Following recent charges brought against a Pacoima father who allegedly kept several weapons unsecured in the family home, a Los Angeles City Council member introduced a motion Tuesday seeking an expansion of the city's safe storage ordinance to include all firearms and not only handguns.
Councilman Paul Krekorian announced his intention to introduce the motion last month during a news conference with City Attorney Mike Feuer to discuss the case against Albert Sanchez, 48, who was charged last month with two misdemeanor counts of unlawful storage of a firearm.
He faces up to one year in jail and $2,000 in fines if convicted. On Nov. 1, according to Feuer, Los Angeles School Police personnel received a report from the principal at Cesar Chavez Academy in San Fernando that the defendant's son, a ninth-grader, had allegedly threatened to bring a gun to school to shoot a classmate.
Krekorian's motion says that after officers searched the student's home, they found two handguns that were in violation of the city's safe storage ordinance, but a rifle was also recovered.
"While the city attorney has brought charges against the parent for the handguns under the safe storage ordinance, there are no repercussions for the rifle that was unsafely stores because the city's ordinance is specific to handguns," the motion says.
The current ordinance requires handguns in the city to be stored in a locked container or disabled with a trigger lock.
"We need to do everything in our power to raise awareness about the law requiring gun owners to safely store firearms in their home," Krekorian said at the news conference. "If we get gun owners to act responsibly and follow the law, we can help prevent accidents, suicides and school shootings in our communities. We must also ensure that the law applies to all firearms so that our city and law enforcement partners have the tools they need to hold gun owners accountable and stop these types of incidents that could cause irreversible tragedy."
