Ban Ammunition/Gun/Parts Sales to SF Agencies

[Martin Luther]

There ARE courses of action

1. The NRA is filing suit against the ban.

2. If we can figure out who arms the SFPD, we can put pressure on those manufacturers (boycotts, etc). Believe me, they consider the citizen market important. Look at the tremendous effects of the Smith & Wesson boycott.

Who arms the SFPD?

SMITH & WESSON COULDN'T SURVIVE ON GOVERNMENT AND LAW ENFORCEMENT CONTRACTS ALONE. The boycott worked.

3. We can boycott SF-based companies

 

[Martin Luther]

Thanks Jart

Thanks for clarifying, Jart.

Any suggestions from you?

 

[gb_in_ga]

"The SFPOA went public in opposition to the ban."

Which makes the action all the more regrettable. I had been wondering just that as the wife and I just went out to dinner. If they had supported the ban, I would wholeheartedly have supported that sort of boycott. Now, I have to view such a thing as, well, regrettable. But politically necessary nonetheless. I would say that going ahead with it, while acknowledging the SFPOA's opposition of the ban along with a plea for their cooperation and understanding, is still the best way for those of us who are not directly empowered by a vote to exert influence in this situation.

 

[Jart]

Any suggestions from you?

Constructive suggestion? That would be the hard part. I piped up only because I'm very uncomfortable with the concept of attempting to penalize the police that came out against the ban. If they were pushing it, like the LA crowd with the .50, it'd be different, but trying to penalize the people that were helping just doesn't make a lick of sense to me.

So what's the right target? Sadly, I don't know.

I'm NRA endowment - maybe I'll upgrade. Perhaps just send a check to NRA-ILA.

 

[Martin Luther]

Bob,

You're right. Boycott the suppliers- the SFPD officers are free to resign in protest to show how important this all is.

What's more important here is to send a message that the police are citizens too, and should enjoy the same rights as the citizens.

Who arms the SFPD? Anyone know any SFPD Officers or administrators?

Pass it on...

 

[gb_in_ga]

Martin Luther:

I really can't do that much to influence your suggestion #1. While I support that measure, I can't count on that measure being successful -- just judging by the track records of the courts where such motion would be heard.

The second and third suggestions have merit, and should be pursued. In particular, as soon as we find out who the respective companies are in suggestion #2, an ultimatum may need to be sent to them: Apply pressure or face boycott yourselves. And allow it to be known that if the SFPD were to switch vendors, that those vendors would be boycotted. As you point out, those manufacturers certainly will listen to us, the shooting public -- they can't survive without us.

To those who are proponents of the legal action: I do not oppose such a tact, but I do not have so much confidence in the success of that method that I am willing to drop all other methods of fighting this thing. The courts have failed us all too often.

After all, nothing wrong with a multi-facetted attack...

 

[Martin Luther]

Plans 1 & 2, simultaneously

Bob,

1. Help the NRA with the suit (remember all that money we sent to the NRA-ILA to fight lawsuits in the late 1990s? It worked!!)

2. Find out who supplies and arms the SFPD. Boycott them until the citizens can enjoy the same rights as the police.

A simple 2-pronged attack. Anyone can remember this plan. Once we find out who supplies the SFPD, so much the better. I'm checking google.com as we go along.

ML

 

[blackmind]

What will be accomplished by not selling guns, ammo or parts to SFPD?

Why punish, (sorta), the cops for the way the citizens voted? Whats the point and what does impacting the PD have to do with RKBA?

Is this just the city of SF? So all the suburban towns and villages are unaffected, right, or is it a county thing?

Why punish them? Because if they are denied guns and ammunition through an embargo, their ability to "protect" the people in their districts will be hampered, and the PEOPLE will then have to yield (the idiot ones who voted for the ban) and give up the ban so that WE gun people will allow their cops to have access to necessary equipment once again.


In another post, you asked why punish the cops, since they don't produce revenue and can't strike. I say, it doesn't matter that they don't produce revenue; they provide a service to the public and if their ability to do so is hampered, the recipients of that service will have pressure on themselves to do what is necessary to get their cops enabled again.

