By Julia Cheever
June 27, 2008
The National Rifle Association sued the San Francisco Housing Authority in federal court today in a bid to overturn a rule forbidding gun possession in public housing units.
The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco contends the rule violates the federal constitutional Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.
The suit does not refer to Thursday’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling that held that the right applies to individuals, but the lawsuit and similar filings in other cities including Chicago had been promised by the NRA in the wake of the high court decision.
The lawsuit says the authority’s “blanket prohibition of keeping defensive firearms in public housing units violates plaintiffs’ rights, privileges and immunities under the Second Amendment.”
The NRA was joined in the case by the Washington state-based Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms and by a gay public housing resident using the fictitious name of Guy Doe.
Doe, who lives in the city’s Valencia Gardens project, says he keeps a gun in his home for protection against hate crimes and that he is using a pseudonym to prevent retaliation.
Citizens committee Chairman Alan Gottlieb said, “This lawsuit seeks to restore the rights of those living in public housing to choose to own a gun for sport or to defend their families.”
Gottlieb said, “Just because someone lives in public housing does not mean that person must surrender his or her civil rights, or their right of self-defense.”
The high court did not specifically say whether its decision applies to state and local gun control laws as well as federal measures.
But the lawsuit says the Second Amendment right should extend to state and local entities through the Constitution’s due process clause.
NRA attorney Chuck Michel said, “As with the advancement of any civil right throughout history, subsequent litigation is essential” to establish the parameters and extent of the Second Amendment right.
Matt Dorsey, a spokesman for City Attorney Dennis Herrera, said, “We think the rule is on sound footing and that we’ll be successful in defending it.”
Dorsey said, “There’s nothing in the Supreme Court ruling that automatically extends the doctrine to state and local governments. This lawsuit is the plaintiffs’ effort to push the envelope to see whether the decision extends to state and local governments.”
The housing authority rule is contained in leases signed by tenants and is derived from a city law that bans gun possession on city property. The law is based on a 2002 California Supreme Court ruling that upheld the right of cities and counties to ban gun possession and sales on their property.
A broader San Francisco law banning most handgun possession throughout the city was overturned by a state appeals court earlier this year, but on state law grounds not related to the federal Second Amendment.
The appeals court said the measure, a 2005 voter initiative, was pre-empted by California laws on gun sales and licensing.
In addition to the housing authority, defendants in the lawsuit are interim Executive Director Mirian Saez, incoming Executive Director Henry Alvarez, who takes office July 14; the city of San Francisco; Mayor Gavin Newsom; and the John Stewart Co., which manages Valencia Gardens.
The housing authority provides federally subsidized housing for about 33,000 low-income residents.
The Hunger Site
June 27, 2008 at 9:33 pm
The Bill of Rights were 10 amendments that were tacked onto the original Constitution as a compromise to get the Anti-Federalists to relent to the adoption of the first seven articles. The Bill of Rights was intended to preserve the legal rights of the citizenry against a potentially tyrannical central government. While the Second Amendment to the Constitution as currently written does not explicitly forbid the passage of laws regulating firearms, perhaps it could be improved it were amended to read something like:
Safe and peaceful communities being necessary to the survival of democratic political culture, legislative bodies shall have the power to regulate the manufacture, distribution, import, export, sale, purchase, ownership, storage, and use of weapons and their components.
June 27, 2008 at 4:49 pm
A little bit a history, please …
In 2004, Bill Barnes ran (and lost, thank God!) for District 5 Supervisor. Later, Bill Barnes became the brain child behind Proposition H which set out to ban the manufacture, distribution, sale and transfer of firearms and ammunition within San Francisco and to ban City residents from possessing handguns within San Francisco.
This poorly written and poorly thought-out handgun ban was virtually identical to a 1982 ordinance that was struck down by the appellate court on the grounds that it conflicted with State of California law. It cost tons of money to put Proposition H on the ballot and then to defend this umpteenth restriction on our Second Amendment rights in the courts. That’s money not spent on schools, police and quality-of-life programs.
Dear fellow Assembly District 13 Democrats, is there anyway to recall Bill Barnes from the Democratic Central Committee?