CRPA Sues San Francisco Over City "Assault Weapon" Ordinance

Josey1

CRPA Sues San Francisco Over City "Assault Weapon" Ordinance On January 8, 2002, the California Rifle and Pistol Association (CRPA) filed a lawsuit in San Francisco County Superior Court challenging San Francisco's "assault weapon" ordinance. The lawsuit alleges that the city's ordinance is unconstitutional and is preempted by the state's "assault weapon" law. Other plaintiffs in the lawsuit include the California Sporting Goods Association (representing state firearm dealers) and several San Francisco residents that own firearms mis-classified as "assault weapons" by the city law. "My clients gave the city every opportunity to repeal this law without litigation," says Chuck Michel, CRPA spokesperson and a lawyer on the suit. "Every other city that had this ordinance agreed to repeal it in light of the state law. Only San Francisco refused. Unfortunately, now the taxpayers will have to pay for city officials being stubborn." Approximately seven cities passed local "assault weapon" bans between 1987 and 1989, when a state law on the subject was passed. Since then, those cities have repealed their ordinances in response to CRPA and National Rifle Association (NRA) requests. By those requests, CRPA sought to avoid the confusion that having both laws in effect causes gun owners and CRPA members, who can't figure out how to comply with the state and local law simultaneously (the laws conflict in some respects). The cities decided to repeal the ordinances because they agreed with CRPA's position that the state "assault weapon" law displaces local laws on the subject. CRPA also sent a series of "pre-litigation demand" letters to San Francisco asking that its ordinance be repealed, but the city attorney's office repeatedly refused. In fact, the city attorney went so far as to hold a press conference and dare CRPA to sue the city. As the San Francisco newspaper The Independent reported on January 1, 2002, San Francisco still has a number of antiquated "morality"ordinances on its books that should have been cleaned out long ago. Supervisor Mark Leno is leading the effort to clean up that aspect of the municipal code. But the City Attorney's office took the lead in repeatedly refusing to act on CRPA's requests. "This should simply be about the good government practice of getting rid of outdated laws," Michel said. "The city is cleaning up dozens of outdated code sections, but it refused to clean up this one. Instead, the City Attorney's office held a press conference to bash law abiding gun owners who choose to own a gun to defend their families." It is ironic that San Francisco insists on trying to keep this redundant and ineffective ordinance in place. Despite having more gun control laws than any other city in the state, San Francisco still has a unusually high homicide rate. It's gun control efforts have failed so badly that the city recently adopted an NRA supported program that enforces existing state and federal gun laws and really works to reduce gun violence. As reported by the San Francisco Chronicle on December 17, 2001, San Francisco has adopted "Operation Ceasefire," modeled after the Boston Gun Project, and Virginia's "Project Exile." Some aspects of these programs were developed with NRA support and financing. They resulted in drastic reductions in violence in those cities. Similarly, the City of Oakland also failed to reduce its homicide rate through myriad local gun control ordinances passed in that city. Finally it turned to the NRA seeking funds to promote Project Exile in Oakland. CRPA's 70,000 members include law enforcement officers, prosecutors, professionals, firearm experts, the general public, and loving parents. CRPA instructors have been teaching safe and responsible firearms ownership to those who choose to own a gun for sport or self-defense for over 100 years. CRPA is committed to reducing the misuse of firearms, and has a wealth of resources available to help reduce gun accidents and the criminal misuse of firearms. Gun safety and crime prevention programs include informational brochures, safety guidelines, civilian gun safety and firearm education classes, and award winning programs. These efforts have been instrumental in bringing the firearm criminal misuse rate down and the accident rate in America to its lowest level ever! http://www.crpa.org/pressrls010902.html