Sacramento police have seized 56 guns and more than 800 rounds of ammunition from convicts and gang members over the past year through an ordinance that tracks ammunition sales, officials said Tuesday.
The ordinance, passed in July 2007, requires city gun dealers to enter information on those who purchase ammunition into a Web site.
The city Police Department tracks the sales through that Web site and cross-checks the list with the names of city residents who are prohibited from possessing firearms, including felons and drug dealers. If police find those people with guns, they are arrested and the guns are seized.
City Council Member Kevin McCarty, who sponsored the ordinance last year, said the results show "we've made our neighborhoods a little safer."
City officials said the National Rifle Association has threatened to sue the city over the ordinance, claiming it is a violation of the Second Amendment.
City Attorney Eileen Teichert said she was confident the city could defend that litigation.
City police seized guns ranging from 50-year-old rifles to a high-powered shotgun labeled a "destructive device" by the federal government, police said. In the past year, 53 people have been charged with felonies related to the seizures, many of them in federal court.
Of the 74 people who purchased ammunition and were prohibited from having guns, 62 had felony convictions, 11 were second strikers and five were gang members, police said.
McCarty said the ordinance was "drafted with the second amendment in mind" and that city officials "shouldn't be bullied" by the threat of litigation to repeal the law.
Similar legislation is being considered statewide. Democratic Assemblyman Kevin de León of Los Angeles sponsored the measure after Los Angeles police saw people circumventing a similar city ordinance by buying their ammunition in neighboring cities. The bill is being held up in the Assembly Appropriations Committee.
A study in Los Angeles found that 3 percent of those who purchase ammunition are felons, a number that adds up to 10,000 rounds of ammo a month, said de León's chief of staff, Dan Reeves.
"We're very strict on firearms, but it seems anything goes with ammunition," Reeves said.
Gun violence has become an increasingly visible issue in Sacramento.
While shooting deaths of teenagers are down this year, more people 21 years old or younger were killed by guns in Sacramento County in 2007 than in any year in the past decade.
"Dangerous weapons should be out of the hands of dangerous people," said Amanda Wilcox of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence's Sacramento chapter.
Call The Bee's Ryan Lillis, (916) 321-1085.
