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LOS ANGELES — People buying guns from Los Angeles dealers would have to be fingerprinted under a measure proposed by a City Council committee. 

The Public Safety Committee on Monday recommended drafting the ordinance and sending it to the full council for consideration. 

Councilman Mike Feuer said his proposal would help authorities track down convicted felons who are barred by law from purchasing firearms. 

The city already requires people buying ammunition at gun shops to provide their thumbprints. 

Police Chief Bernard C. Parks and the city attorney’s office have endorsed the concept but gun store owners criticized it. 

“It’s a bad idea,” said Jim Hoag of Hoag Gun Works in Canoga Park.  

“We’re going to more regulation, which will lead to confiscation. It wouldn’t touch felons. The only ones it will affect are law-biding citizens.” 

Steve Jacobson, who owns a gun store and pawnshop near the Coliseum, said the state Department of Justice already checks the applications of gun buyers to make sure they are not convicted felons. 

“It’s just a waste of time,” Jacobson said of the proposed city measure. “There are so many regulations on guns already. A lot of gun stores are going out of business.” 

Feuer said state background checks blocked gun sales to nearly 5,000 people in California in 1999, including 17 convicted killers. 

But Steve Helsley of the National Rifle Association said felons caught trying to buy guns from licensed dealers are rarely prosecuted. 

“This is political posturing,” he said, noting that Feuer is running for city attorney. 

Fingerprints would give prosecutors more confidence in filing cases, said Carmel Sella, special assistant city attorney. 

For privacy reasons, the gun dealers would keep the records for their own stores, and the prints would only be examined by the government if the state felt a particular application was suspicious, Sella said.