LOS ANGELES (CNS) - The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department today is closing gun stores in unincorporated areas of the county and the 42 cities where it provides law enforcement, after suspending efforts earlier this week following the county counsel's office declaring gun stores essential businesses during the COVID-19 outbreak.

``We're going to shut down gun sales and ammunition sales outside of law enforcement and private security organizations,'' said Sheriff Alex Villanueva. The department will defer to individual chiefs of police to decide to close gun stores in the 45 cities in Los Angeles that have their own law enforcement agencies, according to Villaneuva.

``The city of L.A., for example, they have banned all gun shops, they closed them throughout the duration of this pandemic, and the city of Pasadena is going to follow our standard,'' Villanueva said.

Villanueva expressed concern about first-time gun owners in isolation with others during the shelter-in-place order.

``What we're trying to discourage is panic gun-buying,'' Villanueva said. ``You have now a bunch of people who are normally not all crammed into a house confined together, and at some point in time when tempers start flaring, people that are unfamiliar with a new handgun -- a new shiny toy -- we're going to expect to see an increase in domestic violence, with tragic results.''

In an interview Monday with Fox11, Villanueva said gun shops would be closed under the coronavirus orders requiring nonessential businesses to close. ``We will be closing them, they are not an essential function,'' Villanueva told the station. ``I'm a supporter of the Second Amendment, I'm a gun owner myself, but now you have the mixture of people that are not formerly gun owners and you have a lot more people at home.''

``And anytime you introduce a firearm in a home, from what I understand from CDC studies, it increases fourfold the chance that someone is gonna get shot,'' he said.

On Tuesday, the sheriff's department temporarily suspended enforcement efforts to close gun stores during the COVID-19 outbreak. The decision was made after the county counsel's office declared gun stores essential businesses under Gov. Gavin Newsom's statewide order, according to Deputy Trina Schrader of the Sheriff's Information Bureau.

City News Service reached out to the sheriff's department for clarification about why efforts were continued Thursday to close the gun stores, but did not immediately hear back.