From my cold dead hands…
Dear fellow San Franciscans,
I’d like to express my disappointment in you for passing Proposition H yesterday. More than half of you have decided that San Francisco is some sort of non-violent utopia and you want to keep it that way. I’m going to pass it off on some bad weed you bought on Haight from a lowly street junkie and that’s what confused you into voting for this wildly ineffectual piece of legislation. It’s either that or all the criminals decided to get out and rock the vote to get the guns out of the hands of law abiding citizens.
You all have seen the statistics and arguments against why this thing is a bad idea and you still voted for it. You are all very smart people and I weep for your temporary lack of sanity and blind disregard for your own safety. It’s also apparent that your over abundance of spare cash had no more useful vehicle for change than to pay the extra taxes that it will cost to pay for all the litigation that is going to arise from this. I think it’s even more profound that the Mayor even said it would be thrown out in court and he still voted for it knowing full well that it would cost the taxpayers money in court costs if it passed. That’s leadership by example at it’s best. I was a big fan of the Gavster before this little incident and have high hopes that he will regain his senses in time.
So I hope you recover from your bout of insanity and I hope you don’t get shot in your home by an armed assailant. Seriously, that would suck. What would be worse though is while sitting in your living room, your neighbor is being robbed and they’re forced to defend themself with the 12 gauge shotgun they had to buy instead of a handgun and the spray from the buckshot that misses the burglar goes through the wall and hits you in the face. That would suck a lot too I believe.
Be safe.
Useful links:
- sfcap.org
- John Lott on the gun ban
- NRA to File Lawsuit Challenging San Francisco Gun Ban
- Second Amendment Foundation Sues to Stop Victim Disarmament in San Francisco
Related posts:
They think if the guns are gone the bad guys will disappear. These scaredy cats also think if we end “The War” the bad guys of the world will miraculously love us and, “can’t we all just get along?” If they can just pull the covers up over their heads tightly enough the world will appear peaceful and serene, or that might be the effects of their own carbon dioxide!
Boy.. I might be kooky .. but seems to me .. this was a good Prop to pass. (but that’s just me)
:)
^ Trust me, you are. This totally sidesteps the issues about gun related crimes in The City. Great post, Prop H is just taking us on step closer to complete helplessness.
^ Proud to be Kooky, then. I’m curious though. You really think if this Gun Ban could be enacted it would “increase” gun related deaths?
Don’t think. Know. Read my first post about this and follow the links for reference material and explanations on why this won’t work and how it didn’t work in Chicago or DC.
http://sf.metblogs.com/archives/2005/10/they_made_ameri_1.phtml
Jez San Francisco, as a born and raised native who’s off serving that country to our east (the USA), I gotta wonder how this ever got past the supervisors. I know and love that liberal bubble we live in, but there’s that pesky constitution we have to live under, followed by the laws and rules set by the State, then our municipal laws. And yes, in that order. This amendment will fail in court, cost the city in both time and resources and make the city we all love look just that much more kookey to the rest of the country.
I love San Francisco dearly but love is not blind and the idea that San Francisco is the most non-violent and happy place on earth needs a serious reality check.
I guess these shiny happy people are also the same ones who believe it’s a “right” to be a homeless crack addict who threaten average citizens daily on Market and around Union Square for money.
I’m not a bible toting conservative but I’m not a blind idealist either.
Maintaining one’s common sense and reality is not a crime.
But it appears to be on the way to becoming a crime in San Francisco.
That’s a shame.
Anyone that insists on owning a gun at this point in the game is a complete a**hole.
NO ONE is trying to kill you, except yourselves.
How many kids gotta blow holes in the backs of their heads before you people finally admit that guns are evil.
Besides we all know your real motivation isn’t for defense, it’s to *be* the offender. Your paranoias are making other people unsafe. You just want to kill people.
I even suspect, if you could, you’d go out and kill me for my opinions.
Why don’t you move to Fresno, where the other rednecks live.
