SF Targets Ammunition In taking aim at gun control in San Francisco, one supervisor is looking into creating an ammunition registry that would make it easier to trace bullets bought and sold locally. Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier has been working with the City Attorney’s Office to craft legislation that would essentially expand on state law that monitors handgun ammunition. She’s attempting to get around California law that currently prohibits cities from creating a gun registry. Last year, California passed a law intended to more closely monitor the sale of ammunition. The law prohibits ammo from being bought or sold online. And, it requires vendors to keep a log of who’s buying ammunition. Now, the state is looking to protect those consumers with a pending bill that would keep information about ammunition sales confidential.

CA vs. Gun Owners Rights

The past 20 years have seen California’s Legislature enact a wish list for gun control advocates, including banning so-called unsafe handguns, restricting handgun purchases to one per month and a number of expansions and clarifications of the original assault weapon legislation. All were touted as must-have tools for law enforcement’s crime-fighting arsenal. Yet the result has been 20 years of unintended consequences, a steady erosion of the rights of gun owners, and no measurable enhancement of public safety. Initially, it was assumed that other states would follow California’s lead and enact similar legislation, but that didn’t happen. The rejection of California-style gun control by other states can be best understood by examining our process for issuing permits to carry concealed weapons. The key issue in the concealed weapon permit debate is trust. If government trust you, you get a permit, if its doesn’t, you don’t. California gives sheriffs and police chiefs the authority to issue permits where good cause exists. What constitutes good cause is left to the subjective inclination of the issuing authority. The most recent figures from the California Department of Justice show that, in 2007, San Francisco had six active CCW permits while Kern County had 4,118. As permits are good statewide, all the permitted people from Kern County can carry firearms for self-defense in San Francisco. It is also important to define what ban means in the context of California-style gun control. It does not mean no or absolutely prohibited, it means fees and regulation. Thus, when the Roberti-Roos Assault Weapon Control Act became law in 1991, the crime was failure to register and pay a fee for a firearm you already owned. The AWCA authors explained that, with time and restrictions on new sales, attrition would eventually rid the state of such firearms. The initial wave produced 30,000-plus registrations. In 2006 the number registered was approaching 170,000. The Colt AR-15 and AK-47 can no longer be sold, but thanks to the evolving definition, if you’d like to buy the same rifles, albeit with different names and a DOJ-required part, they’re readily available. It is a growing market that the California Legislature helped create.

Sixty-seven percent of Americans say city governments do not have the right to prevent citizens from owning handguns, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Only 35% of all Adults now say the United States needs stricter gun control. Previously, support for stronger gun control has ranged from a low of 39% in October 2009 to a high of 45% in April 2007 following the killings at Virginia Tech. Most American are not concerned about their safety around those who have legal permits to carry concealed weapons but have mixed feelings about laws that would allow gun owners to wear their weapons openly in public.