California Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. 271 East Imperial Highway Fullerton, California 92835 www.crpa.org For Immediate Release: January 20, 2002 For Additional Information Contact: Chuck Michel (310)548-3703

NRA Members' Councils of California

On January 8, 2002, the California Rifle and Pistol Association (CRPA) filed a lawsuit in San Francisco County Superior Court challenging San Francisco's "assault weapon" ordinance. The lawsuit alleged that the city's ordinance was unconstitutional and preempted by the state's "assault weapon" law. Other plaintiffs in the lawsuit include the California Sporting Goods Association (representing state firearm dealers) and several San Francisco residents that own firearms misclassified as "assault weapons" by the city law.

In response to the lawsuit, City officials voted to repeal the ordinance in November, 2002. On December 20, 2002 San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown signed the repeal, finalizing the process. The formal repeal from the city's municipal code takes effect on January 20, 2003.

Before filing suit, CRPA sent a series of "pre-litigation demand" letters to then San Francisco City Attorney Lois Renne asking that the ordinance be repealed. Renne repeatedly refused. In fact, she went so far as to hold a press conference at which she dared CRPA or the National Rifle Association (NRA) to sue the city. Quoting "Dirty Harry" Callahan, the fictional San Francisco police detective portrayed by Clint Eastwood, Renne dared CRPA to "make my day" by filing suit.

CRPA was only too happy to do so. Now that the city has lost the suit, the court will be asked to make the city pay back CRPA's attorneys fees.

"My clients gave the city every opportunity to repeal this law without litigation," says Chuck Michel, CRPA spokesperson and a lawyer on the suit. "Every other city that had this ordinance agreed to repeal it in light of the state law. Only San Francisco refused. Unfortunately, now the city taxpayers will have to pay for city officials being stubborn. We regret Ms. Renne isn't in office to experience this. And we find it ironic that she would choose the fictional Detective "Dirty Harry" Callahan as a role model, considering the character sometimes set a bad example when choosing and using firearms."

Approximately seven cities passed local "assault weapon" bans between 1987 and 1989, when a state law on the subject was passed. Since then, those cities have repealed or are repealing their ordinances in response to CRPA and NRA requests. By those requests, CRPA sought to avoid the confusion that having both laws in effect causes gun owners and CRPA members, who can't figure out how to comply with both the state and local law simultaneously (the laws conflict in some respects). The cities decided to repeal the ordinances because they agreed with CRPA's position that the state "assault weapon" law displaces local laws on the subject. As the San Francisco newspaper The Independent reported on January 1, 2002, San Francisco still has a number of antiquated "morality" ordinances on its books that should have been cleaned out long ago.

"This should simply have been about the good government practice of getting rid of outdated laws," Michel said. "The city is cleaning up dozens of outdated code sections, but it refused to clean up this one. Instead, the City Attorney's office held a press conference to bash people who choose to own a gun."

Ironically, despite having more gun control laws than any other city in the state, San Francisco still has a unusually high homicide rate. It's gun control efforts have failed so badly that the city recently adopted an NRA supported program that enforces existing state and federal gun laws and really works to reduce gun violence.

CRPA's 70,000 members include law enforcement officers, prosecutors, professionals, firearm experts, the general public, and loving parents. CRPA instructors have been teaching safe and responsible firearms ownership to those who choose to own a gun for sport or self-defense for over 100 years. CRPA has a variety of firearm safety programs available to local officials.