Los Angeles' Ammunition Logs Revisited

• In Event: Policy Panel: Policing Underground Gun Markets in "Gang" Cities

Abstract

More than a decade ago, the Los Angeles City Council enacted a local policy that requires all merchants licensed to sell ammunition to collect identifying information of all purchases. In 2004, researchers determined that in a two-month period, 2.5% of all purchases (just over 10,000 rounds of ammunition) were completed by Prohibited Possessors. The current study extends the earlier work in several important ways, updating the quantitative data collection and incorporating the results of surveys of gun offenders in the Los Angeles County jails. First, we look at how the purchase of ammunition is impacted by high-impact events such as Aurora and Newtown. Second, we determine whether there have been any changes in purchasing of ammunition by Prohibited Possessors. Third, we want to know the types of prohibited possessors that are purchasing ammunition (e.g., violent v drug felons). Fourth, we will review the use of the Registry as an intelligence tool by law enforcement focusing on the types of illegal guns that are recovered by leads generated by the Registry. Finally, we will contextualize this data in light of what we know about how gun offenders obtain ammunition, based on jail surveys.

Authors

• George Tita, University of California, Irvine

• Keramet Reiter, University of California, Irvine