Gun-Buyer Control: Thumbs Up

Gun control opponents like to say that rather than passing new gun laws, we need to enforce the ones we have. In that case, they should embrace a measure before the Los Angeles City Council. The ordinance, which won committee approval Monday, would provide muscle for enforcing background check laws already on the books.

Federal and state laws already bar gun sales to convicted felons, individuals subject to a restraining order, those declared mentally incompetent and others. To thwart these prospective buyers, gun dealers are required to conduct background checks at the time of sale. Nearly 5,000 so-called prohibited people who tried to buy firearms from California dealers were stopped by such background checks in 1999. In this group were some individuals who had been convicted of homicide.

Prohibited people who knowingly try to buy a gun are subject to prosecution. Trouble is, once told that they are ineligible to complete the purchase, these folks vanish quickly. If police or prosecutors bother to pursue them, disqualified buyers often deny having attempted to obtain the gun, insisting that their signature and identifying information on the dealer’s records were forged.

That’s where the ordinance proposed by Councilman Mike Feuer could make a difference. It would require that all prospective gun buyers in Los Angeles leave a thumbprint on the dealer’s record of sale along with the information already required. The city already requires a thumbprint for ammunition purchases. The proposed ordinance would cost dealers nothing more than an ink pad but would enable prosecutors to conclusively establish a disqualified gun buyer’s identity and truly enforce the law.

If Los Angeles is the only city to require thumbprints, prohibited buyers could, as opponents predict, simply take their business outside the city limits. But the 88 cities in the county have built an impressive record of cooperation in gun control, each adopting measures the others have initiated in recent years, including trigger lock requirements, limits on the sale of high-capacity ammunition magazines and a limit of one gun purchase per month. The thumbprint requirement, which has the strong support of Los Angeles Police Chief Bernard C. Parks, would also probably be copied quickly. It should become a priority for the Legislature too, but first the Los Angeles City Council must act.