City Council Moves Toward Compromise on Bullet Ban Proposal

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 urged a ban on the sale of all ammunition, saying it would help reduce gun violence plaguing their districts. Hernandez cited 300 drive-by shootings this year, and two killings in Hollenbeck Division bars during the past 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 such a ban would reduce gun violence like the 1999 slaying 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 both the full and partial ban as well as the proposed permit program, said preliminary estimates from the Sports Arms Manufacturers Institute indicate a 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 the ban.

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

Council members Cindy Miscikowski and Mike Feuer argued a complete ban might not survive a court challenge, and said requiring permits and background checks would make the city safer.

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

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

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

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

Opponents said the permit system and partial ban on ammunition would only hurt law-abiding owners of firearms.

The vote to require permits from ammunition buyers was 10 to 2, with Councilmen Rudy Svorinich Jr. and Hal Bernson opposed, while Svorinich alone opposed the bid for a partial ban on ammunition sales.

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. It sends the wrong message to the community if we don’t act aggressively to protect them.”

Chicago and Washington have adopted complete bans on ammunition sales.

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

Michel said the proposed new 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,” Michel said. “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,” and citing his authorship of a recently approved ban on the sale of ultra compact handguns.

Los Angeles has enacted a series of gun-control measures in recent years, including a requirement that gun purchasers provide a thumbprint, bans on assault weapons, Saturday night special handguns and high-capacity ammunition clips, a requirement for trigger locks and a prohibition on the purchase of more than one gun a month.

Under the ammunition permit system endorsed Tuesday, buyers would once a year obtain a permit after a background check for criminal convictions.

City officials have put together a preliminary list of ammunition they believe should be banned based on types “designed to inflict great bodily trauma or made primarily for offensive purposes.”

The preliminary standard seeks to ban ammunition with a “magnum” load, bullets higher than .46 caliber and bullets with hard-metal “penetrants” in the tip.

Miscikowski said that would still allow purchase of small-caliber ammunition used primarily for defensive purposes, as well as higher-caliber ammunition by people with state hunting licenses.