State and regional law enforcement seized over 100 guns from people legally barred from owning them during a five-day sweep that spanned 51 cities in the greater Los Angeles area, officials announced Tuesday, Feb. 22.
Authorities checked on a total of 439 people listed in California’s Armed and Prohibited Persons System during the joint operation, State Attorney General Rob Bonta said during a news conference in Downtown LA Tuesday. A total of 114 guns and 49,148 rounds of ammunition were seized.
“When we confiscate an illegal firearm, we aren’t just taking a dangerous weapon off the streets in the wrong hands,” Bonta said. “We are preventing the next mass shooting, the next domestic disturbance, the next horrific act of gun violence.”
Last year, 278 people were killed and 1,499 were wounded by gunfire in Los Angeles alone. The LAPD wound up seizing 30 percent more guns that year than they did in 2020.
Combined efforts over the past several days from the California Department of Justice, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department as well as the Azusa, Los Angeles, Pasadena and Pomona police departments resulted in 13 arrests. Eight ghost guns and 17 rifles were among the weapons that were seized.
The remainder were 55 handguns, 19 rifles and 15 shotguns. In addition, 87 high-capacity magazines, which are illegal to own in California, were also collected.
So far in 2022, there have been 167 people shot and 364 shootings reported in the city, according to the most recent data available from the LAPD. Those numbers are both about 17% lower than similar stats recorded during the same period in 2021.
Acting Azusa Police Chief Rocky Wenrick noted, “Criminals and guns do not see boundaries. They cross city, county, state lines.”
“This past week we all in Azusa felt what gun violence is when one of our officers was shot,” he added. “And it reaffirms our commitment to end gun violence.”
California began the Armed and Prohibited Persons System in 2006, and remains the only state in the nation to keep a comprehensive database identifying people barred from owning guns, Bonta said. It includes the names of convicted felons, domestic violence suspects subject to restraining orders and people with prohibitive mental health conditions.
More than 20,000 guns have been seized from people in the system since it was created, Bonta said. There were over 25,000 people listed in the APPS database as of Jan. 1, 2021. Roughly 52% of them were in the system because of a felony conviction.
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