LAPD's Crack Down On
Legitimate City Gun Dealers
Nets Harmless Leathersmith
Law Enforcement Priorities Misplaced
In an outlandish enforcement action, Detectives from the LAPD Gun Unit, working with a new City Attorney Task Force, recently performed a plain clothes undercover "sting" on a leather smith Omar Pineda's family business: Alfonso's of Hollywood Leather Company. Pineda, in business in North Hollywood for 43 years, makes custom holsters and other leather goods. In fact, he has been servicing LAPD officers for many years. But he does not sell guns, nor possess a firearm dealer's license - which isn't necessary for his leather business. Pineda's "crime?" He unwittingly sold two leather holsters for .380 ACP handguns to the undercover officers, not realizing that the recently enacted Municipal Code section that bans the sale of "ultracompact" handguns (under either 6 3/4" long or 4 3/4" tall) also bans the sale of holsters for these guns.
And when was this dangerous leather smith "criminal" detected? On September 11th no less! As the country, under the heightened alert declared by the federal government, held its breath that we wouldn't suffer another terrorist attack the LAPD was spending federal dollars to arrest a holster maker!
The sting was part of a new misguided effort to crack down on gun dealers in the city. Using federal "Project Safe Neighborhoods" dollars, the L.A. city Attorney's Office has formed a gun prosecutor "task force," and, working with the LAPD "Gun Unit," is performing regulatory "inspectors" on the roughly 200 FFLS in the City of LA. Dealers fear the effort is a pretext to put them out of business.
The federal money, some $360,000.00 per year for five years, is supposed to be used to fund special prosecutor positions to crack down on violent gun crime. Instead, large and small retailers, ranges, collectors, and ammo sellers have been "inspected" and cited by LAPD, mostly for violating relatively new and obscure city ordinances - of which the dealers were never made aware! Even the anti-gun California Attorney General at least notifies FFLs to advise them as the increasingly complex firearms laws change, but not LA. Misdemeanor criminal charges are pending in several cases.
CRPA's 70,000 plus members include law enforcement officers, prosecutors, professionals, firearm experts, the general public, and loving parents. CRPA recognizes that firearm ownership has tremendous social value. It causes dramatic reductions in, and serves as a tremendous deterrent to, crime and violence. No less than 16 separate studies confirm that firearms are used five times more often to thwart crime than to commit one. The FBI has confirmed that over 99% of firearms in the United States are never misused. CRPA instructors have been teaching safe and responsible firearms ownership to those who choose to own a gun for sport or self-defense for over 125 years, CRPA has a variety of effective crime prevention and gun safety programs available. These include informational brochures such as CRPA's Know Your California Gun Laws, safety guidelines, civilian gun safety and firearm education classes; the award-winning Eddie Eagle GunSafeprogram, which teaches kids to stay away from guns (
www.eaglepak.org); Project HomeSafe (
www.projecthomesafe.org), which distributes free gun safety locks; "Don't Lie for the Other Guy," which enlists firearm dealers to fight illegal gun purchases and "straw purchases" (
www.nafr.org); "Refuse To Be A Victim," which teaches a variety of personal safety techniques (
www.nrahq.org/safety/rtbav); Operation Ceasefire, a strategic crime fighting alliance between police and gun dealers; and a host of other programs. These efforts have proven successful across the nation, including many cities in California where they are currently used.
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Source:
http://www.crpa.org/pressrls101802.html
