Last Gun Shop closes due to new regulations by city

[Artful]

Sorry to post this for all our Bay Area members...

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/09/24/surrender-san-fran-iconic-last-gun-shop-to-close-over-new-regulations/?intcmp=hpbt3


Surrender: San Fran's iconic, last gun shop to close over new regulations
By Hollie McKay (http://www.foxnews.com/archive/hollie-mckay)
Published September 24, 2015

Ever since it was opened in the 1950s by a celebrated Olympic shooter, High Bridge Arms has been a defiant fixture in San Francisco's Mission District, but a coming wave of new firearms restrictions has prompted the last gun shop in the liberal City by the Bay to pack it in.

The proposed new city regulations, which could only be aimed at High Bridge Arms, would have required the shop to take and preserve video of all transactions and turn customers' personal data over to police on a weekly basis. General Manager Steven Alcairo said the shop's owners finally threw in the towel after years of what they consider being unfairly targeted with burdensome rules and regulations. Past regulations have required the shop to bar ads and displays from its windows and install cameras and barriers around its exterior. The shop has 17 cameras as it is, and turns video over to police on request, he said.

"This year, it's this and next year will probably be something else," Alcairo added. "We don't want to wait for it.""This time, it's the idea of filming our customers taking delivery of items after they already completed waiting periods," Alcairo said. "We feel this is a tactic designed to discourage customers from coming to us.

Business for the last gun shop in the city of 840,000 has been good, according to Alcairo, especially since the store, which caters to law enforcement and outdoors enthusiasts, announced it would close next month.

Situated in the prominent city heart of Mission Street, High Bridge Arms was founded in the mid-1950s by Bob Chow, who competed in the 1948 Olympics 25-yard pistol shooting event. By some accounts a Bay Area institution, it has long been a tourist destination - specially for members of the law enforcement community who visit the city.

“I found the staff to be friendly, decent, law-abiding people who have been harassed by the San Francisco anti-gun crowd for quite some time,” Jim Wilson, a retired sheriff from Alpine, Texas, told FoxNews.com as he recalled stopping by the shop during a visit to San Francisco a few years back.

But the shop has long been a thorn in the side of the city's aggressive advocates of gun control. City Supervisor Mark Farrell, who publicly requested that the city attorney’s office draft the new restrictions two months ago, said “easy access to guns and ammunition continue to contribute to senseless violent crime here in San Francisco and across the country.”

“Even though San Francisco has some of the toughest gun control laws on the books in the country - there is more we can do to protect the public,” he said in a statement before introducing the package.

Ladd Everitt, spokesman for the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, said the proposed regulations are not onerous and said “video evidence is a critical component in bringing lawbreakers to justice.”


“If High Bridge Arms is so scared of implementing such a practice, my first question would be, ‘What do you have to hide?,'" he said. "Why in the world aren't we requiring all gun stores to tape sales at this point?”

Days after the ordinance including the new restrictions was announced earlier this month, the store announced an inventory clearance and closing sale on Facebook.

“It’s with tremendous sadness and regret that I have to announce we are closing our shop,” read the post. “It has been a long and difficult ride, but a great pleasure to be your last San Francisco Gun shop.”

Outdoorsmen and Second Amendment supporters blasted the city for targeting the shop, saying the new laws will do nothing to keep guns out of the hands of criminals.

“This is yet another piece of thoughtless, superficial, anti-American, anti-gun legislation that is a dangerous threat to our freedom and Constitution,” Chris Cheng, winner of The History Channel’s Season Four TOP SHOT, and a San Francisco resident, told FoxNews.com. “High Bridge Arms, like many gun shops around America, was a place for well-to-do folks to gather and talk shop about firearms and freedom.”

California attorney Chuck Michel, who specializes in firearms law and civil rights, said the legislation seems aimed merely at giving politicians a chance to “falsely claim they are doing something about gun violence.”

“For years San Francisco politicians have inappropriately blamed licensed and inspected gun retailers for violence actually caused by gangs, drugs, and sanctuary city laws,” he said. “The City has imposed a crushing burden of redundant and pointless regulatory red-tape on firearm retailers, all in an effort to put them out of business. Now they have gotten their wish.”

So San Fran will be crime free shortly - right

[MaryB]

The scum pushing these regulations need a back alley meeting...

