LA City Council To Consider Ban On Untraceable Ghost Guns

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) – The Los Angeles City Council Wednesday will consider a motion that would ban the possession and sale of homemade ghost guns.

The motion, introduced by Councilmembers Paul Koretz and Paul Krekorian earlier this month, would prohibit the "possession, purchase, sale, receipt and transportation of non-serialized, unfinished frames and unfinished receivers, and non-serialized firearms" in the city of L.A.

If approved Wednesday, the L.A. City Attorney will be asked to draft an ordinance that the city council would then vote on again to make the ban a law.

Ghost guns, also known as kit guns, are assembled at home from parts that usually come in a kit and do not have serial numbers, as opposed to whole guns that are purchased from manufacturers. In April, President Joe Biden issued an executive action directing the Department of Justice to right rules that would stop the proliferation of ghost guns.

Koretz and Krekorian note that the kits usually cost between $400 and $525, come in cardboard boxes that contain steel barrels and other parts and, "because the parts are not finished guns, they mostly escape California's gun control laws."

According to the motion, last month Los Angeles Police Chief Michel Moore said ghost guns now account for one-third of all weapons recovered by the LAPD.

The November 2019 shooting at Saugus High School in Santa Clarita, in which a girl and a boy were killed and three of their classmates wounded when a fellow student opened fire, was committed with a ghost gun, Koretz noted.

A ghost gun was also used in the 2013 Santa Monica College shooting which left six people dead.

In February, the city of L.A. sued Polymer80, believed to be one of the largest sellers of "ghost gun" kits and parts.