The Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday gave tentative approval for an ordinance that would require ammunition sellers to electronically report sales to police.
The city council also ordered the City Attorney's Office to draft an ordinance that would require gun owners to store firearms in a locked container or disable them with trigger locks.
"They both boil down to safety," said LA City Councilman Paul Krekorian, who drafted the ordinance. "These are simple and sensible steps that will keep people safe."
Krekorian said the regulations would prevent needless accidents and allow police to cross-check sales records against databases of people who are barred from buying ammunition.
"We don't often get to say we vote on something that will directly, immediately save lives," Councilman Paul Koretz said.
But not everyone is happy.
"This is stupidity on top of stupidity multiplied by idiocy," said Boyer, of the gun advocacy group Sons of Liberty. "They don't care what state law says. They don't care what our rights are."
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As of now, ammunition sellers have to keep records of their sales for at least two years from the purchase date, but are only required to report the sales to the police if requested.
Los Angeles Police Department officials gather hundreds of pages of sales records, but the information is cumbersome to sift through.
If the measures are adopted into law, LA would be the first city in the state to have both types of measures in their law, officials said.
Similar laws were passed in Sacramento and San Francisco.
