www.msnbc.com/local/KNBC/500613.asp
Police support checks on ammo sales
The Los Angeles Police Commission has unanimously backed a proposed city
ordinance to require background checks before people can buy gun ammunition.
City officials estimated the ordinance could cost Los Angeles gun shop owners and
other licensed dealers about 75 percent of their ammunition sales, with buyers going
to Burbank, Glendale and other nearby cities where it would be easier to buy bullets
Ammunition suppliers outraged
"Will this stop anyone from getting ammunition? Absolutely not," Bob Kahn, chief
executive officer of B&B Sales of North Hollywood, one of the Southland's largest
gun and ammunition suppliers, told a local newspaper."They're grandstanding. How
can this work when my competitors anywhere else can sell ammunition without any
problems whatsoever? How can this work when it's legal to buy it through the mail
... legal to make your own?"
Details of the ordinance
The ordinance – unanimously approved yesterday by the Police Commission
–would require consumers to pay a $14 permit fee and submit to a 10-day
background check for the right to purchase ammunition.
The City Council has yet to determine whether the $14 permit would be good for
two years or would have to be renewed every year.
Police Commissioner Dean Hansell yesterday called the background checks
“another important step to help make this city a little safer.”
The state Department of Justice has agreed to complete the ammunition
background checks for the city, using nearly the same criteria the state now uses
for permits to buy guns. The only information that could not be accessed for
ammunition background checks would be a buyer’s mental health records.
If a customer wanted authorization to buy a gun and ammunition at the same
time, he or she could use the same background check for both and would only have
to pay one $14 fee.
Police support checks on ammo sales
The Los Angeles Police Commission has unanimously backed a proposed city
ordinance to require background checks before people can buy gun ammunition.
City officials estimated the ordinance could cost Los Angeles gun shop owners and
other licensed dealers about 75 percent of their ammunition sales, with buyers going
to Burbank, Glendale and other nearby cities where it would be easier to buy bullets
Ammunition suppliers outraged
"Will this stop anyone from getting ammunition? Absolutely not," Bob Kahn, chief
executive officer of B&B Sales of North Hollywood, one of the Southland's largest
gun and ammunition suppliers, told a local newspaper."They're grandstanding. How
can this work when my competitors anywhere else can sell ammunition without any
problems whatsoever? How can this work when it's legal to buy it through the mail
... legal to make your own?"
Details of the ordinance
The ordinance – unanimously approved yesterday by the Police Commission
–would require consumers to pay a $14 permit fee and submit to a 10-day
background check for the right to purchase ammunition.
The City Council has yet to determine whether the $14 permit would be good for
two years or would have to be renewed every year.
Police Commissioner Dean Hansell yesterday called the background checks
“another important step to help make this city a little safer.”
The state Department of Justice has agreed to complete the ammunition
background checks for the city, using nearly the same criteria the state now uses
for permits to buy guns. The only information that could not be accessed for
ammunition background checks would be a buyer’s mental health records.
If a customer wanted authorization to buy a gun and ammunition at the same
time, he or she could use the same background check for both and would only have
to pay one $14 fee.