CALIFORNIA, USA — Major California law enforcement agencies have reported that approximately 30% or more of all the guns they recover in crimes are privately manufactured firearms.
ABC10 spoke with Garen Wintemute, an emergency medicine physician at UC Davis Medical Center who also directs the California Firearm Violence Research Center.
Privately manufactured firearms, more commonly known as "ghost guns," are made completely outside the regulatory framework, don't have serial numbers, are completely untraceable if used in a crime and have no record of their existence.
"We need to think about strategies that make it harder to acquire ghost guns or ammunition," Wintemute told ABC10.
On Feb. 28, the gunman who killed his three daughters, a chaperone who was supervising his visit with the children and himself at an Arden-Arcade church was armed with an unregistered “ghost gun."
Authorities do not know how the shooter obtained the gun despite him being under a restraining order that prohibited him from possessing a firearm.
Following last week's incident, Wintemute says it is important for everyone to recognize what strategies will be effective in preventing this from happening again.
Wintemute says that, in order for law enforcement to intervene and do something about a gun, they need to know that it's there. However, ghost guns are not easily traceable, and it makes it hard for law enforcement to do something about them.
In October, California added ghost guns to the list of weapons that can be legally seized under gun violence restraining orders.
"Right now, authorities are simply going to the suspect's door and in essence saying, 'Hey, sorry, but you cannot have those guns anymore. Please give them to us,'" Wintemute said. "However, those laws are not routinely enforced."
Wintemute says it will be very expensive to routinely enforce those laws, so the state, thus far, has chosen not to take that step.
Wintemute says people can also help prevent gun violence by thinking about whether or not they want to be a gunowner. He noted that, in households where guns are present, the risk of death goes up. He also said that people can become part of their community efforts to prevent gun violence and to speak out if they see something happening.
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