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California Tries New Tack on Gun Violence: Ammunition Control

SACRAMENTO — Sold from vending machines in Pennsylvania, feed depots in Nevada, pharmacies in Georgia and jewelry stores in Texas, ammunition is in many states easier to buy than cold medicine. But in California, which already enforces some of the nation’s most restrictive gun laws, there is a movement underway against the unfettered sale of bullets.

Gun control advocates here have pushed to limit internet sales, ban large-capacity magazines, require sellers to have licenses, raise taxes on bullets, and mandate serial numbers or other traceable markings on ammunition so that the police can more easily track them.

Such regulations, several of which have been enacted and take effect this year and next, are inspired by the view that the best way to limit gun violence is to approach it as a “bullet control” problem. As Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a Democrat from New York, told the Senate 25 years ago, when he introduced legislation that would have imposed a 10,000-percent tax on hollow-tip ammunition, “guns don’t kill people; bullets do.”

Across the country, bullets remain subject to far fewer federal restrictions than the weapons that fire them. Purchasing ammunition typically requires no form of identification, is handed over with no questions asked and, in most of the country, can be ordered online and delivered to doorsteps. In contrast, gun dealers have to keep detailed sales records of firearms and generally have to be licensed. If someone buys more than one handgun, the purchase is reported to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Gun buyers usually have to pass background checks.

Outside a handful of states, virtually none of these regulations apply to ammunition.

But here in California’s state capital and in Los Angeles, elected officials long ago passed local laws requiring ammunition dealers to keep detailed logs of sales.

Every few days, detectives comb through an updated list of people who have recently bought bullets, looking for anyone who is prohibited from owning firearms or ammunition. In recent years, the authorities said, these records have led to the seizure of hundreds of illegal guns and to the arrests of dozens of gang members, parolees, registered sex offenders and others.

Sgt. Greg Halstead of the Sacramento Police Department recounted a recent homicide in which the shell casing of an expensive type of bullet was left at the crime scene. With few leads in the case, the police turned to the bullet logs, which have been kept since 2008, to draft a short list of people in the city who had purchased that unusual caliber of ammunition.

“Led us right to our suspect,” Sergeant Halstead said.

Capt. Stephen Carmona, the commanding officer of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Gang and Narcotics Division, said that in 2016 and 2017, his department arrested more than 200 felons, most of them based on clues from the ammunition records, which dealers have been required to keep for more than two decades. The logs are especially useful, he said, in tying specific suspects or gangs to a crime scene where casings are retrieved.

Beginning next year, ammunition dealers across the state will be required to maintain logs of all sales — one of many steps California has taken to limit access to bullets. The efforts come as federal lawmakers fail to break the stalemate that for decades has blocked any new major gun control measures, despite a nationwide groundswell from students pushing for more restrictions in the wake of multiple massacres on high school and college campuses.

Under federal law, those who are not legally allowed to buy firearms are also forbidden from purchasing bullets, but there is no effective system in place for enforcing that rule. There are minimum ages for buying ammunition, but many sellers do not check identification. So cities and states are leading the way instead, with California at the forefront, said Ari Freilich, a lawyer with the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

Critics such as Lawrence Keane, senior vice president of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, said the new ammunition rules were burdensome to law-abiding gun owners, including hunters, range regulars and sports shooters. He added that they offered minimal crime-fighting utility for police and imposed unfair costs on gun sellers and makers.

“Raising taxes on bullets to offset the cost of gun violence is akin to putting a levy on prescription drugs to pay for the price of heroin addiction,” Mr. Keane said.

Gun rights groups have vowed to continue fighting against these and similar measures.

“It is wrong to treat California’s law-abiding gun owners like criminals,” said Chris W. Cox, executive director of the National Rifle Association’s Institute for Legislative Action.

Gun rights groups have worked for several years to block a California microstamping law that was to take effect five years ago. The act would mandate that all new semiautomatic pistols sold in the state be equipped with technology that would imprint shell casings in two locations with a microscopic array of characters that could be used to identify the make, model and serial number of the firearm.

Last month, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld the law in a 2-1 decision.

