Superior Court Judge James Warren on Monday threw out San Francisco’s contentious ban on handguns, passed as a ballot initiative last November. The ruling threw out the entirety of Proposition H, which also included a ban on sales of guns and ammunition, as unsalvageable.
The day after the election, the National Rifle Association had filed suit to have the measure thrown out, and the city had not yet begun to enforce the measure pending the outcome of the case.
In today’s ruling, Judge James Warren said California law, which authorizes police agencies to issue handgun permits, implicitly prohibits a city or county from banning handgun possession by law-abiding adults.
That law “demonstrates the Legislature’s intent to occupy, on a statewide basis, the field of residential and commercial handgun possession to the exclusion of local government entities,” Warren wrote in a 30-page decision.
If the city were allowed to ban handguns within its borders, he said, nearby counties could be flooded by handguns no longer allowed in San Francisco. Such a possibility illustrates the need for gun ownership to be regulated on a state level, Warren said. — San Francisco Chronicle
The city is expected to appeal the decision.
Roger Combs spouts off about the decision: “Not exactly a ringing defense of individual liberty, but it’ll have to do for now.” The Second Amendment Foundation was more optimistic:
“The right of citizens to be safe in their homes and communities can never be subject to a popular vote,” said SAF founder Alan Gottlieb. “This ruling shows that the politicians who pushed this gun ban were wrong.
“It is astonishing that in a city where the leaders preach how open they are to diversity, they encouraged voters to blindly march to the polls last November to practice a blatant, egregious and despicable form of social bigotry against their neighbors and fellow citizens,” Gottlieb observed. “Working to deprive others of their property and their right to self-defense just because you don’t like firearms is morally repugnant, and with today’s ruling, the people who pushed Proposition H last fall should feel ashamed of themselves.” — Second Amendment Foundation
The San Francisco Police Officer’s Association had also opposed Proposition H, saying residents had a right to self-defense, that the gun ban would not reduce gun violence, and that it would be almost impossible to enforce.
Chalk one up for civil rights.
Proposition H illustrates why democracy is dangerous: In a democracy, a majority can simply vote to infringe the rights of a minority group, which is what the majority of voters did in San Francisco last November. Who would have thought San Francisco was so full of hate?
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forstand
Jun 13, 2006
Where I live has seen a small increase in violence and crime for reasons unknown. It is likely because more prisoners are being released.
I have a concealed carry permit (I use a non de plume, Google it if you don’t know what that is). I am aware of some of the laws concerning me.
I hope that I never have to use a gun but it is comforting to know that my 9 mm is in my console as I drive and my .45 is ready to defend my home (with a 12 ga. for backup). Intruders will not testify against me in court so mommas tell your sons to stay away if you don’t want to bury them. Do you know what the most recognized sound in the world is? The sound of a 12 ga. being racked.
It is interesting to see a California judge use the State’s concealed handgun permit process to overturn the City of SF’s gun ban. Hooray for common sense.
And hooray for Homeland Stupidity. This country needs more sites like this and I hope to obtain permission to link to it on my own blog.
Michael Hampton
Jun 13, 2006
Huh? You don’t need permission to link to anywhere.
Shannon
Jun 22, 2006
> reasons unknown. It is likely because more prisoners are being
> released.
Just speculation of course, could be a number of reasons. Incidentally the most easily identifiable correlation to rising
crime rates is the state of the economy. Domestic violence goes
up, petty crime goes up, drug use (and therefore drug trade and
hence drug-related violence) goes up.
If you want the crime rate to go down, give people fewer reasons
to commit them, and more and better reasons not to. Make everybody
happy, healthy, housed, and getting laid and crime will disappear. Banning guns won’t do it.
> I have a concealed carry permit (I use a non de plume,
> Google it if you don’t know what that is). I am aware
> of some of the laws concerning me.
Hopefully that was a typo, but for literacy’s sake I’d like to respectfully submit that’s “nom de plume.”
> I hope that I never have to use a gun but it is comforting
> to know that my 9 mm is in my console as I drive and my
> .45 is ready to defend my home (with a 12 ga. for backup).
> Intruders will not testify against me in court so mommas
> tell your sons to stay away if you don’t want to bury them.
An entire paragraph dwelling upon the results of messing with you
tells me you don’t really hope all that hard.
> Do you know what the most recognized sound in the world is?
> The sound of a 12 ga. being racked.
Oh come on. That’s not even true enough to be funny.
> It is interesting to see a California judge use the
> State’s concealed handgun permit process to overturn the
> City of SF’s gun ban. Hooray for common sense.
Well. Hooray for civil rights. I’d like to see more people complain about the gradual elmination of somebody’s right to smoke a cigarette, too. But back to the topic:
I frequently find myself in conflict about gun ownership. I
don’t own one myself (yet). Where I grew up a large number of
people hunt, so owning a gun isn’t a big deal – in fact my family
has a few and I’ve been hunting with my father, etc. I’m appalled
by people who grew up in cities who were taught that “only
crazy people have guns.” That’s a real quotation from a
former coworker.
At the same time, outside of where I grew up, where gun ownership is
basically normal, most of the people I’ve personally known, who own guns think, talk, and worry about violence, a lot.
Seems to me like they worry about it a lot more than their
actual risk justifies, and in turn it makes me worry that they
aren’t going to be all that careful about using that gun. I’ve
known a few who have stated that they’d kill anyone who stole from
them (like, at all, not just by breaking into their house with them in it). I have seen many occasions people being just damned stupid
about gun safety, e.g. deliberately handing someone a loaded gun,
and telling them it was unloaded in order to ‘teach them a lesson’
about guns. Or, leaving their guns loaded all the time, leaving
their gun in reach of their kids, etc.
The prejudice this gives me is that gun owners don’t really value
human life in general all that much. I don’t like that the
people with the means to shoot me dead don’t seem to care too
much whether I live or die. I’d be a bit more avid about protecting
gun ownership if, for example, gun safety were taught everywhere
in schools (not just at my high school and not just to boys), and
if I had a better impression of gun owners, and also if there was
a way to take guns away permanently from people who can’t use
them responsibly (besides in a bank robbery, say). Like someone
whose kid shoots himself or someone else with their gun, ought
to never be allowed to own guns again. Someone who gets drunk
and fires his gun in the air, his gun gets taken away.
Constructive commentary welcome, general abusiveness ignored or
crushed like a bug depending on my mood that day