Posted on 01/09/2008 3:06:46 PM PST by decimon
SAN FRANCISCO -- San Francisco's controversial handgun ban, approved by city voters in 2005, suffered another legal setback Wednesday when it was overturned by a state appeals court panel that ruled it conflicted with state law.
Appeals Court Justice Ignazio Ruvolo was critical of the measure, known as Proposition H, in the unanimous 3-0 decision. Ruvolo wrote for the court that "local governments are well advised to tread lightly" when regulating firearms.
The justice wrote further that the state laws were intended to balance the "interest of the general public to be protected from the criminal misuse of firearms" and the interest of "law-abiding citizens to purchase and use firearms to deter crime, to help police fight crime" and for hunting and recreation.
The court ruled in a lawsuit filed by the National Rifle Association, four firearms rights groups and seven individuals to challenge the ban. It upheld a similar ruling in which San Francisco Superior Court Judge James Warren found in 2006 that state laws pre-empted the local ban.
The measure, which never went into effect, would have barred almost all city residents from possessing handguns and prohibited all residents from selling, manufacturing or distributing the firearms within the city.
Exceptions would have been allowed for law enforcement officers and others such as security guards who need guns for professional purposes.
The measure was described to voters as being intended to address the serious problem of handgun violence in the city.
In her inaugural address Tuesday, San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris said getting guns off the city's streets was one of the main priorities of her second term.
"Over the last four years, 284 of the homicides in San Francisco -- nearly 80 percent -- were committed with a gun," Harris said. "So we are working with D.A.s around the country, drawing a line in the sand on the issue of illegal guns."
Harris' office has joined with other district attorneys to file "friend of the court" briefs to the U.S. Supreme Court as it considers the Second Amendment and what it means in terms of gun ownership.
Prepare for a bunch of ranting and raving in the Streets of San fran.
***Ruvolo wrote for the court that “local governments are well advised to tread lightly” when regulating firearms.***
That’s a great line right there.
bump
“The justice wrote further that the state laws were intended to balance the “interest of the general public to be protected from the criminal misuse of firearms” and the interest of “law-abiding citizens to purchase and use firearms to deter crime, to help police fight crime” and for hunting and recreation.”
Hizzoner missed the most important interest...that of protecting ourselves from our own government run amok.
Someone beat me with a similar thread here: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1951030/posts
Yours is the second thread. But it is more informative because the first thread was linked to the San Jose Mercury News and required logging in to read it, so there wasn’t as much to evaluate.
It upheld a similar ruling in which San Francisco Superior Court Judge James Warren found in 2006 that state laws pre-empted the local ban.
AND the federal constitution pre-empts state laws.
It says in the tenth amendment what is up to the feds and what is up to the states.
So, the solution to getting "illegal" guns off the streets, is to make legal guns illegal?
How about getting "illegal" cars off the streets, by making legal cars illegal?
How about getting "illegal" cans of spraypaint off the streets, by making spray cans illegal?
Why not get "illegal", crooked 'Rat politicians off the streets, by making 'Rat politicians illegal?
Way back in the Stoned Age, when I lived there, I would have just settled for them getting the flying rats, bums, "agressive panhandlers", and general freaks off the streets & out of the parks.
By George, I think you've got it!
Listen...we need to get the illegal guns off the streets, right? And we don't know where those illegal guns are, right? Well, the obvious solution to this dilemma is to make illegal those guns we know the location of. Problem solved.
They just go after what ever is the easist.
Court agrees to consider D.C. gun ban (The court...will limit its ruling to one question!!!)
The court said yesterday it will limit its ruling to one question: whether D.C. laws "violate the Second Amendment rights of individuals who are not affiliated with any state-regulated militia, but who wish to keep handguns and other firearms for private use in their homes."
Parker v. Washington D.C. in HTML courtesy of zeugma.
We also note that at least three current members (and one former member) of the Supreme Court have read “bear Arms” in the Second Amendment to have meaning beyond mere soldiering: “Surely a most familiar meaning [of ‘carries a firearm’] is, as the Constitution’s Second Amendment (’keepand bear Arms’) and Black’s Law Dictionary . . . indicate: ‘wear, bear, or carry . . . upon the person or in the clothing or in a pocket, for the purpose . . . of being armed and ready for offensive or defensive action in a case of conflict with another person.” Muscarello v. United States, 524 U.S. 125, 143 (1998) (Ginsburg, J., dissenting, joined by Rehnquist, C.J., Scalia, J.,and Souter, J.) (emphasis in original). Based on the foregoing, we think the operative clause includes a private meaning for”bear Arms.”
Supreme Court rulings certain to fuel this year's presidential campaigns
That we can safely ignore.
What we do need to watch for is the bill that will amend the state’s preemption law.
It’s coming, just as sure as night follows day.
Kamala Harris is oh so tough on guns, unless you use your AK to murder a police officer, in which case she will see that you don’t get the death penalty.
While I don’t need another hand gun at the moment I think I’ll go buy something big and noisy just to celebrate.
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