The San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed a resolution Tuesday declaring the National Rifle Association (NRA) a “domestic terrorist organization” and recommending that the city and county no longer do business with any entity that also has dealings with the gun-rights group.
“The United States is plagued by an epidemic of gun violence,” reads the resolution, which was introduced by Supervisor Catherine Stefani.
The resolution claims that “approximately 100 Americans are killed with guns” each day, a reasonably accurate statement based on statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), although those numbers include suicides (60 percent of the total), accidents, and deaths inflicted by law enforcement.
It further declares that “there has been more than one mass shooting per day in the United States in 2019,” although it later says “at least three” such incidents have occurred since the July 28 Gilroy Garlic Festival shooting, far fewer than the one-per-day claim would suggest. In fact, the one-per-day assertion goes back several years and is completely bogus, as even the left-wing, Frisco-based Mother Jones pointed out, noting that “essentially, an anonymous guy on Reddit made it up.”
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The resolution also cites the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution in its brief against the NRA, though it conveniently fails to mention the Second Amendment.
“The National Rifle Association musters its considerable wealth and organizational strength to promote gun ownership,” the resolution accurately states, then adds that the NRA “incite[s] gun owners to acts of violence” — a patently absurd statement unless one considers training people in the proper and safe use of firearms an incitement to violence.
The resolution goes on to accuse the NRA of “promot[ing] extremist positions” — in reality, the NRA is a somewhat wishy-washy voice in defense of gun rights — and “arm[ing] those individuals who would and have committed acts of terrorism.”
“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,” says the resolution.
Given the above faulty statistics and reasoning, the board declared the NRA “a domestic terrorist organization” and resolved to “take every reasonable step to limit those entities who do business with the City and County of San Francisco from doing business with” the NRA. In short, for advocating public policies that align (to some degree) with the Constitution, the NRA and anyone who has any business dealings with it will be persecuted by an American government.
The board isn’t content merely with punishing the NRA in their own jurisdiction, either. The resolution also calls for the city and county to “encourage all other jurisdictions, including other cities, states, and the federal government, to adopt similar positions.”
“The NRA exists to spread dis-information, and knowingly puts guns into the hands of those who would harm and terrorize us,” Stefani told KTVU.
“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,” she added.
The NRA fired back with a statement that read: “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-loving Americans.”
Assuming the San Francisco board is really interested in fighting domestic terrorism, surely it will pass a similar resolution condemning and punishing Antifa, which, unlike the NRA, is directly responsible for riots, threats, and violent assaults on innocent parties — right? Don’t hold your breath.
Photo: gguy44 / iStock / Getty Images Plus
