed gun dealers may sell handgun ammunition only if they have first filled out a form listing the date of the sale, the name, address and birth date of the purchaser, his or her driver’s license or “other identification number,” the brand, type and amount of ammunition sold, and the purchaser’s signature.

It requires gun dealers to keep the records on file for two years and to allow law enforcement agencies to inspect them. Violation of the law would be a misdemeanor for purchaser or dealer.

The council voted 11 to 2 to give final approval to the measure. Councilman Joel Wachs was not present. Voting against the law were Councilmen Hal Bernson and Rudy Svorinich.

Bernson argued that the law would not curtail ammunition sales to wrongdoers but would only force them to buy their bullets outside the city limits. What’s needed, Bernson said, is a state law.

But Councilman Marvin Braude chided Bernson, saying the proposal is a needed first step.

Braude, an anti-smoking leader at City Hall, recalled that Bernson, a San Fernando Valley Republican, had made the same argument when fighting efforts to stop smoking in the city’s public places and restaurants. Eventually, though, L.A.’s leadership role on the smoking front inspired copycat legislation throughout the state, said Braude, a Westside Democrat.

Councilwoman Laura Chick noted that she had switched views on the need for the measure since it first came before the council several weeks ago.

“I was not a ‘yes’ vote before, but I’ve done a lot of soul-searching and dialogue with the LAPD,” Chick said. “Now I’m convinced it will act as a deterrent.”

She added that she believes that the measure is needed to send a countervailing signal as “extremists” in Washington, D.C., seek to repeal federal laws outlawing the sale of military-style assault weapons.

Sandy Cooney, western regional director of Handgun Control Inc., the nation’s premier gun control lobby, praised L.A.’s action. “This is a record-keeping law that makes gun dealers keep track of who they are selling ammo to,” Cooney said.

“Too often ammo falls into the hands of people who shouldn’t have it--including juveniles and convicted felons--because some gun dealers are irresponsible or negligent,” Cooney said. “This is a step in the right direction.”

Police officials see the law as another tool to fight crime.

“We want to keep ammo out of the hands of gang members and others who are violence prone,” said Cmdr. Tim McBride, LAPD spokesman. “Anything that will contribute to this we welcome.”

Cmdr. Gabe Ornelas, head of the detective headquarters division, testified on behalf of the measure Tuesday. His unit includes an eight-officer detail that enforces gun laws and deals regularly with gun owners. The same unit would enforce the new law.

Ornelas said the LAPD expects to conduct half a dozen “spot checks” per year of each of the city’s gun dealers to see if they are complying with the law. After the checks, a random sample of ammunition buyers would be run through a computer to determine if they were permitted--under the new state law--to buy such bullets.

Gun dealers said the city proposal is likely to be no more effective than a similar federal law that was on the books for 18 years until Congress killed it in 1986.

That federal law was repealed “because Congress did not see enough results to justify its continuation,” said James Nalley, a group supervisor in Los Angeles with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. ATF was the agency charged with enforcing the now defunct law, which took effect in 1968.

“It’s ineffective and unmanageable,” Barry Kahn, co-owner of B & B Sales, a North Hollywood gun store.

“All it does is give politicians a chance to say: ‘Look, I did something to fight crime, vote for me.’ But it doesn’t do anything in fact. It’s all rhetoric and b.s.,” Kahn said. “If the politicians want to stop crime, they need to start punishing criminals.”

However, Cooney said such laws can have an effect on the local level--if authorities have the will to enforce them.

He said his group is “extremely sympathetic to efforts of local municipalities who are trying to take control of their own destinies and work to cut gun violence.”

Contributing to this story was Times staff writer Jean Merl.

* SUING GUN MAKERS: Families of victims press effort against assault weapons. A3