A tragic shooting in San Diego’s gaslamp district that killed one man and left four others injured in April was the trigger March For Our Lives San Diego needed to stand up and demand change.
“We want to make sure that we can decrease the amount of gun violence that is happening in our communities and in our country as a whole,” said Max Costen, executive director of March For Our Lives San Diego.
The group formed after the Parkland mass shooting rallies for gun violence prevention.
“We know this is an issue and we need to face it head-on and make sure that our legislators can make some change,” Costen said.
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Since the Gaslamp shooting, where police say a ghost gun was used, the group has focused its efforts on educating the community on the dangers of these untraceable weapons.
According to San Diego Police, they have recovered over 1,000 firearms since the start of the year. Of those 20% of them have been ghost guns.
“We need to regulate ghost guns more to make sure they can't be used with this loophole,” Costen said. “That someone [can’t] get precursor parts to a gun, put them together, and go commit a mass murder.”
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Late last week, the group submitted a letter to both city and county officials demanding they address the problem.
In the letter, they listed seven demands. Among those were including ghost guns in the definition of a firearm in the city and county's municipal codes, implementing a safe storage ordinance to include unassembled gun parts, and banning the sale of firearms on the city or county-owned property.
The list goes on to include gun violence prevention bills they hope to see pass.
“We want to make sure we are implementing these measures before communities get hurt,” Costen said.
No answer from officials yet but the group remains hopeful their efforts will help prevent more senseless killings.
