SAN FRANCISCO -- San Francisco will appeal a state court ruling overturning a handgun ban passed by voters in 2005, City Attorney Dennis Herrera announced Tuesday.

The appeal comes after Superior Court Judge James Warren ruled Monday that Proposition H, passed by 58 percent of San Francisco voters in November, directly conflicts with state law.

"I respectfully disagree with the courts reasoning, and believe that San Francisco voters acted within their authority to restrict handgun possession and firearm sales within their own city," Herrera said. "Gun violence is a grave problem in this city, and our citizens have a right to do what they can legislatively to reduce it."

Warren ruled that California has an "overarching concern" in regulating firearms within the state, and no local law could preempt that authority.

The ruling came in a lawsuit filed by the National Rifle Association, four other groups and seven individuals.

City officials disagreed with the judge's decision and pledged to do whatever they could to enforce the proposition, which bans the use of handguns by anyone excluding law enforcement and certain security professionals. The proposition would also ban the manufacture, sale, transfer and distribution of firearms within the city.

San Francisco Supervisor Chris Daly, one of the city's strongest advocates of the proposition, said Monday he was disappointed with the judge's ruling.

"Since Judge Warren has sided with the powerful gun lobby against the safety of San Franciscans, I call on City Attorney Dennis Herrera to swiftly appeal," Daly said Monday.

Mayor Gavin Newsom also acknowledged Warren's ruling and recognized that the proposition will face several more hurdles before it becomes law.

"With violent crime on the rise nationwide, it is essential that continue to push for smart and responsible gun control," Newsom said.

© 2006 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

June 12, 2006. San Francisco Superior Court Judge James Warren today issued a 30 page decision in Fiscal et al v. San Francisco, a challenge to the San Francisco ordinance banning handgun possession and firearms and ammunition sales in the city. The Court held that the ordinance was preempted by state law and invalidated the ordinance in its entirety.

If the ordinance had survived, all San Francisco residents would have been jailed for a minimum of 90 days and up to six months if caught in possession of a handgun. All gun and ammunition sales and transfers would have been prohibited, and the one gun store and two antique firearm auction houses in San Francisco would have been forced out of business. Additionally, since action films involved the transfer of real “prop” firearms, no such films could have been made in the city.

The decision is posted HERE. The case number is CPF-05-505960. Pleadings and briefs filed in the case can be viewed HERE

The challenge to the ordinance was brought by the National Rifle Association and several like-minded civil rights groups, including the Law Enforcement Alliance of America, San Francisco Police Officer’s Association, San Francisco Veteran Police Officer’s Association, the Second Amendment Foundation, the California Rifle and Pistol Association, Gun Owners of California, the Madison Society, the American Entertainment Armorer’s Association, the Pink Pistols, and the California Association of Firearm Retailers. Several individual San Francisco residents including community leaders, police officers, and soldiers also joined the suit.

Lead attorney Chuck Michel, of Trutanich-Michel, LLP in Long Beach, California litigated the case against the San Francisco City Attorney’s office, which defended the ordinance. Attorneys Don Kates, Steven Halbrook, Don Kilmer, Bruce Colodny, Glenn McRoberts, Tom Maciejewski, Jason Davis, Mark Barnes, and Michael S. Hebel contributed greatly to the effort on behalf of those who chose to own a gun to defend themselves and their families.

The Court recognized that law abiding gun owners who chose to own a firearm to defend themselves or their families are part of the solution, not part of the problem. Hopefully the City will expand the use of crime fighting programs like Operation Ceasefire, now used successfully in San Francisco and pioneered by the NRA, and will recognize that gun owners have valuable perspectives on how to fight the criminal misuse of firearms - a goal everyone shares.

[Amicus Request for Judicial Notice] 565K, approx 2 min. @ 56K

The handgun possession ban provision of Prop H does not goes into effect until April 1, 2006. Residents of San Francisco have until then to get their guns out of the city or turn them in to police without compensation.

In the interim, the NRA et al. lawsuit challenging the ordinance will be filed in the Superior Court, since the Court opf Appeal declined to exercise jurisdiction until the Superior Court had heard the matter.

The hearing date on NRA's motion to invalidate the entire ordinance has been tentatively scheduled for February 15, 2006 in San francisco Superior Court.

The Board of Supervisors is nonetheless expected to begin deliberating and enacting a penalty provision in the interim, since Prop H as passed by the voters did not contain one.