Re: Kamala Harris Backed San Francisco Handgun Confiscation Measure

On 26 Sep 2024, "max headroom" <maximusheadroom@gmx.com> posted some
news:vd5l1u$kqfv$3@dont-email.me:

Kamala Harris Backed San Francisco Handgun Confiscation Measure
 
Stephen Gutowski
 
Vice President Kamala Harris supported a 2005 ballot measure that
banned San Francisco residents from possessing pistols.
 
The Democratic presidential nominee backed Proposition H in her role
as the city's
District Attorney at the time. The measure banned San Francisco
residents from buying, selling, or even possessing handguns. With
exceptions included for active-duty law enforcement, military, and
licensed security guards, 58 percent voted in favor of the measure.
But it faced immediate legal scrutiny from the National Rifle
Association (NRA), California Rifle and Pistol Association (CRPA), and
other gun-rights groups.
 
"San Francisco was a leader in proposing gun restrictions at the local
level, and she never met a gun control law she didn't like," Chuck
Michel, who represented the NRA and CRPA in its fight against the
city, told The Reload. "Prop H was the crowning jewel."
 
Harris broke with other prominent gun-control advocates in backing the
ban and confiscation measure, according to the San Jose Mercury News.
 
"Although Mayor Gavin Newsom has not taken a position, several of the
city's most liberal leaders are supporting the far-reaching ban -
including District Attorney Kamala Harris and four supervisors who are
listed as sponsors," Mary Anne Ostrom reported at the time-adding that
Dianne Feinstein didn't support the measure despite imposing her own
failed handgun ban when she was mayor. "Feinstein, now a U.S. senator,
is not taking a position on Proposition H, because she feels the
state's top court has already ruled, a spokesman said."
 
The measure also banned "all City residents, without exception, from
selling, distributing, transferring and manufacturing firearms and
ammunition." The Harris Campaign did not respond to a request for
comment on her support for the ban.
 
The news that Harris backed a total ban on handgun sales and ownership
could impact the race for the presidency, which polling shows is
close. Her support for handgun confiscation early in her career may
undermine her recent efforts to reassure gun owners she would not take
their firearms.
 
"This business about taking everyone's guns away; Tim Walz and I are
both gun owners. We're not taking anyone's guns away," Harris said at
the debate, a line she's repeated every time the topic has come up
since.
 
Emphasizing her personal ownership of a handgun has been her go-to
move since her campaign walked back her support for a different kind
of confiscation plan. While running for president in 2019, Harris
repeatedly backed a mandatory buyback of "assault weapons." However,
shortly after she took over the top of the Democratic ticket, her
campaign said she would no longer advocate for a buyback if she became
president-instead backing the same policies President Joe Biden had
already been running on.
 
"Correct, the VP will not push for a mandatory buy back as president,"
Lauren Hitt, a Harris spokesperson, told The Reload in July. "She has
expressed support for red flag laws, universal background checks and
an assault weapons ban."
 
The story also comes as Harris's record on guns has received increased
scrutiny. Last week, video surfaced of a 2007 press conference where
she defended a gun storage measure that followed up Proposition H by
saying law enforcement would enter the locked homes of lawful gun
owners to inspect their storage setups. The National Rifle Association
has also run ads in recent weeks highlighting an amicus brief she
signed onto in the Supreme Court's 2008 Heller case, where she argued
Washington, DC's total handgun ban did not violate the Second
Amendment.
 
Proposition H was controversial when the city council proposed it in
2005. In addition to Newsom and Feinstein shunning it, police groups
and some gay-rights advocates openly opposed the handgun ban. It only
received the minimum of four signatures from the city council to get
on the ballot due to concerns the courts would strike it down the same
way the California Supreme Court tossed Feinstein's
ban years before.
 
That's exactly what ended up happening.
 
"They tried to draw a line that distinguished it from the other case,
and then they had it passed," Michel said. "Harris supported that, and
that was a complete total civilian handgun ban. It passed. Then CRPA
and NRA sued again, and we knocked it out again."
 
In January 2008, a few months before the Supreme Court invalidated
Washington, DC's similar handgun ban, a California state appeals court
struck down Proposition H. It ruled San Francisco had overstepped its
authority in instituting the ban.
 
"[T]he sheer breadth of Prop H makes it vulnerable to a preemption
challenge," Judge Ignazio John Ruvolo wrote for a unanimous state
appeals court in Fiscal v. San Francisco. "As already noted, Section 2
of Prop H bans the 'sale, manufacture, transfer or distribution' of
ammunition and firearms in the City, without exception. With narrow
exceptions, Section 3 bans the possession of handguns by San Francisco
residents, including possession within the sanctity of homes,
businesses, and private property."
 
Ruvolo concluded, "[W]hen it comes to regulating firearms, local
governments are well advised to tread lightly."
 
San Francisco was ordered to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in
legal fees to the gun-rights plaintiffs. It appealed the decision, but
was ultimately rebuffed by the California Supreme Court.
 
https://thereload.com/kamala-harris-backed-san-francisco-handgun-confis
cation-measure/

San Francisco is the national monument to liberal Democrat failures thanks
to Kamala Harris, Nancy Pelosi and Gavin Newsome.