Santa Ana Taking Aim at Illegal Firearms

Santa Ana Police Capt. Dan McCoy told two dozen members of a gun control group this week that a $350,000 federal grant will help police crack down on rogue gun dealers and trace the source of illegal firearms.

Santa Ana’s Police Department was one of three law enforcement agencies nationwide to win Firearms Trafficking Program grants. Santa Ana officials expect to use the money to reduce the number of guns distributed across Orange County, McCoy said.

In a speech in Orange to the Orange County Citizens for the Prevention of Gun Violence, McCoy said that, of 615 firearms seized by law enforcement agents countywide in 1993 and 1994, about 85% were from Santa Ana.

McCoy said that as far back as 1993, city police have worked with other government agencies to track firearms. Also in 1993, Santa Ana passed an ordinance requiring gun dealers to have a city license as well as a federal license.

McCoy said that letters sent out to the city’s 113 gun dealers in 1994 informing them of the city ordinance resulted in 23 of them surrendering their licenses.

The federal grant, which took effect Jan. 1, will fund two police investigators and two more from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to help monitor the remaining 90 gun dealers in the city.

The grant will also help the city study the issue of so-called kitchen counter gun dealers who sell firearms, typically on a cash basis, out of their homes. Such dealers are more likely to sell to ineligible buyers, such as convicted felons, McCoy said.