State Firearm Regulation – Opposed By the N.R.A. – Becomes the Rationale for Court Action Against San Francisco Gun Ban

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Bill Cavala
A veteran of over 30 years in Sacramento

Since Diane Feinstein’s days as Mayor of San Francisco, City politicos have made hay by pushing for local option restrictions on handgun ownership and possession.

The latest effort by Mayor Newsom was recently struck down by the California Court of Appeal and that ruling was affirmed by the California Supreme Court – a great victory for the N.R.A.

The irony lies in the Court of Appeal’s rationale. California has such a complex maze of state law regulating the possession and use of firearms, the Court reasoned there was simply no room remaining for a locality to add further restrictions: the state had preempted the field.

The state regulations that forced the demise of San Francisco’s local gun laws were enacted from the late 1980’s – commencing with two bills authored by former Assemblyman and BOE Member Johan Klehs - to the present. Klehs, – incidentally, is the father of the transfer system which has become a national model.

Virtually, without exception, those laws were opposed by the N.R.A.

Most of the staff work that built California’s regulatory system was accomplished by one of the Legislature’s Attorneys, Irwin Nowick. Nowick, a onetime Board Member of the California Rifle and Pistol Association who, as an active Democrat, was purged as a sop to the Legislature’s Republicans as the NRA sought GOP support to halt regulation of semi-automatic rifles easily convertible to automatic fire.

Slowly, incrementally, law was added to the books that closed loopholes and protected the public. Most of these laws were authored by Assembly Democrats and staffed by Nowick.

Transfers of firearms from person to person were negated. Such purchases must now go through a licensed dealer who imposes both a waiting period and a background check – and, de facto, a system for the registration of both the firearm – if it is a handgun - and the firearm owner.

New handgun owners must also take lessons in the safe use and storage of firearms.