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Council OKs gun bill

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Gun owners would be required to store their firearms in locked containers, disable them with trigger locks or keep them within their control under a proposal given preliminary support Tuesday by the Los Angeles City Council.

The council voted 14-0 to instruct its attorneys to prepare the ordinance, which would closely follow a recent Sunnyvale law that has so far stood up to legal challenges from gun rights groups, proponents said. The ordinance will have to return to the council for a final vote.

The measure was championed by Councilman Paul Krekorian, with the support of five other council members. Members of Women Against Gun Violence and other anti-gun-violence activists also backed the proposal, saying it is a necessary precaution against weapons falling into the hands of children who may unintentionally fire the weapon at themselves or others.

Krekorian said the majority of shooting deaths of children that happen around the country occur because a gun was not safely maintained in a home.”

He added that the ordinance would help reduce the number of stolen guns that might later be used in crimes, and reduce the number of suicides.

“Any responsible gun owner advocacy organization, will say that even if you choose to keep a handgun in your home for self-defense, you should safely store that handgun. It’s the only responsible thing for a gun owner to do, he said.

“So, when we hear about imposition on the rights of law-abiding gun owners, what this ordinance does is it asks gun owners to act responsibly like the law-abiding people that they feel that they are,” he said.

City attorneys were instructed to write an ordinance that would require any gun stored at home to be kept in a locked container, disabled with a trigger lock, kept on a person or within close enough proximity and control that the owner can readily retrieve and use the handgun as if carried on the person.”

The proposal hit a roadblock earlier this summer when the Los Angeles police officers’ union asked the Public Safety Committee to include amendments exempting reserve or retired law enforcement officials.

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