Jerk
^ Keep in mind the vast majority of the people who own hand guns legally keep them in their house or local business for self protection, not being backed around in their waistband on MUNI. And say “NO ONE” is trying to kill use? Perhaps you’ve been conveniently passing over the police reports coming out of Potrero Hill. Do you even know how many aggravated assults happen there each week? Get a clue before you speak, we’re not right wing cowboys trying to take over the city, we’re regular people. So treat us as such.
Amen, Jason.
The 12% of SF residents who voted in favor of prop H have restricted the rights of the other 88% who did not. What a depressing example of democracy in action. It’s enough to turn one in favor of anarchy.
Speaking as someone who grew up and lived in Chicago, I have stories of hearing gun shots in the night, missing gun fights in my own back alley (I came home to have the neighbors tell me about it), and flowers tied to trees and stop signs where young people had been gunned down. And Chicago has a gun ban.
I think Prop H had its heart in the right place, but it just doesn’t (and won’t) work. It’d be great if gun bans did, but… they don’t.
Morey - the 88% who didn’t vote, by their silence, are presumed to have agreed with the prevailing voters. No one made the 88% stay home (if that 12% figure comes, as I am assuming, from the number of people voting yes on H out of the registered voters in SF).
On the larger issue, however -
My view of guns changed somewhat after my time in West Virginia last year (and before any one dares type out a predictable, offensive jibe against our brothers along Country Roads, think twice and try not to be an asshold). Hunting is a large part of the local culture there. Consequently, from a young age, many, many West Virginians own guns and hunt with them. They take gun safety VERY seriously, and the low population density means that everyone is spread out, there isn’t much conflict, and their crime rates are low. I don’t have a problem with every West Virginian owning a gun.
But my view changes when looking at, say, San Francisco, Oakland, Los Angeles, or any other densely packed urban/suburban area. Guns end up being used to hunt people in these areas as often as they are used to defend people from robbers, etc. I do have a problem with every Californian owning a gun.
However, Katrina again shifted my view on gun ownership. I, like many - if not most - Americans, even though I distrust the current administration, still believed, at my core, that in time of catastrophe, the federal government was going to help us. Save us. Provide and protect us. I believed in America and I believed it would back me up.
No, though, while I still believe in America, I no longer assume it is going to back us up - and I especially don’t think Bush would bust his ass to help us out here in Blue SF (he’s never even visited - not once, ever).
So after the Big One, or whatever, hits, and the SFPD are overwhelmed, and we here on our very geographicaly isolated peninsula are all alone (since many cops can’t afford housing here, they won’t even be able to come into the city to help anyway), what happens? It’s not scary science fiction anymore - you watched CNN after Katrina, look at it. Society isn’t so far from complete dissolution in the face of natural disaster.
None of this means that I own a gun or that I would own a gun. But it does mean that I’m not as knee-jerk against gun ownership as I once was. I would still advocate for as few guns in a dense city as possible, but lately, I trend toward a libertarian view of prohibiting gun ownership - especially when jurisprudence still hasn’t really weighed in on the question of rights to weaponry.
My own jury is still out. I take seriously the concerns of accidental gun deaths of children. I also think that the presence of weapons can easily make an otherwise heated argument into a deadly one, just because the opportunity is there.
But the refusal to deal with and learn about guns, their power and their danger, sets this city at a disadvantage. They aren’t mythical beasts to be slayed - they are a real thing that’s here and won’t leave, regardless of Prop. H.
Current gun policy is a mess and needs to be addressed. But I’m not sure a blanket prohibition is the way to go. Assault weapons, yes - those have no purpose, defensive or otherwise. It’s not a black and white issue at all.
Geeze, what a bunch of nutcases. So an earthquake might hit us, so better have guns?
I mean, what are you exactly proposing? To go running around with your gun and kill would-be assailants?
Or is it keeping your gun in a safe at home, so when you need it, you can’t get it anyways, cause you have it locked up.
Really, there is no need to own a gun. There are places with gun bans where the cases of violent crimes have remained well below the US national average.
Guess what people, if we take away the personal handguns, it takes the guns away from criminals; Criminals do not buy guns legally, they steal them from you.