So sorry that the cops end up caught in the middle, but that's the way it goes.

I also feel that we should deny guns and ammunition to any city that tried/tries to sue gun makers for criminal actions that the makers had no part in.


-blackmind

 

[gb_in_ga]

"Uh. slick, why werent you so cranked before the election when you could have actually done something?"

Uh, because it is WAY over there, I don't live in that city. Before I feel comfortable directly acting in something like this, I feel that it is better to give the local voters the opportunity to do the job themselves. They failed in that job. Since they wouldn't do what was right themselves, it becomes necessary for others to take up that task. I feel that it is best for local folks to take care of things locally -- the local voters should have killed this thing themselves. But no, those left coast fever swamp denizens couldn't even get that right.

I at least had to give them the chance to do right, all on their own. They didn't. Now we have to play after-the-fact cleanup.

 

[gb_in_ga]

"I also feel that we should deny guns and ammunition to any city that tried/tries to sue gun makers for criminal actions that the makers had no part in."

To a point, I agree with you. I recognize that local regimes can and do change, and with that in mind I feel that sort of boycott should only apply to those cities who are actively participating in such lawsuits instead of acting on those who tried such lawsuits in the past. I mean, you might be attempting to penalize a city that has already changed its tune. Ok, so I can't think of any like that right off hand, but I still have to make provision to them. Otherwise, why should they change their outlook? After all, why do the boycott at all? We are attempting to get them to change their anti ways, you know.

 

[Martin Luther]

Civil Rights movement example

Not trying to flame here- this is just an example of what worked.

Back in the 1960s, a bunch of Northeastern Liberals traveled to Mississippi to help register African Americans to vote. The NE folks didn't live in Miss., but they felt strongly enough about the cause to literally put their lives on the line. Their intervention worked. Jim Crow and gun control based on race went out.

Intervention works.

 

[Scope]

I disagree with the idea of trying to penalize the police of SF over the gun ban. The police came out publicly against the ban, which was a brave political move on their part. Even they get shafted by Prop H, as it prevents them from carrying a gun when they are off duty. Given what I've seen on the local bay area news I know these guys go through a lot of crap, so give them a break.

Their declaration against prop H:
http://www.sfpoa.org/Journal/articles/october_05_article4.htm?id=24653

Being one of the most "progressive" cities in the world, SF has established a hefty city welfare program. Apparently the homeless can get upwards of $300 a month. If you want to lash out, buy a homeless person a bus ticket to SF.

 

[gb_in_ga]

"If you want to lash out, buy a homeless person a bus ticket to SF."

While that isn't such a bad idea, it does nothing about the current state of RKBA there.

Oh, and I stand by my reluctant backing of the ammo/gun/parts boycott, even though the SF law enforcement orgs are apparently on "our" side. It is my hope that the same SF law enforcement orgs will rally to us as we try to take the message of RKBA to the voting public of SF, and to those gun grabbing anti's who occupy the positions of power in that fever swamp. As has been pointed out, those in power there aren't going to listen to us if we pursue more conventional routes fighting this thing, so that means that more unconventional means are going to be required.

 

[sendec]

That's rich, ya wanna jam it to the cops, not having done enough research to figure out they were on your side, and now you want them to "rally to your side" while you still bone them.

Gotta hand it to you, that takes chutzpah (sorry, that isnt a word from your "American Christian heritage", but you get my point)

 

[blackmind]

Why do they keep their mouths shut, if they're on our side?

Do you not think that if the police, and the police unions, were in the papers and on the news every day telling the public that honest, law-abiding gun owners are not the problem, and the gun ban will have adverse effects, that this could have gone the RKBA way?

I say, if they won't speak up, they aren't on our side. They're in the closet, so to speak. Not doing any good.

So yeah, I DO think we should stick it to them, if that's what it will take to get
a) the cops to come out publicly in their support of our RKBA
b) the people to realize that gun owners are fed up with anti-gun b.s. making our rights disappear, and that without gun companies being healthy, cops won't have what they need to defend the people.


-blackmind

 

[Martin Luther]

That's rich, ya wanna jam it to the cops, not having done enough research to figure out they were on your side, and now you want them to "rally to your side" while you still bone them.

