After all, city leaders block gun stores from operating within their limits, it is completely devoid of gun ranges, and it is surrounded by the most repressive state in the Union for Second Amendment rights.
It should be a haven for peace and harmony.
Instead, San Francisco is torn by violence and other critical issues, so much so that the once-thriving downtown area is rapidly becoming a retail ghost town. And now city leaders have introduced a new ordinance designed to strip what few rights gun owning residents have there.
On Tuesday, Supervisor Catherine Stefani and City Attorney David Chiu introduced a measure to prevent concealed carry permit holders from virtually every commercial establishment within the city limits.
Of course, such actions were directly addressed by last year’s landmark Bruen decision by the U.S. Supreme Court. The bench struck down the stipulation in many anti-firearm jurisdictions that gun owners show “proper cause” to carry concealed weapons. The court’s majority emphatically declared this procedure unconstitutional.
That did not deter Stefani and Chiu, who seemed to revel in defying the law of the land. The supervisor called the ruling “a dangerous step backwards and a gross misinterpretation of the Constitution” by a “rogue” high court.
She added that “every day, gun violence takes lives, devastates families and destroys communities across the nation…The Second Amendment is not a suicide pact.”
Surrounded by anti-gun rights advocates including representatives from activist groups Moms Demand Action and United Playaz, the pair laid out details of their plan. Violators of the proposed law would face up to six months in jail and/or a $1,000 fine.
That’s the punishment if they carry in “sensitive spaces” such as city government buildings, schools, hospitals, churches, playgrounds, and parks. They are also prohibited from exercising their concealed carry rights in businesses where the owners prohibit weapons.
This marks a dramatic increase in restrictions in a city that is already overly oppressive towards gun owners. How much so?
After years of California’s outdated “may issue” laws that stifled gun rights, the city has an incredibly small number of law-abiding citizens who have concealed carry permits. Even with the Bruen decision that mothballed these draconian protocols, applications are only slowly getting to the San Francisco Sheriff’s Office.
In February, the Wall Street Journal revealed that there had been less than 300 concealed carry applications turned in, a miniscule amount for a city with a population of well over 800,000.
And even with that few to process, it was reported that applicants still face lengthy wait times for approval.
For perspective, it should be noted that the city experienced a pair of incidents where multiple people were shot over two days. On Friday night, a shooting incident injured nine at a Mission block party. The next night, three people were wounded outside of a Balboa Park nightclub.
While both violent crime scenes were tragic, neither reportedly involved concealed carry holders. How do we know this? Because Tuesday’s news conference announcing the latest proposed restrictions would have shouted this detail from the rooftops. That’s how.
No, concealed carry permit holders are in no way responsible for the epic violence gripping San Francisco. But under the guise of doing “something,” local leaders find it simpler to demonize law-abiding residents rather than attack the criminals responsible for causing death and mayhem.
Doing “something” is hardly an intelligent solution, and ripping away the constitutional right to self-defense will only make the problem of violence worse. This is political posturing in its purest form, and it solves nothing.
