Die, Monster Die!

Superior Court Judge James Warren struck down Proposition H, the Chris Daly-backed ballot issue on the November ballot that would have outlawed possession of handguns by anyone other than law enforcement, security guards, private detectives and others who require guns for their work. 

According to the SFGate article: 

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.

"California has an overarching concern in controlling gun use by defining the circumstances under which firearms can be possessed uniformly across the state, without having this statewide scheme contradicted or subverted by local policy,'' the judge said.

If only it could end there.  But no. San Francisco is going to appeal:

San Francisco will ask a state appeals court to restore a ban on handgun possession by city residents, City Attorney Dennis Herrera said Tuesday.

Herrera said the city would appeal Warren's ruling to the same Court of Appeal that overturned another San Francisco gun ordinance in 1982, a measure that prohibited both residents and nonresidents from having handguns in the city.

I'm having a deja vu experience here.  In early 1999 Supervisor Tom Ammiano tried and failed to pass legislation to prohibit financial institutions from charging for ATM use, so write-in mayoral candidate Ammiano sponsored Proposition F on the November ballot to accomplish what he failed to do at City Hall--despite the fact that the courts had consistently ruled that local governments were preempted by federal law from regulating bank fees.  Proposition F passed resoundingly and died an ignominous death when financial institutions successfully sued to have the measure overturned. 

Ammiano's Proposition F and Daly's Proposition H are examples of the sort of symbolic politics characteristic of the left.  Just as it didn't matter to Ammiano that there was settled law on ATM fees, it doesn't matter to Chris Daly that the California legislature has precluded local governments from enacting gun bans, or that the City went down the same path with a handgun ban to defeat in 1982.  It's more important for progressive politicians to be seen doing the right thing--as dictated by the party line--rather than doing what actually will help the City. 

In announcing plans for an appeal Tuesday, Herrera said he believes that San Francisco voters "acted within their authority to restrict handgun possession and firearm sales within the limits of their own city.''

"Gun violence is a grave problem in this city, and our citizens have a right to do what they can legislatively to reduce it,'' Herrera said.

"The enormous human toll of gun violence requires different treatment in San Francisco County than in Mono County.''

Perhaps Dennis Herrera should study the example of Washington, DC which has had a ban on guns since 1976, yet has the most horrific violent crime statistics of any major city in the United States:

Just consider a few statistics: Five years before the D.C. Council banned nearly all firearms in 1976, the District's murder rate fell from 37 to 27 per 100,000 people. In the five years after 1976, the murder rate rose to 35 per 100,000 people. Between 1976 and 1991, the D.C. homicide rate rose 200 percent. The national homicide rate during the same 15-year period rose just 12 percent.

According to the FBI, the District has the highest violent crime rate in the nation of any city over 500,000 people. Its homicide rate is eight times higher than the rest of the country and four times higher than similarly sized Ft. Worth, Texas. The comparison is apt. Texas has some of the most constitutional gun laws in the country

Maybe one day the Washington, DC gun ban will be repealed.  Let's hope the San Francisco gun ban never becomes law.