Gun control advocates and some law enforcement officials have said the stamping technology is a valuable crime-fighting tool because it gives investigators a trail to pursue, especially for gun crimes in which the firearms were not recovered.

During the recent court hearing, lawyers for the National Shooting Sports Foundation argued that the technology was unduly expensive and not developed enough to be required. But Janill Richards, the state’s lead prosecutor, countered that the rule was intended as an incentive for the gun industry to explore new technology. Justice Goodwin Liu of the California Supreme Court noted that advanced motorcycle helmets were also costly but required by law in California.

Other limitations on ammunition purchases have already been enacted in California.

In January of this year, a state restriction on internet sales went into effect, preventing online buyers from having bullets delivered directly to their homes. Instead, ammunition must be shipped to a licensed dealer so that the police can run a background check.

Aiming to reverse that ban, the N.R.A. filed a lawsuit in April on behalf of Kim Rhode, an Olympic gold-medalist in shooting events, who said the rule imposed an undue burden on her ability to get special bullets she needs to practice.

It is remarkably easy to buy high-capacity magazines or ammunition in bulk online. A 100-round magazine for an AR-15, a weapon that has been used in many mass shootings, for example, can be ordered for as little as $99.

The purchase or sale of magazines that can hold more than 10 bullets has been illegal in California for nearly two decades. Possession also became criminal in the wake of the 2015 attack in San Bernardino, where the couple used 30-round magazines. That ban was recently overturned by the courts.

Next July, California will begin requiring stores to conduct point-of-purchase background checks on ammunition buyers. Typically, background checks will not be required for people purchasing bullets at gun ranges for use on-site.

New York is the only other state with a similar requirement, but its rollout has stalled amid political pushback and an inability or unwillingness to finish building the database required to conduct these background checks.

As the new regulations take effect in California, their two main architects are ramping up political campaigns for higher office. Some of the rules were achieved through legislation written by Kevin de León, a Democratic leader in the State Senate who is challenging Senator Dianne Feinstein, a veteran Democrat, in November’s midterm election. Other ammunition regulations were part of Proposition 63, a ballot initiative approved by voters in 2016 and spearheaded by Gavin Newsom, the lieutenant governor who is now running for governor.

In a recent televised campaign advertisement, Mr. Newsom said Proposition 63 was indicative of the sort of “bold leadership” that made him “the first to take on the National Rifle Association and win.” PolitiFact, an influential fact-checking organization, rated the claim as “False” because it disregards generations of politicians credited with past gun control laws.

Decades ago, in the wake of several assassinations, including those of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, Congress imposed sweeping gun and ammunition regulations primarily through the Gun Control Act of 1968, which raised the minimum age requirement to 21 for handgun or ammunition purchases, banned felons and other categories of “prohibited people” from owning guns or ammunition, barred mail-order sales of guns and ammunition, and required dealers to log their sales of bullets.

But in 1986, President Ronald Reagan signed legislation loosening many restrictions, including the ban on mail-order ammunition purchases and the requirement to log all ammunition sales. Since then, states have taken the lead in adopting tighter measures on how firearms and bullets can be bought.

Today it is more difficult to buy bullets in Sacramento than most other cities in America. The buyer must show government-issued identification, which the seller electronically sends to the police department, along with information about the quantity and type of ammunition purchased, said Theresa Langhus, a crime scene investigator with the Sacramento Police Department.

The buyer also must provide a thumbprint at the store.

Recently, at Sacramento Police Headquarters, Ms. Langhus squinted through a magnifying glass and looked for a match between two fingerprints — one pulled from a shell casing at a shooting scene and another from the department’s records.

When officers conclude that someone illegally purchased ammunition, they visit the store where the sale was made to get a hard copy of the thumbprints, which for privacy reasons are not transmitted digitally. They then verify that it matches police records. If it does, a search warrant is issued.

On the other side of the debate, Jesse Figueroa, a manager at M & J gun store in downtown Sacramento, said that he was glad the ban on home deliveries of online ammunition purchases would drive more customers to his store. But he dismissed other rules, like microstamping and ammunition record-keeping, as futile in stopping criminals from using guns.

“These measures,” he said, “are all just a way to slowly chip away at our right to bear arms.”

DMU Timestamp: September 17, 2018 17:21





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