L.M. WON’T REQUIRE GUNS BE LOCKED AT HOME

La Mesa won’t require gun owners to lock up firearms at home after a narrow City Council vote, but the city will launch a public education campaign advocating for safe storage.

The defeated ordinance would have mandated guns be placed in a “locked container” or “disabled with a trigger lock” unless the owner was wearing it or had the firearm in their “immediate control.”

“I live in La Mesa, I work in La Mesa and I haven’t heard of a gun problem, a gun stealing problem, a gun murder problem, a gun suicide problem or an accidental gun shooting problem,” Councilmember Laura Lothian said last week at the council’s first in-person public meeting in more than two years.

She and two colleagues voted against the proposal, which failed 2-3.

The council did unanimously endorse sending police to in-person events, in addition to social media posts, to educate residents about how firearms should be safely stored.

Police Chief Ray Sweeney spoke in favor of the education campaign, but did not say whether the full ordinance was necessary.

Twenty-eight guns have been stolen in La Mesa since 2019, Sweeney said. Some residents had their entire safes taken because they weren’t bolted down.

During the same period, there was one gun homicide, and investigators are still not sure where that firearm came from, the chief added. There has also been one gun suicide each of the last three years, all with the owner’s firearm.

“If we can avoid one death a year, or the year after, then I think it’s worth it,” Vice Mayor Jack Shu said in support of the restrictions. He and Councilmember Colin Parent were the only ones who voted in favor.

Had the ordinance passed, violators would have been guilty of an infraction, a minor offense that comes with a fine. However, if an unlocked gun was stolen, the owner would not have been penalized for reporting the theft.

Four members of the public spoke in favor of the proposal, including a landlord worried about how weapons are stored in her building and current and former teachers afraid for their students.

“State law is full of holes,” said Therese Hymer, who is on the board of directors for the local nonprofit San Diegans for Gun Violence Prevention.

California requires gun owners to keep weapons away from children and people legally barred from using firearms, but the state does not explicitly require weapons be locked up inside the home.

The ordinance was needed to head off both suicide attempts and accidents, Hymer said.

In recent years, a 10-yearold Miramar Ranch boy, a 12-year-old in Chula Vista and a teenager in National City were accidentally shot. Two died.

Two people spoke against the proposal.

Guns already came with locks and the state required extensive training, said Gary Wyer, a nurse and coowner of Firearms Unlimited California, a gun shop in El Cajon. More rules failed to address deeper public health problems like crime and drug abuse, he said.

Only two states, Massachusetts and Oregon, generally require all guns be stored with a lock, according to the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, a San Francisco-based nonprofit that advocates for tighter gun laws. Thirteen states have at least some rules regarding locks.