Sendec, I was well aware of the SFPOA opposition to this ban. To remind you, they will be the "first responders" in enforcing this law. If it's that important to them, they will resign in protest over this stupid law.

These cops are in their jobs voluntarily.

Let me repeat, the message we need to send is that the citizens need to have the same rights as the police. Freedom and all that.

As far as I can tell from research, the standard issue weapons to the SFPD are the .40 S&W Beretta Model 96D Brigadier pistol and the 12-gauge Beretta Model 1201FP semi-automatic shotgun.

First, second opinions are needed. No sense getting in Beretta's grill and being wrong.

 

[blackmind]

Beretta sells in all 50 states, right?

I would like to know if Beretta has the cajones to stand up to SF, and say, "Sorry, policy decision: NO MORE guns for you, since your stupid ass city passed this gun ban. Get 'em from someone else -- if they'll sell to you!"

If Beretta is willing to do without the revenue from sales in SF, and makes up the difference in the other 49 states etc., it will then fall to the next manufacturer that SF solicits to sell it guns -- and then they can decline... Until no one will replace SF's guns.

Of course, it would come down to the idea that some FFL or distributor in some other location would broker a deal for gun sales to SF anyway. It's not like Beretta sells directly to the police department there, is it? (I dunno how it works.) So just about anyone could sell us out by selling guns to SF even if Beretta says no more.

The only reason this came to a vote in the first place, I imagine, is that someone in city government got it onto a ballot, right? Got the ball rolling for a referendum. So the city is who should suffer. Does the mayor of the city get police escort and protection and stuff as a perk of the position? Maybe when he hears that the police force can't get ammunition anymore -- you know, since the city asserts that ammunition is something that people shouldn't be allowed to have -- he will rethink his stupidity.

Maybe his cops should be forced to defend his life using OC spray.
(Something I would not be surprised is forbidden to SF residents too...)


-blackmind

 

[Martin Luther]

SFPD & Beretta

Well, here is something straight from the source

http://www.sfgov.org/site/police_index.asp?id=21348

The police department will provide you with the standard issued equipment and uniform of a San Francisco Police Officer. You will be issued a department firearm, the current issued firearm for Reserve Officer is the Beretta 96GT .40 caliber pistol

Beretta can be reached in the following ways:

Beretta U.S.A. Corp
17601 Beretta Drive
Accokeek, MD 20607

(800) 636-3420 for customer support.

Ask them if they still plan on selling to the SFPD if law-abiding citizens can't have them anymore.

S&W got the message with the boycott. Beretta's turn now.

 

[sendec]

"Sendec, I was well aware of the SFPOA opposition to this ban."

Of course you were, and you did exactly what? How many letters did you write? How many calls did you make? What are you gonna do to get the cop's off duty carry reinstated?

 

[Smurfslayer]

Where do you draw the line?

If you're going to boycott San Fran., then wouldn't you have to boycott Chicago, Morton Grove, and for good measure, NYC ?

Your premise is proven to work with a powerful seller. Ford used this tactic to get PD's to back off their Crown Victoria lawsuits. It seems the Crown Vic might burst into flames if it's rear ended OVER 60 MPH! Of course, it makes no difference that 60% of the cars on the road wouldn't even structurally survive that kind of impact... Nevertheless, Ford told the suing agencies - No service for you! Since that's the only police cruiser most departments are interested in, it worked... for the most part.

The problem is that service handguns are offered from several different manufacturers, and you are asking each of them to give up profit for this effort. Unless all the major manufacturers of firearms and ammunition are willing to sign on, it will just peter out. If they all would get on board, that wouldn't necessarily help -

Guns are sold by Mfgr's to "Distributors" like RSR, Davidson's etc. From there, they are sold to FFL's and from FFL's to citizens.

I am not sure, but I believe PD's can buy direct from the distributors - anyone have the exact info on how the PD's actually procure their guns ( at a hugely discounted price, BTW ) ?

The point is that the embargo would have to ensure that no citizen unavailable contraband would make it to their government at all, PD included. That itself would be a hugely tough nut to crack.