Frisco to Secede from California – Again
Via Xrlq Soyer and Uncle, the Frisco City Council is considering banning handguns next year. The Ass. Press further reports that “Sam Paredes, the group’s executive director, said state law bars local governments from usurping the state’s authority to regulate firearms.” What they don’t say is that California courts said the same thing 22 years ago in Doe v. Irvine San Francisco, in which the same friggin’ city did the same friggin’ thing, and that Section 53071 of the California Government Code left them little other choice. That statute provides as follows:
It is the intention of the Legislature to occupy the whole field of regulation of the registration or licensing of commercially manufactured firearms as encompassed by the provisions of the Penal Code, and such provisions shall be exclusive of all local regulations, relating to registration or licensing of commercially manufactured firearms, by any political subdivision as defined in Section 1721 of the Labor Code.
Last time around, Frisco claimed to have found a loophole, arguing with a straight face that this statute “provides only that the state has preempted the areas of registration and licensing and says nothing about a local government’s ability to regulate possession.” The Court of Appeal rightly rejected that idiotic argument 3-0. Query if they’ve thought of some other bogus argument to float this time around.
The Ass. Press article is the claim that Washington, D.C. is the only major U.S. city that currently bans handguns. This will come as news to would be gun owners in New York and Chicago.
UPDATE: Boi From Troy notes in a comment that West Hollywood already bans “junk” guns and “Saturday Night Specials.” I presume he is talking about the 1998 ordinance, which Professor Volokh also briefly refers to in his fine piece on the “No one’s trying to take your guns away” myth. That ordinance, applies only to sales, not possession, and is therefore unaffected by Gov. Code 53071. If West Hollywood wants to inconvenience its own subjects by forcing them to drive all the way to Culver City to pay sales tax there, that’s their prerogative.
December 16th, 2004 at 10:28 am
I believe WeHo also has a ban on Saturday Night Specials, and probably other handguns, as well.
December 16th, 2004 at 1:04 pm
We don’t ban handguns here. We ban cheap guns, expensive guns, long short guns, short long guns, scary guns, fake guns, large bore guns, unsafe guns, effective guns, and concealed guns, but other than that we allow them.
December 16th, 2004 at 2:20 pm
Surely the ACLU will step in against this obvious move against civil liberty.
But still, I won’t hold my breath.
December 16th, 2004 at 7:18 pm
I left my gun in ‘frisco
High on a hill, where
Little cable cars go
Half way to the bars
As seen from San Quentin.
December 16th, 2004 at 8:16 pm
Boi, I’m pretty sure the WeHo ordinance applies only to sales, not possession. If the loony government of WeHo wants to inconvenience its own subjects by forcing them to pay their sales tax in Culver City, that’s their prerogative.
December 16th, 2004 at 10:02 pm
I didn’t think it ever was legal to have a handgun in San Francisco. The things you learn on blogs.
December 19th, 2004 at 4:41 pm
One thing that happens, national results or now, is that the liberal extremes are getting even kookier in their enclaves of power, foisting their crap locally as a way of assuaging their national loss. Which really, really is bad here in New Jersey too, where the incompetence, corruption and general loser-ness of our gov’t in Trenton gets worse and worse….
December 20th, 2004 at 12:09 pm
See-Dubya: It’s only legal if your name’s Feinstein…