San Francisco Follies

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors is once again earning California the appellation La-La Land. Supervisor Chris Daly is introducing a measure that would ban all private handgun ownership in the Bay City, except for police, rent-a-cops, and the military. The proposal is in response to an increase in homicides in the last year, 86 murders in the city compared to 70 in all of 2003. The move seems to be pretty pointless, since there are a grand total of five permits that have been issued to non-law enforcement personnel.

San Francisco has clearly learned nothing from the example of Washington, D.C. which has the nation's only total handgun ban, and is regularly rated as the murder capital of the country. They also ignore the increases in violent crime in England and Australia following bans, and the decreases in the United States where "must issue" laws have been passed for carry permits. The board continues to perpetuate the myth that armed citizens cause violence, as opposed to armed criminals.

Hopefully the voters will reject this measure, but in the Peoples Republic of Kalifornia, I'm not betting that they will.