City Monitoring Push for L.A. Ghost Gun Ordinance

Pasadena City Manager Steve Mermell said local officials are monitoring efforts by the Los Angeles City Council to draft an ordinance that would ban ghost guns.

“Ghost guns are becoming more and more prevalent and we support efforts to clamp down on them,” Mermell said in an email to Pasadena Now. 

“We will continue to monitor efforts on this front, and if we believe it would help, we would certainly ask the council to consider similar action,” Mermell wrote.

The Los Angeles ordinance would prohibit the possession, purchase, sale, receipt, and transportation of ghost guns in Los Angeles.

The L.A. City Council is scheduled to vote on the motion on Tuesday.

Ghost guns — also known as kit guns and 80% receivers — are nearly untraceable weapons without serial numbers that can be assembled by unlicensed buyers from legally purchased kits.

The unfinished parts on ghost guns are inexpensive and not required under federal law to have serial numbers. They also do not require a background check to purchase.

Ghost guns have been showing up in Pasadena on a consistent basis, especially during traffic stops.

The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) recovered 10,000 ghost guns in the U.S. in 2019, 2,700 of which were in California.

In 2020, more than 40% of the weapons confiscated by the ATF, and one-third of crime guns recovered by the LAPD were ghost guns.

In April, Pasadena police seized two unserialized “ghost guns” during two separate encounters with ex-convict gang members in Pasadena.

Last month, local police arrested a man for possession of an unserialized ghost gun and high-capacity magazines after he was pulled over for a traffic violation

Police say a ghost gun found at the scene of a fatal officer-involved shooting last year was brandished by Anthony McClain as he fled from police during a traffic stop. 

“The Pasadena Police Department is seizing ghost guns on our streets. They are doing their jobs!” Councilmember John Kennedy wrote in an email to Pasadena Now. 

“It will take much more than just bans to stop ghost, unserialized, guns. Law enforcement, with the promulgation of new laws by local, state, and federal policymakers, must find the source of production of ghost guns and eliminate the manufacturing of them at the source,” said Kennedy, a member of the Pasadena City Council’s Public Safety Committee. 

“Short of that, lawmakers are simply giving an impression that they are taking furtive steps to eliminate untraceable firearms while they continue to be shipped to and sold in communities across America,” Kennedy said.

Under federal law, individuals are allowed to build and possess their own firearms without a serial number for personal use.

Steps are being taken to amend the Gun Control Act of 1968, which passed after the assassinations that year of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and former Attorney General and Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, to include ghost guns.

Earlier this month, the city council in San Diego approved a ban on the sale and possession of ghost guns.

As of late July, police in San Diego have recovered 255 ghost guns this year.

If the L.A. City Council approves a ghost gun ban, the LAPD will report to the council within 14 days on current data regarding the impact of the weapons in that city, including the number of non-serialized firearms confiscated from people and recovered at crime scenes, as well as the number of shootings and homicides that involved non-serialized firearms.

“I applaud San Diego for its efforts,” said Kenndy. “Pasadena can follow suit to dramatize why this is such a dangerous situation, but much more is required.”