NRA Challenges San Francisco Gun Ban -- GOPUSA

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NRA Challenges San Francisco Gun Ban
By Susan Jones
CNSNews.com Senior Editor
November 10, 2005

(CNSNews.com) -- One day after 58 percent of San Francisco voters passed a ban on handgun possession, the National Rifle Association announced that it would challenge the ordinance in court.

The measure, Proposition H, would ban the possession, manufacture, distribution, sale and transfer of firearms and ammunition within San Francisco. (Exceptions would be made for specific professional purposes, such as police or security work.)

The ordinance is supposed to take effect on January 1, 2006, but San Francisco residents would have until April 1, 2006, to surrender their handguns to police.

"Lawful residents of San Francisco are being stripped of their freedom because of an illegal measure that defies common sense," said NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre. "We will fight this outrageous assault on the rights of law-abiding San Franciscans and I believe that we will prevail."

The NRA's chief lobbyist Chris W. Cox called the San Francisco gun ban ordinance "a hollow victory for the gun control lobby" and a "clear violation of California law."

The NRA's lawsuit argues that San Francisco is overreaching itself, violating a state law that allows police to issue handgun permits.

"We will file suit and fight this to the highest courts in the country until good sense prevails once again in San Francisco," Cox said.

'Loading up on Tylenol'

A leading gun control group, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said passage of San Francisco's Proposition H helped make Election Day 2005 a positive one for supporters of "sensible" gun laws.

"The National Rifle Association's leaders are loading up on Tylenol this morning -- they had a very bad day yesterday," said Michael D. Barnes, the Brady Campaign's president.

The group said strong support for Proposition H "speaks volumes about the desire of urban residents to do something about the gun violence plaguing American cities."

Sarah Brady said urban voters are sending a message that "the gun violence problem is not going to go away if we don't do something about it."

Brady said the NRA can go ahead and file a lawsuit - "but they can't get a court to change the underlying message from America's urban families."

'Only criminals will have guns'

"If you ban firearms, criminals will not obey the law and only law-abiding citizens will be victimized," said Alan M. Gottllieb, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation, which is joining the NRA lawsuit.

According to Gottlieb, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) are among those who acknowledge that the new ordinance is pre-empted by state law.

"If this measure were to go unchallenged, San Francisco would become a magnet for criminals," Gottlieb said. "That's a high price for law-abiding San Franciscans to pay, just so the city's social Utopians who pushed this ban can feel good about themselves, because that's really all this ban amounts to; a feel-good act of symbolism without substance."

"Enactment of this measure will leave guns in the hands of the criminal element, while disarming the public," Gottlieb warned.