San Francisco to allow the poor to own guns

[JohnRich 4]

News:

NRA, SF Housing Authority near settlement on guns

The National Rifle Association says the San Francisco Housing Authority is preparing to drop its blanket handgun ban in public housing.

NRA lawyer CD Michel says if the settlement is approved as expected, the housing authority will allow public housing tenants to keep legally obtained handguns. In exchange, the housing authority won't be required to pay any damages or attorney fees.

Source: http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_11380699?nclick_check=1

How nice of them to allow poor people to have the same constitutional rights as wealthy people.

Thank you, NRA.

[Ron 10]

Anyone who is not a felon, mentally deficient, and of legal age should be allowed to exercise their 2nd Amendment rights.

Edit to add:

Most gun restrictions have been to oppress either a social class, or a race.

NFA 1934 made it so that to own a MG, silencer, SBR, SBS..ect that you had to get an LEO signature and pay a 200 dollar tax. Notice this was a 200 tax on a less than 10 dollar item. This 200 dollars was about the monthly wage of an auto worker in Detroit. Adjusted for inflation it would be like paying a 3,000 tax on a 600 dollar gun. So if you were rich, you could get anything you wanted.

The Omnibus Crime Bill made it so you could not order a gun by mail. Thus making it impossible back in that time for many blacks to buy a gun since many gun stores would not sell to them, and many municipalities had laws that allowed them to refuse service to blacks.

The Gun Control Act of 1968 strengthen that. Many provision of the GCA of 1968 were good...Felons, mental deficient individuals..ect were prohibited. But it also brought the "sporting clause" which made it illegal to import firearms unless it was for hunting. This act strengthened the OCB. FFL's were created and still blacks were denied the right to own a weapon.

The Firearm Owners' Protection Act was good except they snuck in the Hugues Amendment that prohibited the making and importation of MG's. Thus stopping the supply and increasing costs...Again, the rich can have whatever they want, the poor are screwed. To put this into an example, an MP5 for a police force costs about 1800 dollars. For a law abiding civilian to get a transferable one it will cost 18,000 dollars. (And it is a fine weapon).

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334

[Belgian_Draft 0]

Kallend must be sleeping in this morning. I would have expected him to post a reply by now.

HAMMER:
Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is used as a
kind of divining rod to locate the most expensive parts adjacent the
object we are trying to hit.

[billvon 3,108]

Any sane, law abiding adult in the US should have the right to own basic guns (i.e. handguns, rifles, maybe not antiaircraft batteries.)

Any owner of a property should be able to prohibit guns on that property if they choose to do so.

[kelpdiver 2]

Quote

Any owner of a property should be able to prohibit guns on that property if they choose to do so.

Can they prohibit blacks, children, gays?

[Andy9o8 2]

Quote

Any sane, law abiding adult in the US should have the right to own basic guns (i.e. handguns, rifles, maybe not antiaircraft batteries.)

Any owner of a property should be able to prohibit guns on that property if they choose to do so.

That was the same argument used by shopping center owners who tried to assert their "property right" to restrict First Amendment speech/activity on the grounds of the shopping center. But the owners lost most court challenges, with the courts ruling that the common areas of shopping centers and malls were the modern-day equivalent to the increasingly-scarce "town square" where public speaking, pamphleting, etc. used to take place; and thus, it was unconstitutional to prohibit people from peaceably exercising their First Amendment rights in the common areas of shopping centers. And, mind you, most shopping centers are privately-owned.

Most (maybe all?) urban housing authorities are governmental entities. Their tenants are almost exclusively poor: they are financially incapable of owning their own residence. Thus, a blanket prohibition like the SF Housing Authority's essentially relegates an entire economic class of people within a jurisdiction to second-class citizenship with respect to their 2nd Amendment rights. And just as the SFHA would not be permitted to restrict its residents' 1st Amendment rights, so, too, is it precluded from restricting any other constitutional rights, either, including 2nd Amendment rights.

[billvon 3,108]

>Can they prohibit blacks, children, gays?

On their property? Absolutely. Bars can prohibit kids. Churches can prohibit gays. Motels can prohibit unmarried couples. Casinos can prohibit smokers (or, at least, smokers who smoke on their property.) It's their property.

Of course, if a bar were to exclude blacks, they also have the "right" to be picketed, ridiculed in the press and driven into bankruptcy. And you'd also have an excellent argument that no public monies should ever go towards such an organization, since the public as a whole pays taxes to support them.

[kelpdiver 2]

This is housing, Bill. Most of your statements become false. They cannot bar blacks, or gays, and the no children is unlikely to get blanket approval.

[billvon 3,108]

>Most of your statements become false.

Hence my use of "should." I am well aware that what really happens and what I think _should_ happen often aren't even close.

[kelpdiver 2]

Quote

>Most of your statements become false.

Hence my use of "should." I am well aware that what really happens and what I think _should_ happen often aren't even close.

Very well. Fortunately, you're wrong (and the law says so).

I know you think that renters and employees don't deserve even the most basic of rights, but that's wrong.

[billvon 3,108]

>I know you think that renters and employees don't deserve even the most
>basic of rights, but that's wrong.

I understand that you think so.

I have a slightly different understanding. Their lives and health must not be put at risk, but beyond that, their most important right is the right to leave and get another job if they don't like the one they have.

[kelpdiver 2]

Quote

>I know you think that renters and employees don't deserve even the most
>basic of rights, but that's wrong.

I understand that you think so.

I have a slightly different understanding. Their lives and health must not be put at risk, but beyond that, their most important right is the right to leave and get another job if they don't like the one they have.

Our dividing line is where we think the point of "beyond that" lies. A grand canyon of divides.

Though between me and many bay area types is an equally great divide. But I'm closer to the current law than either of you.