This is such a no-brainer, no wonder the gun-nazis cannot “get it”. They obviously have no brains, which is why they want to buy into the gun madness in the first place.
I am SO glad we won, and you didn’t.
^ So eloquent and thought provoking. *rolleyes*
You’re clueless deacon. Second ammendment gives us the right to bear arms. We don’t have to justify the reasons to own a gun. People buy a lot of things they don’t NEED. People buy cars. How many people die from accidents every day? People die from smoking everyday. How about we ban knives next? Baseball bats? What’s true is that guns don’t kill people…people kill people. Accidents happen everyday…people getting hit by a bus, falling off a building…Let’s make a law that buildings can’t be more than one story tall.
Talk about a “No Brainer”…you sure are. Just remember…everything in moderation. They banned assault rifles, and MANY other types of guns. To ban ALL guns is just stupid.
I legally carry on metro and most everywhere else in SF and have for several years; cocked and locked. The only safe place to keep a firearm is on one’s self ready to fire. Locked up is useless.
Only those who sincerely respect the consequenses of a firearm should carry. And then only those who choose to stay current with the skills relevent to use and safety.
H doesn’t prevent me as I don’t live in the city. This stupid ordinance won’t keep me or the criminals from carrying in the city. It will just cost the city $.
JA
^^ Here here. I’m making a motion that we ban all pointy things!
I posted a previous comment but felt it necessary to reply to the rather (openly) hostile and quite frankly childish commentary by those who support the gun ban.
How can you claim to have an open liberal outlook when you refuse to hold an intelligent dialog. Most of these comments appear to have been written by 12-year olds. I grew up in the South and moved to the Bay Area so I don’t need a lecture on the gun violence but if you think for one moment that violence will end with guns, I suggest you read your history again.
I don’t want a society full of gun toting militia but I can see both sides of the argument and there is validity in both.
The majority of America thinks California is populated by people who have their head in the clouds.
Please stop validating that stereotype and apply some level of maturity and open mindness to this discussion.
Oh LOOK! Another study that shows gun violence RISES when gun bans are introduced.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1440764.stm
For the rest of you people who are saying that there is no evidence please show your work. And by the by, when you talk about kids killing themselves or friends accidentally with a firearm in the home please go look up the statistics on the odds of a child dying in a backyard pool because they’re 100 times more likely to drown in a backyard pool than be shot by a gun in the home. Do your homework before throwing your utopian bullshit arguments around.
I find hostility on both sides of the discussion curious. Argumentum Ad Hominem is the “dick joke” of persuasion. Let’s go outside and play. (Bring your guns if you have them, but play nice.)
I started a SF GOP site. Please join me there at Live Journal.
I am sick to DEATH of the friggin’ hippies running this place.
http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=sf_conservative
False is the idea of utility that sacrifices a thousand real advantages
for one imaginary or trifling inconvenience; what would take fire from men because it burns, and water because one may drown in it; that has no remedy for evils, except destruction. The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm those only who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Can it be supposed that those who have the courage to violate the most sacred laws of humanity, the most important of the code, will respect the less important and arbitrary ones, which can be violated with impunity, and which, if strictly obeyed, would put an end to personal liberty
Great post, JASON.
DEACON, raw emotion is not a suitable substitute for knowing the facts.
Try this for me, DEACON, if you will. Post a BIG sign on your property declaring your gun-free household. Come back here and let us know how long it took you to be robbed.
This is such a loaded issue - haw haw haw
While everyone can argue their feelings and opinions on the matter, no matter how widescope or short sighted the proof is in the pudding and that’s really not something you can debate with insults or strong opinions.
The fact is that gun related crimes have GONE UP in Washington DC and Chicago since these kinds of bans were passed.
The fact is that since 1987 when Florida passed it’s “shall issue” gun law which grants a concealed carry permit to anyone who meets a set training standard and a background check gun related crimes have gone down.
The same is true for the 30+ states which have enacted the same kind of “shall issue” laws since then.
So you can feel one way or the other about this, or have your own take on what makes a city safe, but the last 20 years have proven that taking guns away from law abiding citizens increases gun related crime.