Ban on Large-Capacity Ammo Clips Goes to City Council

Possessing large-capacity ammunition magazines would be illegal in Los Angeles under an ordinance approved Friday by a City Council committee.

"I don't think we can do anything fast enough to remove these from the streets," Councilman Mitch Englander, who chairs the council's Public Safety Committee, said. Englander is also an LAPD reserve officer.

Councilman Dennis Zine, a former police officer, called the proposed law "reasonable."

"Ten rounds is enough to protect your business and family," he said. "You don't need to have 30 rounds, or 40 rounds."

The full council is expected to consider the proposed ban next week.

The sale and transfer of the ammunition clips is a crime in California, but people can still legally own them. The proposed city law would declare the clips a public nuisance and allow police to confiscate them.

Councilman Paul Krekorian first proposed the law in February, following the Newtown, CT, elementary school shooting last December. A gunman wielding a high-capacity assault weapon killed 26 people, most of them children.

Gun rights lawyers said in February they would sue the city if such a law were approved.

"Bring it on," Sandy Cooney of the City Attorney's Office responded at the time. "We completely support what the councilman (Krekorian) wants to do."

Calguns Foundation Executive Director Brandon Combs told City News Service this week that the city's proposed law "would harm lawful gun owners and infringe their Second Amendment and other rights," adding that state law potentially pre-empts it.

"We are more than eager to file a federal civil rights lawsuit over a ban on magazines such as the city of Los Angeles is considering here," he said.

The committee also approved digitizing hard-copy records of firearm sales and transfers, which would eliminate the need for police employees to travel to gun stores and shooting ranges to pick up documents.