SAF: San Francisco Red Ink & Pushing Gun Ban Case

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Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) Press Release:

Second Amendment Foundation
12500 NE Tenth Place
Bellevue, WA 98005
(425) 454-7012 FAX (425) 451-3959 http://www.saf.org/

S-FRAN RED INK REVEALED; PUSHING GUN BAN CASE DIDN’T HELP, SAYS SAF

For Immediate Release: 6/2/2008
BELLEVUE, WA – San Francisco’s budget crisis underscores the frivolity of the city’s stubborn and expensive defense of its doomed-from-the-start 2005 gun ban, the Second Amendment Foundation said today.

SAF founder Alan M. Gottlieb said the city administration’s pursuit of this case – which was almost a carbon copy of a similar court action 23 years ago that was also won by the Foundation – is a clear indication that “fiscal and philosophical irresponsibility run hand-in-hand on the Board of Supervisors and in the mayor’s office.”

Mayor Gavin Newsom should have, and probably could have, stopped this case dead in its tracks after the city’s first loss in the trial court,” Gottlieb noted. “Instead, the city doggedly appealed, and appealed again, and for what? To make a political statement of some sort? When you’re hemorrhaging money from the city budget, pushing a court case that you already know you’re going to lose is remarkable carelessness with the public’s money.”

SAF was joined in the lawsuit by the National Rifle Association, Law Enforcement Alliance of America, California Association of Firearm Retailers, and several San Francisco residents. In the early 1980s, SAF fought a similar ban on its own, against then-Mayor Dianne Feinstein, thus creating a legal precedent and something of a legal roadmap for the coalition of gun rights organizations to follow this time around.

Anti-gun-rights politicians and gun control extremists are constantly complaining that gun owners need to be responsible,” Gottlieb observed. “San Francisco’s financial mismanagement, which borders on malfeasance, clearly shows that the city’s gun-hating leadership doesn’t understand what responsibility means. Running up a budget deficit of $338 million is proof positive that whomever is in charge has some healthy explaining to do for spending money to defend an indefensible measure in court.

Every homeowner, and millions of them are gun owners, knows that you cannot spend more than you make,” Gottlieb concluded. “Balancing the budget may require the city to lay off employees, including police officers. In that case, citizens will have even more reason to own firearms to protect themselves from criminals the city should have been taking to court, instead of fighting this case to disarm the wrong people.”

The Second Amendment Foundation (http://www.saf.org/) is the nations oldest and largest tax-exempt education, research, publishing and legal action group focusing on the Constitutional right and heritage to privately own and possess firearms. Founded in 1974, The Foundation has grown to more than 600,000 members and supporters and conducts many programs designed to better inform the public about the consequences of gun control. SAF has previously funded successful firearms-related suits against the cities of Los Angeles; New Haven, CT; and San Francisco on behalf of American gun owners, a lawsuit against the cities suing gun makers and an amicus brief and fund for the Emerson case holding the Second Amendment as an individual right.