The
San Francisco Chronicle reports some
good news for the bad guys after yesterday's city election:
Proposition H, which requires city residents who already own guns to turn them in to police by April 1, was winning 58 percent to 42 percent with 98 percent of precincts counted.
The measure also makes it illegal to buy, sell, distribute and manufacture firearms and ammunition in the city.
Only two other cities in the country -- Washington, D.C., and Chicago -- have similar bans.
"San Francisco voters are smart and believe in sensible gun control," said Supervisor Chris Daly, who was among the four board members who placed the measure on the ballot. "If Prop. H gets some handguns out of San Francisco and mitigates some of the violence, then it's a win."
Prop. H opponents said a ban on handguns will not reduce crime, because criminals aren't likely to turn in their guns.
To be fair, SF citizens didn't
really enact a gun ban, as
John Lott notes at National Review Online:
Ultimately, though, the vote didn't mean much of anything. As San Francisco's Mayor, Gavin Newsom, a strong supporter of gun control, said, the ban "clearly will be thrown out [in court]... It's really just a public opinion poll at the end of the day." State law prohibits local jurisdictions from enacting such a ban, and an even weaker law requiring handgun registration that was enacted by the San Francisco County Board of Supervisors in 1982 was thrown out by the California state supreme court.
In other words, another sterling (and taxpayer-dollar-consuming) example of the left's symbolism over substance.
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