Wednesday, November 09, 2005

Yesterday the voters in my town decided that it should be against the law for anyone to possess a handgun in the city of San Francisco. Handgun owners in SF are supposed to surrender their weapons to the police by April 1, 2006. The thing I wonder about is, who is going to pay for the pistols?

The average Glock costs between $500 and $700. Some Smith & Wesson's are over $1000. Why should a citizen be forced to just "give" that away? If the police are taking handguns away from people who purchased them legally, then the city should compensate the owners for the purchase price. I didn't see that written in to the law anywhere.

The other aspect of this that strikes me as interesting is that gun violence in SF is largely due to criminal activity. So, what makes SF voters think that criminals either A: bought and registered their weapons legally in the first place, or B: will obey a law to turn their weapons in to the police? If I'm the sort of person who is not afraid of killing someone (which is against the law) why on earth would I be afraid of hiding my gun from the cops?

This new law is completely misguided. It penalizes a small percentage of SF residents who like to go down to the range on Saturdays and shoot their S&W40's. It does nothing to address real safety concerns for all weapons, like mandatory trigger locks, or mandatory separate locked storage for ammunition.

People shouldn't carry handguns on the street (or any other weapon for that matter). Trigger locks should be mandatory for all firearms. Firearms should be stored in a locked room or cabinet. Ammunition should be stored separately in a locked cabinet. And people on both sides of this issue should should stop being so damned paranoid. Gun owners: odds are you will NEVER defend your home using a gun. Gun opponents: odds are you will NEVER be shot at (and if you are, odds are even slimmer that it will be with a legally owned weapon).

I am not a raging redneck. The NRA scares me. I'm socially liberal. I am a reasonable, thoughtful, clear headed person, and I think that there are better ways to deal with gun violence.

There is a business opportunity here: It is illegal to possess a handgun in the city. So why not open a handgun storage facility in Brisbane or South San Francisco? For $10-$20 a month, you could store your handgun in a locker in a locked, guarded facility outside the city limits. Then when you want to shoot, you just stop at your locker before heading to the range. It's not an ideal situation, but it beats handing over your $1200 .45 Auto to the police.

Here's another interesting article on this issue.

1 Comments:

Blogger jason said...

My father sent this to me after reading this post:

Greetings…..

This is not my normal forum for speaking, but I have a little time and very little knowledge of computer stuff…. No spell checker, no auto margins or auto paragraphs, and a limited knowledge of the “King’s English.”



Tho you may or may not be looking for any responses to your “muspilli” article on hand guns, this is an opinion expressed by someone with very much experience with hand guns. It’s kind of hard for me to put this in any sort of order. Here is my shot…



I was saddened by reading your “article” (????). It would be one thing if the City Council mandated the hand gun surrender… quite another thing that the educated people of San Francisco actually voted for it. It seems quite easy to legislate away someone else’s rights… (History has shown this is not a new thing) doing the wrong thing for “the Right Reasons” is common. Surely no one would think that firearms in criminal hands is a good thing, but did anyone really think that the gangs and thugs would line up at the police stations to turn in hand guns ???? I can’t believe that any educated person would even dream this possible.



What is being required is that ‘Ward Cleaver’ and ‘George Mitchell’ and all other “good citizens” will be put on the same level as the criminal element because they ‘possess’ a hand gun. It will not matter if it is a war souvenir from grand pa, a ‘collector,’ a sport or hobby weapon. You will simply be a criminal for possessing it. I guess the police do not have enough to do just trying to ‘ wrangle’ the handguns from the ‘bad guys.’ Now there will be 40,000 more ‘bad guys’ simply because of this legislation.



But let’s break away from this for a moment to take a look at the “Broad Picture”. While legally, cities can enact laws that are more stringent than Federal, it is possible for “constitutional” rights to be kind of lost. I’m not a “Rhodes” scholar, but somewhere I think I have heard the words “Confiscation without Compensation”. The Preparation “H” (No, Preparation “H” is not a mistake, because all the good citizens will take it up-the-ass) does not mention what the ‘penalty’ would be to ‘possess’. I think that if you do not voluntarily turn in your hand gun, the law would have to “confiscate” it. This would mean the loss of several other rights, or freedoms. Knowing that they did not have all the ‘rightfully’ owned handguns, the law would have to violate the ‘Right to Privacy” act and go to the in-city gun shops and FFL holders and remove or copy the 4473’s. This is the only way to locate the ‘legal’ handguns. Then they could go door knocking to recover these ‘illegal’ arms. I presume that someone is keeping in mind that the gangs and criminal element have all registered their firearms so they can be in the same jeopardy as the “good citizens”.



I’m sorry folks, if I were a ‘Gang’ leader, I would have insisted (past tense of ‘insist’) that all my members vote for ‘Preparation ‘H’. When the smoke clears, much of the anxiety of Burglary and robbery will be removed, knowing that the “Good Citizens” are unarmed. This measure did not reach the press in Minnesota (or anywhere else) as far as I Know… This is a good thing as so many of our criminal element would be moving to San Francisco. The measure also calls for no “manufacture, or sale, or transfer of (and I capitalize this) “AMMUNITION.” This measure will totally disarm the law abiding citizens but will do nothing to disarm the thugs.



Well enough on this…Just a note to the “Good Citizens”. Who do they think they are supporting when they buy “recreational drugs?” Weed and or other things (sorry, kinda green here). These drugs are being manufactured and distributed by the very same criminal element you are trying to keep from having hand guns. These people shoot each other for territory and distribution rights; they often hit innocent bystanders. Please do not support them. If you have “recreational drugs” you are every bit a ‘criminal’ as the person who sells or manufactures them. Kind of like the ‘average citizen’ who may own a sporting firearm.



Please be careful: the term ‘hand gun’ can very easily be confused with the term “firearm”. Then all would be a ‘criminal’ offense to possess! How will you defend yourselves from an ‘oppressive government’? When you open the gate and let the wolves into the pasture to cull out the weak and the sick, it does not take long for them to lose focus and they take all in their path.



Why should we fear our own government ???? Just take a look a Bush and the religious. These are the most frightful people on earth today. They have no problem taking your rights away to fit theirs. Please be on the alert and please be able and ready to protect yourselves.



My eloquence may lack, but my message should be clear

Bucky



Evil is in the hearts of men…not in the tools they choose to use.

4:10 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home