NRA sues S.F. over firearms laws SAN FRANCISCO

The National Rifle Association has filed suit against the city of San Francisco, Mayor Gavin Newsom and Police Chief Heather Fong, taking aim at city laws it contends violate the Second Amendment right to bear arms.

The NRA filed the lawsuit in federal court Friday on behalf of six residents and the San Francisco Veteran Police Officers Association. It challenges three provisions of the city's police code that it says interfere with their right "to defend themselves and others ... within their own homes."

The provisions are:

-- A requirement that handguns in San Francisco homes be kept in a locked cabinet or disabled with a trigger lock.

-- A ban on the sale of fragmenting bullets - a particularly deadly type of ammunition.

-- A city ordinance that prohibits the discharge of firearms within city limits. The law has been on the books since 1938, and is seldom, if ever, enforced, according to city officials.

Neither the association nor the attorney who filed the suit for the NRA could be reached for comment Monday afternoon.

The suit alleges that because of the city's failure to repeal the code sections, the plaintiffs in the case "are subjected to irreparable harm, in that they are unable to keep their handguns within their home in a manner ready for immediate use to protect themselves and their families from attack by violent intruders."

It seeks to have the laws invalidated.

Matt Dorsey, a spokesman for the city attorney's office, said the NRA's real goal is not to strike down the specific city laws but to win court rulings that expand the reach of the Second Amendment.

"It's more about pushing the envelope of the Second Amendment and setting new precedents and policies," he said.

The trigger-lock requirement, signed into law in 2006, prevents residents from having "operable" handguns at their disposal, according to the suit. It argues that the U.S. Supreme Court, in the 2008 Heller decision, struck down a similar trigger-lock requirement in Washington as unconstitutional because it made it impractical for residents to protect themselves.

San Francisco's trigger-lock restriction combined with a fragmenting bullet ban that precludes them from loading their weapons with "suitable ammunition," the suit says, "makes it impossible for city residents to use their handguns for the core lawful purpose of self-defense, particularly in urgent, life-threatening situations."

Dorsey, who accused the NRA of engaging in a nationwide suit-filing spree since the Supreme Court ruling, said San Francisco expects to prevail.

"I don't believe anything in federal law invalidates the provisions of the San Francisco ordinances," he said.