LA City Council votes for new rules for gun storage in home

The Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously in favor Tuesday to require firearms to be stored safely within homes.

Krekorian initially struggled to get council action on the gun storage measure, which faced a few resistance in the Public Safety Committee after Los Angeles Police Protective League officials asked that retired and reserve officers be exempt.

Safe storage laws aid in stopping “access to firearms by children in the home”, Anderman said, “which can prevent suicides, unintentional shootings or disturbed kids getting their parents’ guns and using them to harm others, like the Sandy Hook shooting”.

Owners either have to lock their guns in a container or disable them with a trigger lock. Under the ordinance, handguns will need to be disabled and kept on the owner’s person or within close enough proximity that it is in the owner’s control.

Krekorian told reporters after the vote that he was recently approached by a few gun owners who insisted they should be allowed to keep their weapons under their pillows.

The California Rifle and Pistol Association along with a number of sheriffs in California earlier this month sued the city in Los Angeles Superior Court in an attempt to block the magazine measure from going into effect as scheduled on November 19. The law marks the latest gun control measure passed by the City Council, which also this year banned the possession of high-capacity magazines.

The measure is expected to be signed by Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, and would go into effect 30 days later.