L.A. County leaders to look at strengthening gun laws

The Board of Supervisors is expected to vote Tuesday on a motion that aims to impose stricter gun control laws in unincorporated parts of Los Angeles County.

The proposal, authored by Supervisors Sheila Kuehl and Mark Ridley-Thomas, asks the county’s legal team to analyze the feasibility of ordinances that would ban .50-caliber handguns and impose additional restrictions on the sale of firearms to people younger than 21.

It also asks the legal team to analyze challenges that might arise from ordinances that toughen safe storage requirements and impose zoning regulations preventing gun vendors from selling firearms near schools and daycare centers.

Kuehl, building off the momentum of people who have called for stricter gun control legislation since 17 students and instructors were killed last month in a shooting at a high school in Parkland, Fla., said it’s important to take “every possible action” to curb gun violence.

“We’ve had enough moments of silence, of praying for slain co-workers, school children and neighbors,” Kuehl said in a statement. “We want to prepare a comprehensive plan to ensure that every man, woman, and child in this county is free from violence.”

California, which has some of the strongest gun laws in the country, recently received an “A” from the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence’s gun law scorecard.

But a report made in the wake of the 2015 San Bernardino terror attack and released to the supervisors in June 2017 found that other counties and cities across California have adopted gun control regulations stricter than L.A. County.

The motion also seeks to address gun violence through a public health lens by creating a gun violence prevention program within the Department of Public Health.

melissa.etehad@latimes.com

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