Tents line a sidewalk on Golden Gate Avenue in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

By Chuck Michel

The San Francisco County Board of Supervisors has backed down on a proposed ordinance that would make much of the city into a “gun-free zone” after the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) and California Rifle & Pistol Association (CRPA) promised legal action.

San Francisco has long been the California city most opposed to the right to keep and bear arms. In 2003 the city tried to ban handguns entirely. They tried again a few years later. Both attempts were only stopped by lawsuits brought by the SAF, CRPA, and NRA.

In 2015 Highbridge Arms, the last gun store in the city, closed its doors because of impossible to comply with regulations that the city imposed. The San Francisco municipal code is packed with ordinances that make gun ownership difficult. And the city didn’t issue any CCW permits in the years prior to the Bruen decision from the Supreme Court that required them to.

Faced with a new legal reality in light of the Bruen ruling, SFPD is finally issuing CCW permits thanks to prodding from the CRPA as part of CRPA’s CCW Reckoning Project. For the first time in decades, residents of San Francisco have been able to get a license to exercise their constitutional right to carry. Roughly 300 licenses are being processed. But still, San Francisco politicians refuse to respect the Second Amendment and won’t accept the new legal reality that people have a Second Amendment right to carry a firearm in public.

Faced with finally having to issue CCWs, the County Board of Supervisors tried to get around the Supreme Court’s mandate through a law that would have turned much of the city into a “gun-free” zone by prohibiting all carry, even with a CCW permit, on all city property as well as in parks, playgrounds, hospitals, churches, childcare facilities, and even private businesses unless the owner posted a sign saying carry is allowed. Not a lot of those signs were expected. Anyone who posted one would be harassed.

Through their attorneys, CRPA and the Second Amendment Foundation sent a letter to San Francisco politicians explaining why the planned ordinance would be unconstitutional. The letter also pointed out how the proposed ordinance would duplicate planned state-level legislation (SB 2) that’s working its way through Sacramento that would restrict the right to carry in identical ways.

As the letter explained, “San Francisco should wait and see how the inevitable litigation over SB 2 plays out instead of passing a duplicative Ordinance that exposes San Francisco to significant legal expense for its own legal costs and to reimburse our clients’ fees when we prevail in court.”

The city backed off. At its July 13 meeting, the proposed ordinance’s main backer, Supervisor Catherine Stefani, stated that she was pulling the proposed ordinance to “Call of the Chair,” a parliamentary procedure that means it is tabled indefinitely. After first bemoaning the Bruen ruling and running through all the usual gun ban lobby talking points, Stefani explained that she was working with the City Attorney to make sure the ordinance did not conflict with the planned state law that is set to pass (she hopes) later this summer.

Her maneuver was a politician’s face-saving ploy. The ordinance could be revived, however, particularly if SB 2 doesn’t pass. Unfortunately, that’s not likely. SB 2 is Gavin Newsom’s baby, and he’s pushing it hard. CRPA and SAF have that lawsuit teed up and ready to go when and if it becomes law.

The pre-litigation demand letter from CRPA and SAF likely played a decisive role in stopping this planned San Francisco ordinance. CRPA and SAF will continue to oppose efforts to enact draconian gun laws in San Francisco and statewide. We will be ready to challenge unconstitutional laws like SB 2 immediately.

 

Chuck Michel is Senior Partner at the Long Beach, California Law firm of Michel & Associates, P.C. He is the author of California Gun Laws, A Guide to State and Federal Firearm Regulations now in its 10th edition for 2023 and available at www.calgunlawsbook.com.

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25 COMMENTS

  1. An obstacle to loss, not a victory of itself.

    Happy for the delay, but frustrated at all the nibbling around the edges; defending attacks puts the victim at disadvantage. Action beats reaction; eliminate NFA and GCA.

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  4. Degenerates in SF offing each other, or blowing $ on shysters, sounds like a feature to me. Drive on.

  5. “roughly 300 (ccw permits) are being processed”??

    You’d think it might be a tad higher wouldntya

  6. new study… had to go outside the US to see it in the media which is not a surprise because the US media supresses showing a lot of stuff > Doctors’ diagnostic blunders killed or permanently disabled 800,000 Americans last year…

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-12320341/Doctors-diagnostic-blunders-killed-permanently-disabled-800-000-Americans-year-shocking-data-suggests.html

    you are literally more likely (about 17 times more likely) to be killed or seriously injurered by a doctor than being killed (including using for suicide)/injured by a firearm.

  7. when Democrats eat their own….or..maybe…guess who’s less likely now to vote along purely Democrat lines…or any number of things, but the Democrats sure are trying hard to discredit one of their own for some reason and it might be that they see him as some kind of threat in his bid for president.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HTBMbn-GRM

    • or….it could be he is testifying and supporting the evidence that the Democrat party with conspiracy and collusion of government agencies censored millions of people via social media collusion and directing their activities for the election in 2020 thus the largest 1st amendment violation in history.

      • “government agencies censored millions of people via social media collusion“

        Wow, y’all are still pissed off because Twitter removed Hunter Biden‘s dick pics.

        Weird.

        • .40, he understands. But it is his job to get it wrong. He is a good employee and earns his paycheck.

        • MINOR Miner49er. Nah, Leftist. We are pissed off because Twitter has censored Conservatives. Not on your or my wildest day would Hunter Biden be considered a Conservative. He’s just a well heeled punk.

    • sorry for the video above….it seems youtube is playing games, or someone else, and switched the video out

  8. Assless chaps, defecating on public sidewalks and gang bangers are a-ok. Defending oneself in the shitty by the bay is frowned upon. I do not miss working there at all.

  9. It seems that the San Francisco Board of Supervisors don’t want to be overturned by the Supreme Court.

  12. SOOOO tired of seeing slitty-eyed stern-jaw pics of Uncle Joe!
    Trump-DeSantis 2024

  13. Would be nice for there to be an ability to file a civil lawsuit against anyone who restricts 2A rights (anyone who votes for such regulations/laws) by individuals who were assaulted/killed.

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