Opinion
San Francisco – -(AmmoLand.com)- By unanimous vote, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors has adopted a resolution declaring the embattled National Rifle Association a “domestic terrorist organization,” and is urging the city and county of San Francisco to “encourage all other jurisdictions, including other cities, states, and the federal government, to adopt similar positions.”
Yes, they are talking about you and the other five million law-abiding NRA members of America.
The resolution, authored by Supervisor Catherine Stefani, alleges that the NRA “spreads propaganda that misinforms and aims to deceive the public about the dangers of gun violence.” The five-million-member association, which has been in turmoil over the past several months, has a leadership that, according to the resolution, “promotes extremist positions, in defiance of the views of a majority of its membership and the public” while undermining the “general welfare.”
NRA provided Ammoland News with a rebuttal statement from spokesperson Amy Hunter.
“This is just another worthless and disgusting ‘soundbite remedy’ to the violence epidemic gripping our nation. The same kind of attack the NRA has confronted in New York,” the statement says.
“This is a reckless assault on a law-abiding organization, its members, and the freedoms they all stand for. We remain undeterred – guided by our values and belief in those who want to find real solutions to gun violence.”
The San Francisco vote comes as Congressional anti-gunners are ramping up their campaign to pass more gun control laws, capitalizing on public reaction to recent high-profile mass shootings in Texas, Ohio and California.
In the most recent of these incidents, authorities have determined that the West Texas gunman who killed seven people in Odessa acquired his semi-automatic rifle through a private sale, according to CNN. This will undoubtedly become a talking point for proponents of so-called “universal background checks” and those hoping to ban semi-auto rifles.
The gunman was fatally shot by police after leading them on a wild chase that began when he opened fire on law enforcement officers who stopped him on an apparent traffic infraction. That man, identified as 36-year-old Seth Ator, had been fired from his job earlier in the day.
San Francisco has attempted twice to ban certain firearms within its borders, but both times the city was defeated in court by legal actions involving the Second Amendment Foundation, which was joined in one lawsuit by the NRA.
The 2½-page resolution suggests that the NRA is also enabling hate groups. The full text may be read here.
San Francisco : Declaring the National Rifle Association and all it’s members as a Domestic Terrorist Org
“All countries have violent and hateful people, but only in America do we give them ready access to assault weapons and large-capacity magazines thanks, in large part, to the National Rifle Association’s influence,” the document claims.
In an interview with KTVU News, Stefani said “The NRA has it coming to them, and I will do everything that I possibly can to call them out on what they are, which is a domestic terrorist organization.”
Stefani reportedly wrote the resolution in the aftermath of the Gilroy Garlic Festival mass shooting by an individual who violated existing gun laws. Authorities determined that the Gilroy gunman legally purchased his firearm in Nevada, where he had been living, but brought it illegally into California, where such rifles are banned. He entered the Garlic Festival grounds by apparently cutting through a fence to avoid security at the gate. Police who were present at the festival shot him several times before he took his own life.
KTVU reported that NRA’s Hunter also provided this statement:
“This ludicrous stunt by the Board of Supervisors is an effort to distract from the real problems facing San Francisco, such as rampant homelessness, drug abuse and skyrocketing petty crime, to name a few…The NRA will continue working to protect the constitutional rights of all freedom-living Americans.”
Perhaps one of those problems San Francisco faces is news reports that just can’t get away from blaming guns instead of people, as in this KTVU news report about the man involved in the 2015 shooting death of Kate Steinle on the famous Pier 14 while she was walking with her father. Jose Ines Garcia-Zarate still faces prosecution in relation to the case, but here’s what the news agency reported:
“An undocumented Mexican immigrant who held the gun that killed a San Francisco woman on a city pier four years ago still faces two federal gun charges, even though a California appeals court has overturned his state gun possession conviction.”
In San Francisco, it is apparently always the gun’s fault, invariably shared by an organization and all of it’s members defending the right to own guns.
About Dave Workman
Dave Workman is a senior editor at TheGunMag.com and Liberty Park Press, author of multiple books on the Right to Keep & Bear Arms and formerly an NRA-certified firearms instructor.