LOS ANGELES (CNS) - Responding to a week of mass shootings that killed nearly three dozen people, Los Angeles city leaders today reiterated their calls for stricter gun-control laws.
``The nation is reeling from these events,'' City Attorney Mike Feuer said at the start of a news conference in his office on a separate topic. He said he has called on congressional leaders to enact stricter gun laws, such as expanded background checks and a ban on high-capacity magazine firearms.
``Our nation depends, for our future, on leaders who bring us together, rather than leadership that preys on potential to divide us from each other,'' Feuer said.
City Councilman Mitch O'Farrell, meanwhile, pointed to a motion he introduced last week calling the Los Angeles Police Department to report on its ability to track confiscated firearms and registration numbers and determine whether the weapons are legal under state law. The councilman also called for an annual report from the department on the types of firearms seized in Los Angeles that came from outside California.
``Some states have no form of gun safety legislation whatsoever, and sometimes these firearms are transported across state lines and used in crimes in California,'' O'Farrell said in a statement Monday. ``We must continue doing everything in our power advocating for gun safety legislation here in Los Angeles.''
The motion will be heard in the Public Safety Committee in the coming weeks.
City Council President Herb Wesson last week Tuesday introduced a motion that would require entertainment venues that restrict off-duty officers from carrying a firearm while on the premises to provide a secure lock-box to store the firearms.
LAPD Chief Michel Moore told reporters Monday that the recent shootings should be a call to action, saying it's time that ``America wakes up and understands that this shouldn't be a checkmate. That we can work beyond this.''
President Donald Trump on Monday wrote on Twitter that legislators should ``come together and get strong background checks, perhaps marrying this legislation with desperately needed immigration reform.'' He also called for the Department of Justice to enact the death penalty in swift fashion against those found guilty of carrying out mass shootings.
Speaking to the nation Monday, Trump called for improved efforts to identify ``mentally disturbed individuals who may commit acts of violence.''
``Mental illness and hatred pulls the trigger, not the gun,'' he said. ``... We must make sure that those judged to pose a grave risk to public safety do not have access to firearms.''
Richard Sherman, chairman of the Los Angeles County Republican Party, issued a statement calling on politicians on both sides of the aisle ``to come together to end this long cycle of violence which has overtaken our country.''
``Locally, we need to continue to work on making Los Angeles County a safer place ot live and work,'' he said. ``We need to expand access to mental health care, improve our education system, solve the homelessness crisis and fix our state's affordability problem.''