LOS ANGELES (CNS) – A motion to request an ordinance banning the possession, purchase, sale, receipt and transport of “ghost weapons” in Los Angeles was tabled Tuesday by Los Angeles City Councilors Paul Koretz and Paul Krekorian.
Ghost guns, also called kit guns or 80 percent guns, are virtually undetectable guns that can be made at home from legally purchased parts to complete the 80 percent already assembled. They are sold at gun shows and online.
The unfinished parts are not required by federal law to have serial numbers or a background check for purchase.
“More than 40% of the weapons seized by the Federal Agency for Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and a third of the criminal weapons seized by the Los Angeles Police Department in Los Angeles in 2020 were ghost weapons,” Koretz said.
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Ghost pistols were used during the 2013 Santa Monica College shooting, killing six people, including the shooter; a series of shootings in Tehama County in 2017 that killed five people; the 2019 shootout at Saugus High School that killed three students, including the shooter, and injured three others.
The ATF recovered 10,000 ghost cannons in the United States in 2019, 2,700 of them in California.
“Ghost rifles are purposely designed to be untraceable, and if they are sold without a background check they can become the property of felons,” Krekorian said.
In Los Angeles, ghost weapons were a factor in the sharp rise in homicides in 2020. This motion allows the city to act aggressively to significantly reduce the number of non-serialized firearms in our communities, ”added Krekorian.
Krekorian filed a motion approved in February to authorize City Attorney Mike Feuer to negotiate contracts with Everytown Law and Quinn Emmanuel Urquhart and Sullivan to maintain their pro bono services to develop legal strategies to combat ghost weapons in Los Angeles and implement.
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