ContentDid anyone else in California have a problem voting today? My neighborhood precinct polling location, the library on Page St., had no record of my name. Which is odd, considering I’ve registered twice in the district — once when I moved here a year and a half ago, and again when I moved apartments in the same building and filled out my change of address forms.
I realize that organizing an election is hard work, and a special election doubly so. Still, I can’t help but wish that my vote counted. (I’ll likely never know whether the provisional ballot is recorded.) And this election apparently cost us $40M dollars — all just so that our Governor could push his personal/partisan agenda. Sadly, that’s a wasted $40M of taxpayer money, as the voters don’t seem to be buying into it. Isn’t this the state that recalled Grey Davis to put an end to just this sort of politics?
Of interest to me was a ballot initiative to ban handguns in San Francisco. If I remember correctly, even when they are passed, local laws banning firearms have historically been overturned by the courts due to the Second Amendment. Still, it’s refreshing to think that a community would even try to challenge the status quo and stop firearm violence. We’ve had far too many gun-related fatalities in San Francisco neighborhoods this year, particularly in the Western Addition and the Mission.
I’m all for a more participatory democracy, but I do think that the Governor could have waited until the next scheduled election day. Maybe I’ll be on the rolls for that one…
November 8th, 2005 at 8:45 pm
You are not serious? I am a police officer (as well as a PhD) and the data are rather clear that criminals will still have guns even if guns are banned. If I was a criminal, I would run, not walk, to SF after the ban, figuring that it now be SAFER for criminals. Please think about this for a second: If I am a criminal, and I am willing to commit a felony will my gun (murder, armed robbery, etc.) why would I care about the crime of simple possession of a firearm? Your police are against this ban, for gosh sakes. Gun bans have DO NOT reduce gun violence - see the studies by the national Academy of Science, and the CDC (2004, and 2003, respectively). They only infringe on the basic human right of self defense. Gun bans harm the elderly, the inform, sexual and racial minorities, etc., who may choose to have a gun at home to protect themselves and/or their loved ones.
Democracy only works with an INFORMED populace. If your city approves the ban, it will prove nothing but its own ignorance.
November 8th, 2005 at 9:13 pm
Individ, thanks so much for the comment. I will be the first to admit that I am not well informed on this issue, and the perspective from someone who actually knows what is like to be out there on the front line is invaluable.
The courts side with your perspective as well, insofar as they have been consistent in upholding the Constituional right to bear arms. I would imagine that they would overturn this local law as well.
That said, I do come from the perspective of someone that abhors violence. (Not implying that you don’t, of course.) So how do we quell the firearm violence?
Here’s a question that is impossible to answer — how many times have legal firearms been used to prevent a wrongdoing, vs. how many times have they been used to commit one? (The reason I say that it is impossible to answer is that there are too many variables, each contigent upon the other.) If we ban legal firearms, will more crimes be committed as a result of the reduced implied deterrent? Or will fewer crimes be committed as a result of the reduction of the number of available weapons?
Again, I’m not an expert, but a minute or two of searching found a brief submitted before Congress by the American Bar Association. The quote that caught my eye was:
Clearly, any of these statistics are misleading if taken in isolation. But we have certainly developed into a culture in which people will resort to using a gun to settle an argument, to preserve turf, or just to feel the semblance of respect. And that’s not a healthy culture, no matter how one feels about the guns themselves.