Posted on 11/09/2005 7:00:49 AM PST by Mr. Mojo
True to their left-leaning reputation, San Francisco voters decided by a wide margin to ban the possession of handguns within city limits.
Proposition H makes it illegal for residents to keep handguns in their homes or businesses and prohibits the manufacture and sale of all firearms and ammunition in San Francisco. The City’s new ordinance will be the strictest in the nation, since it requires existing guns to be turned in to law enforcement officials by April 1. Law enforcement personnel and others who require weapons for work are exempt from the measure.
Supervisor Chris Daly, the author of the ballot measure, said the law was needed to reduce the number of guns in a city plagued by gun violence, with 88 homicides so far this year, about 60 percent of them by handguns, according to officials. Fewer guns in The City, according to Daly, means fewer guns for criminals to get their hands on.
“This is sensible gun control,” Daly said. “Prop. H isn’t going to solve violence in San Francisco, but it’s one part that we can do to get a handle on this epidemic of violence, most of it handgun-related.”
A coalition of organizations opposed to Prop. H, led by the National Rifle Association, have vowed they’ll be in court today to begin their legal challenge to San Francisco’s new law, arguing that cities do not have the authority to regulate firearms under California law.
“If you ban firearms, the criminals will have them and the law-abiding citizens won’t,” said Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. “San Francisco will be a magnet for crimes.”
Gottlieb said he was involved in the legal effort that took down a 1982 measure banning guns in San Francisco, which was signed into law by then-Mayor Dianne Feinstein.
Daly said the new proposition was carefully crafted to avoid the same legal traps that allowed the courts to reject The City’s first gun measure.
Only two other major U.S. cities — Washington in 1976 and Chicago in 1982 — have implemented similar handgun bans. Unlike San Francisco’s ordinance, however, both cities permitted residents to keep guns owned when the ordinance went into effect.
Give it a couple. It takes a while for criminals to adjust to the idea of disarmed victims. That first live break-in will be psychologically difficult. Give mayhem a chance. In any case the media will be trumpeting the beneficial results a year from now regardless of the actual results. But in 10 or 20 years it will be obvious like D.C.
Today's headline:
"San Francisco Bans Guns,Women And Minorities Hit Hardest"
Tomorrow's headline;
California reelects Gray Davis, bans handguns statewide, raises taxes on evil rich, mandates free healthcare, .....
Don't know but CA, in general, has been anti-gun for a long time so I wouldn't doubt some record is present that would enable a mass confiscation.
Same tired old flawed logic.....too bad a whole city is stupid enough to buy into it....
There aren't many gun owners in San Francisco now. Things won't change noticeably.
If there's one thing a devout, wealthy San Francisco liberal won't tolerate, it's an unfamiliar dark face walking around his or her neighborhood.
I'm glad the ban passed. Maybe it will wake us all up to the fact that the gun grabbers are still at it.
This may be the case that makes it to the Supreme Court. This is a violation of the Second Amendment, and someone is going to sue to keep San Francisco from violating their Constitutional rights!! I hope Judge Alito is on the bench when it arrives at the SC. We can't let San Francisco get away with this because other cities are going to follow suit.
Surprisingly, many good little sheeple will willingly give up their handguns because of this.
I guess that's one way of looking at it.
Just chalk it up to another city I'll never visit.
$145! I do wonder about the 6.5” barrel – illegal in many States. Virginia bans the possession of “sawed off shotguns” with a barrel length less than 18”, but there could be exclusion – “originally designed as a shoulder weapon”. The Super Shorty wasn’t designed as a shoulder weapon – and if the barrel isn’t from a Mossberg and is manufactured in house it might get by.
--exactly. When I lived there twenty-five years ago, mention of gun ownershop or -gasp- NRA membership would get you out of a conversation about as soon as mentioning voting for Reagan--(I'm not kidding)--
I wonder if any of the San Fran newspapers will allow me to place an ad, offering to store citizen's handgun in my North Carolina gun safe?
LOL
Vote Early, Vote Often
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1518679/posts
Good...I hope that some of our Texas crooks who can read English will be moving to SF shortly, where they can ply their trade with much less risk.
So if some politically minded LE supervisor has time on his hands, and happens to have a list…
All they have to do is give a deadline for turning them in and a lot of people will willingly give them up. Make just a couple of highly publicized raids and the sheeple will rush to disarm themselves, never realizing that they have just been victimized by the government.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.