Now We’re Getting Somewhere (San Fran gun ban)

NRO ^ | November 09, 2005 | John R. Lott Jr.

[neverdem]

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November 09, 2005,

10:53 a.m.

Now We’re Getting Somewhere

A silver lining in a gun ban.

By John R. Lott Jr.

Who wrote the following?

"[I]t is possible that once residents gave up their handguns, San Francisco would be seen as an easy hunting ground for criminals who have no intention of giving up their own pistols."

Is it the NRA claiming that gun laws disarm law-abiding citizens and not criminals? No. Amazingly enough it was the San Francisco Chronicle, one of the more liberal newspapers in the U.S., in an editorial arguing against Proposition H, the initiative that passed on Tuesday to ban handguns in the city.

Yet, despite this reasonableness, the initiative passed with a safe margin, 58 percent of the vote. Perhaps that isn't very surprising in a city where a proposition banning military recruiters at public high schools and colleges got even more support and almost 80 percent voted against parental notification for minors getting abortions.

Ultimately, though, the vote didn't mean much of anything. As San Francisco's Mayor, Gavin Newsom, a strong supporter of gun control, said, the ban "clearly will be thrown out [in court]... It's really just a public opinion poll at the end of the day." State law prohibits local jurisdictions from enacting such a ban, and an even weaker law requiring handgun registration that was enacted by the San Francisco County Board of Supervisors in 1982 was thrown out by the California state supreme court.

The silver lining was how forcefully many organizations such as the police came out against the gun ban. Besides discussing the increases in murder occurring in Washington, D.C. after it instituted a handgun ban, the officers stated: "When we disarm honest, law-abiding citizens, we contribute to empowering criminals and endangering society-at-large." They directly acknowledged how important it was for people to be able to defend themselves with a handgun when the police couldn't be there.

It would be nice if San Francisco could avoid the increases in violent crime rates experienced by Washington, D.C. and Chicago after their handgun bans.

But Bill O'Reilly probably said it best recently on the Fox News Channel when he noted: "Once I saw what happened in Hurricane Katrina, I said every American household should have a firearm. If there's a tremendous earthquake in San Francisco and looting, you don't want your family protected? You don't want a firearm in your house? You're living in the world of Oz."

It is one thing for a group such as the Pink Pistols, a gay-rights group that advocates people being able to defend themselves, to make these claims, but it's a broader group talking about the importance of people being able to defend themselves and their loved ones these days. The fact that so many people discuss and debate how a gun ban can lead to more crime itself reflects how much the debate has been changing.

— John R. Lott Jr., a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, is the author of More Guns, Less Crime and The Bias Against Guns.

	http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/lott200511091053.asp

[45Auto]

Its the confiscation part that is amusing; according to Cal DOJ records, some 22,000 pistols and revolvers were acquired by SF residents over the past decade. This is where the ACLU gets its butt in the wringer since if a confiscation is ordered, then it becomes a 4th Amendment issue. I'd like to see the Board of Stupes try it.

[RetiredArmy]

I guess because they are actually dumber and more stupid that we first thought.

[CyberAnt]

3 guesses where the next terrorist attack will be ..??

[CFC__VRWC]

Both the San Francisco Chronicle and Examiner posted masthead editorials, which I reposted here at FR, as well as a real fringe lefty local SF paper told the voters to vote no on Proposition H.

Both the NRA and the Second Amendment Foundation have announced they will challenge Prop. H in court. Watch these two papers do an about face and go after these groups with all the fury they can muster. And once the courts toss it out, they will drag out the tired old "Dodge City" and "bloodbath in the streets" canards yet again.

Their opposition to H is pure BS, a phony sop to conservatives using a dead letter doomed to being thrown out by the courts to try and eliminate the bias charge, and keep from looking like flip-flopping idiots when they go after the NRA and the SAF for "overturning the will of the people." They also see it as a means to demagogue the issue and get the state law changed so that a future Prop. H will stand as the law.

[Integrityrocks]

Ok. let me get this straight. 1) New Law: Criminals now have the advantage in San Fran. 2) New Law: More babies will be aborted in San Fran. 3) New Law: Public school teachers still get a free pass to be freeloaders after 2 years. 4)Taxes are going up.

So, the liberals are aborting their young, educating the ones who do live with incompetent teachers and sending them unarmmed into a criminal ridden society that they have to pick up the tab for. Ya... a regular garden of Eden there.

[Ancesthntr]

I don't care what wakes people up to the evils of gun control. When they join us, I welcome them.

+1, especially when millions of people listen to or watch the guy who just woke up. While he was hopelessly naive before Katrina, that experience and his quotes about guns being needed by the average person for self-defense against thugs make it virtually impossible for him to reverse his position.

[karnage]

Plus it is possible for people to learn, grow and change. Even know-it-alls.

[Ancesthntr]

I'm glad he finally gets it, but why does it take a Katrina event for him or anyone else to see something so obvious as our right to own guns? Such a conversion strikes me as being very fickle and I can easily see him switching to an anti-gun stance when some other event happens.

Sometimes it takes a big event to get someone to really think about an issue. Would you rather have him, and others, not convert to the pro-gun side? Besides, it'll be hard for them to switch back to being anti-2A, simply because any of us can remind them about Katrina and other situations where the police can't protect the average person. In BOR's case, he's now got lots of words on the record - and for him to change his mind and become anti-2A again would make him look like an utter fool (as opposed to merely being a self-centered bloviating populist).

I don't like to turn away converts, because once they see the light, it is hard to go back. Besides, we should give them some positive reinforcement - make them feel welcome into our fraternity, not spurned because they didn't join. Heck, BOR still doesn't get the militia aspect of the BOR...but now that he has opened his eyes a bit, it will be easier for someone, or several someones, to discuss the issue with him, to take him to a range, etc. Now he's open to facts, and the pro-gun folks that know him or who can get access to him should take advantage of that.

[Ancesthntr]

Plus it is possible for people to learn, grow and change. Even know-it-alls.

One thing that I've learned is that no one has all of life's answers. We're all wrong sometimes (though Liberals are definitely "more equal" than the average person in that regard), but that is merely part of being human. Ignorance, which is a lack of information or experience, is no crime. Being unwilling to learn is, IMHO, about the worst thing a person can do.

IMHO, O'Reilly was merely ignorant regarding guns and gun laws before Katrina. Now he is less ignorant, and has recognized that he was at least partially wrong before. That does a lot to dispell my previous distaste for him, because I used to view him as just another self-important guy who ran off at the mouth. Don't get me wrong, he still does that a lot, which turns me off, but at least he's shown a capacity to learn. Now is the time for someone who's really pro-gun that knows him to take him shooting, to show him that semi-autos aren't machine guns, to show him the law that makes bazookas just slightly more difficult to get than a shotgun, etc. I just don't get people who condemn those who have admitted that they were wrong, and who are now moving in the right direction.

[karnage]

I'm witchoo.

[GBA]

Fair enough. I can't really argue with anything you say with regard to the everyday people I interact with. He does have a certain following and thus some influence, but I don't trust the staying power of his newly found opinion.

There have been many events an older, seasoned newsman like BOR would have seen, each with elements of mob rule, chaos, looting, where each individual is responsible for his or her own protection and safety. Other examples include individual home invasions and other crimes where a gun toting individual saved the day, the statistics regarding conceal carry law's effect of lowering crime and other contries' and city municpalities' experiences of gun banning icreasing crime, notably violent crime. He must have missed all of that.

I'm glad he's come around to the common sense point of view, just don't count on it lasting. When next event where guns and/or gun ownership is put in a negative light, don't be surprised when he again changes his opinion.