A new federal strike force launched by the U.S. Justice Department on Thursday will focus on disrupting the illegal flow of weapons into Los Angeles from neighboring states while also going after makers of local “ghost guns,” according to local and federal authorities.
Both sources of weapons are a major driver of violence within L.A., and local officials hope their disruption will help stem the city’s increasing levels of shootings and homicides.
Los Angeles Police Chief Michel Moore said ghost guns — many of them locally made — now account for a third of all weapons recovered by the LAPD. Others, he said, come from known trafficking routes into L.A. from sellers in Arizona, Nevada and Utah.
“Suspects go to those locations,” Moore said, “buy those weapons because of lax or permissive gun laws and then traffic those weapons here and sell them to the market of people who are not lawfully able to own or possess or purchase a weapon.”
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