NEWS RELEASE
S-FRAN RED INK REVEALED; PUSHING GUN BAN CASE DIDN'T HELP, SAYS SAF
BELLEVUE, WA - San Francisco's budget crisis underscores the frivolity
of the city's stubborn and expensive defense of its
doomed-from-the-start 2005 gun ban, the Second Amendment Foundation said
today.
SAF founder Alan M. Gottlieb said the city administration's pursuit of
this case - which was almost a carbon copy of a similar court action 23
years ago that was also won by the Foundation - is a clear indication
that "fiscal and philosophical irresponsibility run hand-in-hand on the
Board of Supervisors and in the mayor's office."
"Mayor Gavin Newsom should have, and probably could have, stopped this
case dead in its tracks after the city's first loss in the trial court,"
Gottlieb noted. "Instead, the city doggedly appealed, and appealed
again, and for what? To make a political statement of some sort? When
you're hemorrhaging money from the city budget, pushing a court case
that you already know you're going to lose is remarkable carelessness
with the public's money."
SAF was joined in the lawsuit by the National Rifle Association, Law
Enforcement Alliance of America, California Association of Firearm
Retailers, and several San Francisco residents. In the early 1980s, SAF
fought a similar ban on its own, against then-Mayor Dianne Feinstein,
thus creating a legal precedent and something of a legal roadmap for the
coalition of gun rights organizations to follow this time around.
"Anti-gun-rights politicians and gun control extremists are constantly
complaining that gun owners need to be responsible," Gottlieb observed.
"San Francisco's financial mismanagement, which borders on malfeasance,
clearly shows that the city's gun-hating leadership doesn't understand
what responsibility means. Running up a budget deficit of $338 million
is proof positive that whomever is in charge has some healthy explaining
to do for spending money to defend an indefensible measure in court.
"Every homeowner, and millions of them are gun owners, knows that you
cannot spend more than you make," Gottlieb concluded. "Balancing the
budget may require the city to lay off employees, including police
officers. In that case, citizens will have even more reason to own
firearms to protect themselves from criminals the city should have been
taking to court, instead of fighting this case to disarm the wrong
people."
-END-
Mike