Limits Weighed on Ammunition Sales

Despite pleas for stronger action, the Los Angeles City Council moved Tuesday to ban the sale of some high-caliber bullets and to require a permit and background check for anyone buying ammunition in the city.

Council members Mike Hernandez and Nick Pacheco had urged a ban on the sale of all ammunition, saying it would help reduce gun violence plaguing their inner-city districts. Hernandez cited 300 drive-by shootings so far this year, and two slayings in Hollenbeck Division bars in the last week.

“Our reality is, it’s not the guns that are killing people, it’s the ammunition,” Hernandez said. “A partial ban is not going to deal with the issue of what makes me feel safe in my home.”

Ismael Ileto also urged a total ban, telling the council that it would reduce gun violence like the 1999 murder of his brother, postal carrier Joseph Ileto, by a white supremacist in Chatsworth.

“We all know the devastating effects of violence and guns,” Ileto said. “The killer of my brother Joseph, who claims he had serious mental illness, was still able to purchase and amass hundreds and thousands of [rounds of] ammunition and guns.”

A spokesman for the National Rifle Assn., which opposed the action, said that preliminary estimates from the Sports Arms Manufacturers Institute indicate that the partial ban may outlaw 70% of ammunition available in the city.

The vote for a complete ban fell short, 5 to 7, with Hernandez, Pacheco, Alex Padilla, Rita Walters and Mark Ridley-Thomas in the minority supporting it. Opposing the complete ban were Laura Chick, Hal Bernson, Mike Feuer, Ruth Galanter, Nate Holden, Cindy Miscikowski and Rudy Svorinich Jr. Joel Wachs and John Ferraro were absent.

With the total ban rejected, Hernandez and Pacheco joined their colleagues in asking the city attorney to draft a compromise ordinance that would ban certain high-caliber ammunition and require permits and, once a year, a 10-day waiting period and a criminal background check for anyone buying ammunition in Los Angeles.

Miscikowski and Feuer argued that a complete ban might not survive a court challenge, and said requiring permits and background checks will make the city safer.

“Criminals and kids should not get their hands on tools of violence, on guns or ammunition,” said Feuer, who estimated that up to 100,000 people buy ammunition in the city annually. The group Women Against Gun Violence also supported the partial ban and permit.

Los Angeles already requires ammunition buyers to provide a thumbprint and a signature.

Feuer, who proposed a more extensive permit system in 1997, said a recent LAPD study found that 3% of those who bought ammunition either were prohibited from owning ammunition or provided identification that could not be verified.

He estimated that an annual permit would cost about $14 and the background checks would access a database used by the state Department of Justice.

The vote to require permits from ammunition buyers was 10 to 2, with Svorinich and Bernson opposed. Bernson said the proposal for ammunition buyers to pay about $14 a year for a permit is onerous for law-abiding gun owners.

“We do have to respect the 2nd Amendment rights of people,” Bernson said. “Banning the sale of ammunition is not going to keep it out of the hands of criminals. They will get it in the next city.”

Pacheco urged the overall ban.

“I don’t understand why we are folding today and doing anything less than a complete ban,” said Pacheco, a former deputy district attorney. He said the issue mostly affects minority residents of the central city, who are disproportionately the victims of gun violence in Los Angeles.

“This is an area where we have to send a message to our inner-city youth,” Pacheco said. “The victims here are primarily Latinos or African Americans, and I think they should be told we care about them.” Chicago and Washington have adopted complete bans on ammunition sales.

Opponents, including National Rifle Assn. attorney Chuck Michel, said they will file a lawsuit to challenge the new regulations, at least partly on grounds that limiting access to ammunition is preempted by state law.

Michel said the proposed rules, which will be drafted into ordinance form and returned for a final vote, will not be effective, but are meant to boost Feuer’s campaign for city attorney.

“Any bad guy who wants to can get any kind of ammunition he wants, despite this,” said Michel. “This is more about Mike Feuer’s campaign than about public safety.”

An NRA Political Victory Fund mailer reached the association’s Los Angeles members Tuesday. The mailer urged them to vote against Feuer as “one of the most anti-gun zealots in California.”