On May 15, 2009, the NRA, a police veterans association, and several individual citizens filed suit in the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, against the City of San Francisco, challenging a city ordinance that requires handguns kept within the home be stored in a locked container or disabled with a trigger lock.  (See related article on this site: “San Francisco Locked Storage Ordinance Complaint Filed”)  In other words, it requires city residents to render and keep their handguns inoperable within the home and, in effect, useless for emergency self-defense purposes. (See  Complaint: Jackson v. San Francisco ) Just last year, a similar law was found unconstitutional in the landmark U. S. Supreme Court case,  District of Columbia v. Heller .  Heller, of course, recognized the fundamental individual right to keep and bear arms under the Second Amendment, although whether that right applies to states and municipalities has not yet been settled.  Nonetheless,  Plaintiffs had hoped that the City would avoid costly litigation and simply negotiate repeal or amendment of the offending ordinance, in deference to and in keeping with Heller.  But not in San Francisco, not even when times are tough and City funds scarce. 

On July 9th, the City responded to Plaintiffs’ complaint with a  motion to dismiss the case without a hearing on the merits based on its claim that the City does not enforce the gun-storage ordinance (just passed in August 2007).  Therefore, the City argues, Plaintiffs have no legitimate fear of prosecution and otherwise suffer no injury by complying with the City’s “unenforced” law.  The technical claim is that plaintiffs have no “standing” to challenge the City’s gun-storage law, based on lack of prosecutions to date.  In short, the City is unconcerned that its ordinance causes law-abiding citizens to render their handguns inoperable, thereby defeating the constitutional right to self-defense recognized in Heller.  This is par for the course in San Francisco.  The City’s prejudice against gun owners, to the extent anyone still harbors doubts, is clearly exposed by the City’s personal attacks against Plaintiffs.

In the introduction to is motion to dismiss, the City attacks Plaintiffs, calling them “cause-based crusaders” and “ideologues” who have filed a frivolous suit in the “giddy aftermath” of the  Heller decision, and who “have no stake in the matter” and, further, “have no business in federal court.”  Of course, courts generally ignore this type of rancorous rhetoric.  It’s not only improper argument, it’s just juvenile.  It does clearly demonstrate, once again, that San Francisco, a city that prides itself on being in the vanguard of the fight for individual rights in certain areas, has little sympathy for people with whom it disagrees or whose rights it finds unimportant, or simply politically incorrect.  The gun owners of San Francisco are accustomed to such treatment.

On the merits, the City’s motion to dismiss for lack of standing should be denied.  Such motions, especially when based on facts not fully before the court (as is the case here), generally are a waste of the court’s time and, for that reason, are disfavored by courts.  And the City’s claim that its gun-storage law – passed less than two years ago – is not enforced and, further, that Plaintiffs suffer no injury by obeying this “unenforced” law is unpersuasive.  The gun-storage ordinance trenches upon Plaintiffs’ fundamental constitutional right to keep and bear arms for self-defense.  The Supreme Court invalidated a similar law in Heller.  On that basis, alone, it would seem obvious that the City’s motion should be denied, and the parties should have their dispute heard and their rights and obligations under the law adjudicated on the merits.  But we shall see.  Nothing is certain when litigating gun rights.

The hearing on the motion will take place at 9:00 a.m. on September 23, 2009, before the Honorable Phyllis J. Hamilton in Courtroom 5 at the United States District Court, San Francisco Division, 450 Golden Gate Ave., San Francisco, California.  Two additional ordinances will be at issue: one concerning a ban on certain types of handgun ammunition, and another that criminalizes the discharge of firearms within city limits, without an exception for self-defense use.