A Los Angeles County sheriff has tabled efforts to close gun stores operating amid emergency regulations demanding all “non-essential” businesses lock their doors.
Sheriff Alex Villanueva pledged on Tuesday to close each gun store in his jurisdiction “one by one.” The next day, Villanueva announced over Twitter that he had suspended checking in on gun stores after county legal authorities questioned whether gun stores were deemed “non-essential” under California law, according to the Los Angeles Times.
“LA County Sheriff’s Dept. Enforcement efforts to close non-essential businesses have been suspended. CA Gov. Gavin Newsom to determine what qualifies as a non-essential business,” Villanueva tweeted.
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LA County Sheriff’s Dept. Enforcement efforts to close non-essential businesses have been suspended. CA Gov. Gavin Newsom to determine what qualifies as a non-essential business. Please click to view story https://t.co/HrRD8VKcUG
— Alex Villanueva (@LACoSheriff) March 25, 2020
On Tuesday, Villanueva said that his office would be making sure gun stores were complying with the law against nonessential businesses: “We will be closing them, they are not an essential function.”
“I’m a supporter of the Second Amendment — I’m a gun owner myself, but now you have the mixture of people that are not formerly gun owners, and you have a lot more people at home, and anytime you introduce a firearm in a home, from what I understand from CDC studies, it increases fourfold the chance that someone is gonna get shot,” Villanueva said at the time.
California has reported having the third-highest tally of coronavirus cases in the United States. The state had nearly 2,700 cases by Wednesday afternoon and reported 58 deaths from the disease.
