i wonder if they will use the permit lists??? hello... we're form the government and we're here to help pick up your guns!!!
keep telling yourself it's just a dream, it's just a dream...
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."
LMAO!!
i wonder if they will use the permit lists??? hello... we're form the government and we're here to help pick up your guns!!!
keep telling yourself it's just a dream, it's just a dream...
San Francisco is an example the whole United States should well observe. Mix up the agendas of socialist, anti-American, homosexual, multiculturalist, anarchist, lawless (except where property confiscation and critic silencing is supported), and anti-business whackos. Put the power of the city behind them. Put the power of the county behind them. What do you get?
An ugly vision of western civilization's declining future, is what you get. Whatever way we can go wrong, will go wrong here in SF.
Residents will be able to get mugged and killed without having to put with a lot of noise. Danged noise polution, anyhow. Progress!! Progress, I say, Watson!
Maybe we should encourage them to ban all weapons. That is, if it won't get through airport security, it's illegal. Then let's watch the fun.
Great idea. It's why New York and Washington D.C. are the safest cities in America.
Every day is like a bad dream.
Gaaahh ... I would just grit my teeth and ignore this happy nonsense, except that I live only an hour from San Francisco, and where Big Mama Duck leads, our local city council baby ducks eventually want to follow. If they get this ban through in SF, I'm sure it will be a matter of time until it's proposed locally. (Not to mention in many other cities around the country!)
We don't even OWN a gun, except for one rifle that is a family heirloom. But I'm thinking it's time for me to join or make a contribution to the NRA. (My dad is a lifetime member -- he'll be happy to hear that I'm thinking about that! :)
I joined the NRA before I owned a gun. (I have five now) To me it's a freedom issue more than the guns themselves.
That said, the feds (Ted Kennedy to be specific) last year tried to ban .30-30 ammunition (all centerfire ammo really) so that heirloom is a target. My two sinators Carl Lenin and Debbie Stab-me-now both quietly voted for it. Lenin's an anti and is up front about it. Debbie says she's 'pro-hunting'.
In Illinois, they went after shotguns and muzzleloaders under the guise of a .50 caliber ban.
I wonder if this could be challenged as a violation of the U.S. Constitution. Even apart from the Second Amendment, it seems to me that a law allowing handguns only to certain people and not others violates the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Didn't feinstein pack a piece (I mean carry a rod, I mean carry a gun) when she was mayorette of Sodom, I mean San francisco?
Glad to hear it, Hetty. Look into Gun Owners of America (California branch) or Jews for the Protection of Firearms Ownership, too (they don't mind if you're not Jewish). Saundra Duffy can connect you with the Second Amendment Sisters here in northern Kali. You know this whole business is racist. They're mainly thinking of right-wing white males like me and "gangster" blacks across the bay over in Oakland. Can't have those uppity honkies and blacks packing heat, now can we? Well what about the grandmother who wants to protect her children and their children from the drug dealers in the neighborhood? Fat chance, lady.
YEP. I think she even was deputized or something so she could carry in DC as well.
It is not the infamous Arthur Kellerman study, which was of Seattle, not Washington, D.C.
The Loftin study compared the number of murders in Washington, D.C. (which decreased), where the handgun ban was in force, to the surrounding counties in Maryland and Virginia (which increased), both before and after the D.C. handgun ban went into effect. Notice that I said "number of murders," not murder rates. The study ignored the fact that the population of D.C. declined during the study period, and the population of the surrounding counties increased during that same period. When murder rates in these areas were compared the ban shows no effect.
There are several other defects in the study as well, e.g., the study period ended just before the crack epidemic caused murder rates to soar in D.C., even though those data were available at the time the study was done.
They won't. Newsome and the board of supes have been crazy enough to drive business out of town and they're crazy enough to drive the crime rate up too.
I'll bet Hunter McPherson thought:
'Now, if only we had a handgun ban in place, this guy wouldn't kill me.
Rats.'
The city is betting on the behavior Wei Jingsheng laments among Frisco gun owners.
When Governments want to ban guns, it's because they fear the people they serve.
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