Thursday, March 27, 2014

Court Backs San Francisco's Gun Storage Law, Hollow-point Bullet Ban

A federal appeals court refused Tuesday to halt the enforcement of San Francisco laws that require handgun owners to keep their weapons locked when stored at home and ban bullets that expand or splinter on contact, saying they do not interfere with the right to use firearms in self-defense.
One ordinance, passed in 2007, requires residents to keep handguns in locked containers or to use trigger locks when they are not carrying the weapons. The other law dates from 1994 and prohibits local sales of hollow-point bullets, designed to inflict more damage to the human body than conventional ammunition.
Gun owners challenged both ordinances after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2008 that the Constitution guarantees the right to possess guns at home for self-defense, then ruled in 2010 that state and local laws that substantially burdened that right were invalid. Gun groups are also relying on those rulings to challenge California's licensing requirements for concealed weapons, and ordinances in San Francisco and Sunnyvale that ban the possession of high-capacity gun magazines.
In Tuesday's ruling, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said neither the San Francisco gun storage law nor the ban on hollow-point bullets seriously hampers a gun owner's ability to use a weapon for self-defense.
Because trigger locks and modern gun safes can be opened quickly, a stored or locked handgun "may be readily accessed in case of an emergency," Judge Sandra Ikuta said in the 3-0 ruling. "Provided San Franciscans comply with the storage requirement, they are free to use handguns to defend their home while carrying them on their persons."

9 comments:

  1. Two idiotic rulings that should be overturned as soon as possible. But Mikeb, do explain to us the hollow point bullet ban. Hollow points are actually safer, since they don't tend to overpenetrate. In anything above a .380 ACP, a full metal jacket round is irresponsible. See what happens when you gun control freaks meddle in things you don't understand?

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    1. Maybe some people think the bullet that passes through a shooting victim is not as harmful as one that flattens out and rips apart huge paths of tissue. I don't know for sure, but I think your take on it, that gun control folks are all idiots who know nothing about the subject, is foolish.

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    2. If a bullet passes through something whatever kinetic energy it has left has not been transferred to the target. It's basic physics.

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    3. Ah, yes. Let's have the bullet overpenetrate so that it doesn't cause as much damage to the "shooting victim"--aka mugger/home invader/etc.--and so that the bullet can go on to hit someone else and wound them.

      Let's also insist on these fmj bullets, because why would we want frangibles and hollow points that are less likely to ricochet?

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    4. Mikeb, I don't have to do anything to make you people look foolish. Your side does that all on your own.

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  2. Will the average person (with no special interest in the gun issue, or legal knowledge) agree with these court decisions? Yes. Will the Supreme Court uphold these decisions? No.

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    1. Didn't the Supreme Court recently decline to hear one of these little squabbles?

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    2. Maybe, but if this comes to their court and they have to vote, I doubt they would overturn.

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  3. If you were to post the rest of the courts findings is that the sale of hollow points were banned but not the possession or use of them. In fact the judge make it explicitly clear that the ban only effects the sale only. People who wish to use them for self defense were welcome to go some where else to buy them. The use and possession of hollow points are still legal.

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