Alphecca

SF Police Oppose Handgun Ban

This Tuesday the residents of San Francisco will vote on whether the city should ban all handgun ownership. If the ban passes, residents would be required to surrender their handguns by April 1st. I'm sure criminals will flock to turn in theirs.

This proposed ban probably wouldn't pass muster with the State Supreme Court. From the Mercury News:

Whether such a gun ban is legally or practically enforceable is at the center of the debate.

Other attempts at far-reaching municipal gun bans have met with strong resistance in the courts. In the wake of the 1978 handgun slayings of then Mayor George Moscone and supervisor Harvey Milk, one of Dianne Feinstein's first acts as Moscone's replacement was to enact a handgun ban. It was struck down a couple of years later, however, by the state Supreme Court. Feinstein, now a U.S. senator, is not taking a position on Proposition H, because she feels the state's top court has already ruled, a spokesman said.

Adding a timely twist to the debate, those opponents warn that a major earthquake could lead to chaos and anarchy, akin to post-Katrina New Orleans.

"What happens when the police leave town, just like they did in New Orleans?'' asked John Mindermann, a retired San Francisco police officer who keeps a handgun in his home in the low-crime area of West Portal. Only active law enforcement and military personnel would be exempt from the ban.

And even though its officers fight violence daily, the San Francisco Police Officers Association is also opposed to the ban, saying it cannot back a measure that takes away "the personal choice of city residents to lawfully possess a handgun for self-defense purposes.''

The NJ Coalition for Self Defense has a lot more.