Posted on 12/19/2004 6:14:47 PM PST by Dan from Michigan
San Francisco Considers Handgun Ban
12/17/2004
Feature Story
by Dick Dahl
At a time when the gun lobby is making plans for a Congressional push to eliminate the handgun ban in Washington, D.C., officials in San Francisco are pushing to join Washington as the second major U.S. city to ban handguns.
Five of San Francisco's 11 city supervisors have submitted a proposal, to be offered to city residents for vote in a ballot question next year, which would prohibit the ownership of handguns by everyone except law-enforcement officers, members of the military, or security personnel. It would also prohibit the sale, manufacture, and distribution of handguns.
"San Francisco has had a homicide rate that's surged in the last year, mostly linked to handguns," said Bill Barnes, an aide to Supervisor Daly. "It's been something that people have been grappling with, and certainly eliminating handguns is something we're interested in doing."
As of Dec. 15, San Francisco had recorded 86 homicides compared with 70 all of last year, and most of them involved handguns. Nationally, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, 88% of all firearm homicides (in which the type of gun is known) involved handguns.
The next general election in San Francisco is next November, but supervisors wanted to move quickly to get the ballot question ready now, Barnes said, because there's a chance that Gov. Schwarzenegger will call a for a special statewide referendum on several issues earlier than that.
The gun lobby has responded to the proposal with promises to stop it, either preemptively or by subsequent litigation. Gun Owners of California (GOC) condemned the measure, saying such a ballot question might be illegal because the state doesn't require that private handguns be registered.
Barnes said that if GOC seeks legislation to prevent the city from issuing the ballot question, "we don't think it will be successful because nothing has been enacted. Legally, it seems pretty difficult to strike something from the ballot before it actually impacts anyone."
But as an article in the Dec. 17 San Francisco Chronicle points out, serious questions remain about how much teeth the proposed ban would actually have because of the absence of a gun-owner registry. Nevertheless, supporters of the proposal say that it would reduce the number of weapons available. Barnes pointed out that many of the guns used in crime were purchased legally and later stolen.
This is not the first time San Francisco has sought to ban handguns. In 1982, current U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein led such an effort when she became mayor after Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone were shot to death in city hall. That ban did not survive legal challenge, however, and was struck down on appeal because the city required that people like security personnel obtain permission from the city. Courts ruled that a permission requirement is tantamount to a license, which is something that cities in California aren't permitted to require.
Juliet Leftwich, managing attorney at the Legal Community Against Violence (LCAV) in San Francisco, said that her organization had not had a chance to examine the proposal, but that it is her understanding that the new measure has been written with that limitation in mind. Having not seen it, she said she couldn't offer any further legal analysis of it. "But from a public-policy perspective, yes, I can see why a governmental entity would want to ban handguns."
The gun lobby often chides Washington, D.C., the only major American city with a handgun ban, for also having a high homicide rate. But as Leftwich points out, after Washington, D.C. banned handguns in 1976, there was an immediate reduction in gun homicides. A study that was published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1991 examined the effects of the ban through 1987 and concluded that it saved 47 lives a year following its passage.
Like many other cities, however, Washington's homicide rate escalated sharply in the early `90s, and has declined since then. Despite the decline, though, Washington's homicide rate has been one of the highest in the nation, and the gun lobby says that's reason enough to end the ban. The NRA, in fact, has said that termination of the D.C. ban is one of its top legislative priorities for the upcoming 109th Congress.
Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-District of Columbia) has been adamant that the ban remain in place. "We make no claim that gun laws can solve our homicide problem," she said in March when Congress was considering S. 1414, introduced by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) to repeal the ban. "However we believe we can claim to a near certainty that the homicide rate in D.C. would be worse without our gun safety laws. The vast majority of guns used here originate in 10 states with more permissive gun safety laws, 59 percent in Maryland and Virginia alone. It would be unspeakable to add D.C. itself as a source of this carnage."
Barnes said that backers of the plan in San Francisco aren't taking anything for granted, "but knowing San Francisco pretty well, we think it's a town where people understand there's a problem; and we think that once people learn the facts, they'll be supportive."
Leftwich says that San Francisco has already adopted several progressive gun-violence-prevention measures recently, including a ban on .50-caliber firearms and a requirement that gun owners report the loss or theft of firearms. "San Francisco has historically been very active on the issue and willing to undertake innovative ideas," she said. "They're willing to push the envelope."
I sure hope they don't let the fact that this has failed every time it's been tried discourage them.
You can bet the restrictions on Rights will result in more innocent deaths, just to appease those whom like to swim in the blood of innocent victims of the crime of disarmament.
PING
Typical libiots........
It's a shame. San Francisco is such a lovely town, except for all the liberals.
Great point regarding AIDS. Now, what would be the equivalent to a trigger lock....
That exemption for "security personnel" would, of course, be most concerned with the bodyguards the rich leftists who are pushing this legislation hire.
You can sure that the elites of San Francisco will still be allowed armed guards. And the criminals will always have guns since they don't follow any laws.
"Now, what would be the equivalent to a trigger lock...."
That would make a fun Thread all by itself
I keep asking - "If these guys are really that upset about homicide, why don't they just ban murder?"
Next thing you know they will be banning drugs and then only outlaws will have drugs.
Trigger lock? If a big'o hairy butt won't stop them then nothing will.
"Juliet Leftwich, managing attorney at the Legal Community Against Violence (LCAV) in San Francisco"
What an appropriate name!
" A study that was published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1991 examined the effects of the ban through 1987 and concluded that it saved 47 lives a year following its passage."
I'm sure that the 'study' didn't even look at the number of lives saved by the defensive use of a handgun or those that will now be lost if guns are banned.
"Now, what would be the equivalent to a trigger lock...."
A chastity belt worn backwards?
One of our Supervisors, Matt Gonzales, graffiti'd the walls in his City Hall office recently. Just so you what kind of morons we're dealing with.
That was the infamous Arthur Kellermann study.
"New England Journal of Medicine" should tell anyone enough to know what they were going to say they discovered.
That mag is merely high cost bird cage liner.
actually this smacks of a set up for a test case to establish that the second amendment is not an individual right. I submit this is a trojan horse with an goal of establishing case law to reinvigorate gun control relegislation.
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