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Old 10-19-2009, 09:07 AM
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Default Gun stores preparing for ammo restrictions

Gun stores preparing for ammo restrictions

Quote:
Stores required to alter purchase methods

James Rufus Koren, Staff Writer

10/17/2009 Walk into Cold War Shooters gun shop in Highland, and you can pick up a box of .22 caliber rounds, walk to the checkout counter, pay and leave.

That transaction will be decidedly different in 2011, when a new state law governing handgun ammunition sales takes effect.

"We'll have to rearrange the store," said Hector Garcia, owner of Cold War Shooters, because the new law will force gun and sporting goods stores to keep handgun ammo where customers can't reach it. "But that will be a minor inconvenience compared to the paperwork."

The most important piece of the new law, which has already drawn the ire of the National Rifle Association and some Republican lawmakers, is a requirement that anyone purchasing handgun
Manager Veronica Garcia shows the ammo on display at the Cold War Shooters store on Friday in Highland. "We ll have to rearrange the store," says owner Hector Garcia. He s also concerned about the additional paperwork. (Gabriel Luis Acosta/Staff Photographer)
ammunition provide his or her name, address, phone number and thumbprint. Gun stores will have to keep those records - which also include the type, brand and amount of ammunition sold to customers - and allow police to go through them.

Assemblyman Kevin de Leon, D-Los Angeles, sponsored the bill, saying it gives law enforcement agencies a way to check if criminals are buying ammunition.

Assemblyman Curt Hagman, R-Chino Hills, said he will sponsor a bill to repeal the new law, which he said will be costly to businesses, inconvenient for lawful gun owners, and ineffective in the long run.

"The bad guys always seem to get what they need, but we keep making it harder and harder for law-abiding citizens," Hagman said of the new law, which Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed into law last week. The statute takes effect Feb. 1, 2011.

State law already prohibits ammunition dealers from selling ammo to felons, people convicted of violent misdemeanors or those who are the subject of active restraining orders. But unlike gun purchases, stores are not required to do a background check for the purchase of ammunition.

"You could walk out of San Quentin (state prison) ... and walk into a gun store and by any ammunition you'd like," de Leon said. "Theoretically, you're not supposed to buy it. But practically, they don't have to check."

He first pushed for a real-time verification system - a mandate that gun stores do a background check before selling ammo - but found it would have been too costly.

Instead, de Leon settled for a statewide version of what's already done in Los Angeles and Sacramento.

"If you buy ammo, you take a thumbprint and you leave your driver's license information," he said.

Assemblyman Steve Knight, R-Palmdale, said the new law assumes - incorrectly - that dangerous criminals are purchasing ammunition from licensed dealers.

"The bad guys don't typically go into Wal-Mart and pick up their rounds," said Knight, a former Los Angeles police officer.

Lt. Rick Ells, speaking for the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department, said that's why Sheriff Rod Hoops opposes the law.

"What you're doing is setting up a means of tracking law-abiding citizens' purchase of ammunition," Ells said. "What would be great is a way to track the way criminals purchase their ammunition. ... They're not buying their weapons or their ammunition from (licensed dealers), and that's the problem."

Steve Whitmore, a spokesman for Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, said that isn't true. He cited a 2006 report by Rand Corp. that found at least some felons and other prohibited people purchased ammo from gun stores in Los Angeles.

That report, which looked at two months of sales from 10 businesses in the city, found 52 prohibited people - about 2.6 percent of all ammo purchasers - bought ammunition. Of the 52, 30 had been convicted of felonies.

"We believe (criminals) are buying their ammunition from legitimate sources," Whitmore said.

A number of city police chiefs from around the state supported the bill, but Baca was the only sheriff who favored it, according to a state Senate report.

Chuck Michel, an attorney who represents the NRA and the California Rifle and Pistol Association, said if criminals are buying ammunition from licensed dealers now, they'll find other sources when the new law takes effect.

"They just created a black market for ammunition," Michel said.

He said there are several potential legal challenges to the law and that the NRA has "some of the best lawyers scrutinizing this."

Knight and Hagman said the law will be especially inconvenient for gun owners in rural areas.

The law requires that ammunition be sold or transferred in face-to-face transactions - meaning no more ammunition delivered by mail.

"Many people buy ammunition on the Internet because they're 30, 40, 50 miles away from a gun store," Knight said. "There are places in the state where people have a difficult time getting ammunition."

Ammunition can still be ordered online, de Leon said, but it will have to be delivered to a licensed ammunition dealer.
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