Calabasas City Council orders all home firearms be secured

Calabasas became the first city in Los Angeles County to approve a gun safety ordinance that requires all firearms at home to be locked up.

The City Council unanimously approved the ordinance at its Aug. 14 meeting. The new law will be formally adopted at a council session later this month.

The ordinance requires any firearm stored in a residence to be locked in a container or be disabled with a trigger lock approved by the California Department of Justice. The law covers all pistols, rifles, shotguns and assault weapons.

Federal law requires firearms be locked only if they are being transferred or sold. The Calabasas law says even if just inside the home, weapons must remain under lock and key.

Mayor David Shapiro said he and Councilmember Alicia Weintraub pushed for the ordinance after meeting with members of the Lost Hills Sheriff’s Department, the Las Virgenes Unified School District and the social action group Women Against Gun Violence.

“We felt as a city, as individuals, we needed to do something to try and effect or put a stop to any gun violence we could, even to stop accidental gun violence,” Shapiro said.

“Whether that’s children in homes who happen to get their hands on guns and shoot someone else, or whether it’s a theft at a home and that gun is subsequently used in a shooting,” the mayor said.

Shapiro was one of 220 mayors from across the country who signed his name to a letter urging the United States Senate to take action on national gun safety.

A representative from the office of State Assembly member Jesse Gabriel (D-San Fernando Valley), whose district includes Calabasas, issued a statement supporting the ordinance.

“Unsafe storage of firearms accounts for a significant number of gun injuries and deaths. According to the Giffords Law Center (to Prevent Gun Violence) 89% of accidental shooting deaths among children occur in the home and most of these deaths occur when children are playing unsupervised with an unsecured, loaded gun,” Gabriel’s statement said.

“We cannot stand idly by as gun violence continues to threaten the safety of our residents as well as that of people throughout the nation and world,” Shapiro said.

Calabasas Councilmember James Bozajian backs the measure but said his support for gun safety should not be misconstrued as a call to repeal the Second Amendment.

“I support the ban on assault weapons; I supported it back when it wasn’t necessarily that popular. I support the waiting period and most other things in California, if not everything California has passed,” Bozajian said. “I do not support repealing the Second Amendment. I think citizens should lawfully be allowed to have firearms in their homes.”

Weintraub said the ordinance does not mean sheriff’s deputies will go door to door checking on residents’ guns, but added, “We’re trying to send a message that the city is taking this seriously. If people become aware that there is an unlocked gun in somebody’s house, now there’s a way to enforce that.”

The Calabasas gun law is punishable as a misdemeanor.

Follow Ian Bradley on Twitter @Ian_reports.