San Francisco Next Plans to Solve the Ladder Falls Problem by Repealing Law of Gravity

I keep remembering what it was like living in the Bay Area--a place where much of the population believes that they have a constitutional right to pretend that there is no objective reality. That's the only explanation for San Francisco's continuing attempts to avoid facing what is really causing their violence problem:

The bulk of a package of gun control legislation intended to help stem the gun violence plaguing San Francisco advanced Monday -- though even the legislation's co-sponsors aren't sure how much good it will do.

The Public Safety Committee of the Board of Supervisors sent three of the four pieces of legislation -- introduced by Mayor Gavin Newsom in May -- to the full board.

Under those three measures, residents would have to keep handguns in locked containers or disable the guns with trigger locks. The mayor's administration said this would help prevent children from playing with guns and guns from being stolen from homes and used in crimes.

How many gun deaths does San Francisco have caused by children "playing" with guns they found around the house? If there's even one a year I would be very, very surprised.

The second reason makes a bit more sense. But how long does it take to remove a gun lock from a firearm once you have carried it out of the home? They use a key and cylinder to hold the lock in place. That takes a drill and perhaps five minutes of work.

Locked containers that are chained or bolted down to a stud or fixture probably do make a difference in preventing theft of guns (especially handguns). If they passed a law requiring that, I might be irritated by it, but it at least has the potential to reduce thefts, especially by criminals who are in a hurry to get in and out. But the gun lock requirement is just playing to the idiots who dominate San Francisco politics, and know nothing about the subject.

Also under the legislation, licensed firearms dealers would have to provide an inventory of their firearms to the police chief every six months. They would need to provide a listing of each firearm in their inventory as well as the makes, models and serial numbers. They would also need to provide a list of every firearm sold, lost or stolen in those six months.

"It's an opportunity to strengthen our information about what guns are being sold, what guns aren't being accounted for, if any," said Lenore Anderson, director of the mayor's criminal justice office.

There's no question in my mind that there are some licensed dealers who are careless, and I have read of one case where two guys got a dealer's license specifically to go into business to sell guns to criminals--no paperwork, not even an attempt at pretending. They transferred over 800 guns in a few months on the streets of South Central, each incident being a federal felony--and received nine months and twelve months, respectively, in federal prison for it.

But the notion that the only licensed gun dealer in San Francisco is a source of stolen or lost guns is absurd. Someone's just trying to drive the one legal dealer out.

The fourth piece of legislation -- the creation of a local registry of gun offenders convicted in San Francisco -- was held, pending further work by the Newsom administration to ensure it doesn't encroach on civil liberties.

The mayor has proposed creating a Police Department registry of convicted gun offenders. The offenders would need to register every six months for four years after conviction and alert the department of any changes of address within 10 days of moving.

Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, head of the committee and a sponsor of the legislation along with Supervisor Sophie Maxwell, said he thought the registry of gun offenders proposal would still make it to the full board. But he said he wasn't convinced the gun control package as a whole would have much effect on gun violence.

"I would like to believe so, but I don't think we're getting to the heart of why San Francisco is experiencing this unabated gun violence citywide," he said.

This is so profoundly bizarre to me. What constitutes "a convicted gun offender"? Armed robbers? Murderers? Rather than making them register--why aren't they in prison?

And Supervisor Mirkarimi at least recognizes that this isn't going to work. I can't believe that anyone on the Board of Supervisors really believes that this is going to make a difference--unless they are truly too stupid to buy bread at the market without assistance. But what is reality when you live in San Francisco? Just part of the right-wing conspiracy.

He said many guns are coming illegally into San Francisco from dealers outside its limits, which the city can do little about. In addition, he said, criminals come into the city with guns to commit illegal activity without fear of being arrested or prosecuted.

How are the guns "coming illegally" into San Francisco? Does he mean that San Francisco residents may not lawfully buy guns elsewhere? Or does he mean that criminals are obtaining their guns from dealers outside San Francisco? In addition to the federal background check for all guns, California has a more exhaustive background check system, with a mandatory ten day waiting period, for all gun transfers. This isn't a problem of "dealers outside its limits" but of a gun control law that amazingly enough, doesn't seem to work very well.

He is right about this: "criminal come into the city with guns to commit illegal activity without fear of being arrested or prosecuted." And they will be even less afraid when San Francisco city emplyees are busily maintaining a "gun offenders registry" and pouring over the records from the only licensed gun store every six months.