[jmort]

Sorry for the owner, but good, liberals do not deserve guns.

[NVcurmudgeon]

I was a customer at Bob Chow's back in the sixties. Also, as a Bay Area resident, I was a customer of Goodsell-Siegel in Oakland which dated from 1943 and is also long gone by the same technique used on Chow's. Get the last gun shop out of town by passing Draconian measures that apply only to gun shops. There used to be a very good gun show, but an Alameda County Supervisor got the county to pass a measure prohibiting gun shows at the County Fairgrounds back in the nineties. Of course all the city and county governments mentioned enjoy having zero crime...sure they do!

[.45Cole]

I visited High Bridge Arms in Feb, just in time! It took me half a day to get there but I made it. San Francisco just made themselves the poster child for a population where guns aren't being sold.
Let the data logs roll :idea:

[Wayne Smith]

Try applying that same law to grocery stores, liquor stores, and banks, and listen to the screaming.

[captaint]

I have to wonder how these "people" get elected. What are folks thinking ?? Some of us are our own worst enemy.

[Teddy (punchie)]

Just sad!! Let them think they are making things safer. Maybe they'll find out. Like going into bear country, when you know you should have protection, and say well I understand bears I'll take my chances. Your going to get eaten!! only a matter of time. Let them all get there just return on all there ideas, are they safer??

Hey I got a 2200 lbs Bull they can come and play with. He tame safe all right, but just the size and he is a bull tells me not to be so cocky. Somethings just don't make sense, most of us see it the others are loss.

[Bad Water Bill]

Someone should review EZELL/CHICAGO.

Rhonda took the city of Chicago before SCOTUS and won because Chicago laws kept ALL gun stores and ranges out of the city.

If Rhonda could do that in Chiraq, Frisco should be a piece of cake to beat.

[bangerjim]

Can anyone say San Andreas Fault?

[Mal Paso]

2 months ago I had my right rear tire razor bladed at a stoplight in Downtown San Francisco by a panhandler I shined and it blew just south of the city. The city is a Cess Pool of perverts and addicts and I will never go back.

[sparky45]

Is that ALL the good things you have to say about SF?:kidding:


2 months ago I had my right rear tire razor bladed at a stoplight in Downtown San Francisco by a panhandler I shined and it blew just south of the city. The city is a Cess Pool of perverts and addicts and I will never go back.

[RogerDat]

First the gun stores to prevent violence, next the donut shops to prevent obesity, soon the car dealers to prevent auto accidents. You simply cannot fix stupid. Sometimes the best you can do is not vote for it or just walk away.

Hope the owner left a jumbo poster sized picture of a hand flipping the bird in the window with F*** You Mark Farrel written under it when he left. That would be protected political speech.

[Bzcraig]

That law for sure would've saved the young woman from being murdered by the 5X deported illegal alien in the sanctuary city.

[Elkins45]

That's a most excellent point about requiring the same at liquor stores. I'm sure it would reduce sales to minors dramatically. Wonder why nobody proposed that?

Oh wait, maybe it's because they all buy liquor for themselves but the city buys their guns (for their bodyguards and police escorts).

Maybe they should pass a law that the hookers should video transactions as well...you know, so they track the spread of diseases.

[RogerDat]

.....

Maybe they should pass a law that the hookers should video transactions as well...you know, so they track the spread of diseases.

You raise a good point, someone in the area should propose it at a city council meeting. We should video all sex trade transactions and turn those over to police without warrant. I mean the sex trade does perpetrate violence against vulnerable members of society. The transaction is itself a crime, and depending on the age a felony. Unlike a lawful gun purchase in a respectable store how about we put cameras on the streets where the real crime is?

Besides not being able to contact the clients that purchase sex hampers public health workers trying to notify folks when the seller gets arrested and is found to have a sexually transmitted diseases. How much better if they could just go to the library of video tapes held by the police and get license plate numbers and pictures to run against drivers license photos with facial recognition software. Then they could "save" all those victims of social diseases, and keep them from sharing it with others.

Pretty sure there are more cases of sexual disease in SF than there are cases of lawful firearm owners using a firearm in a crime.

Besides you politicians on city council can just wear disguises and put a little shaving cream on the license plate so it cant be read, no one will know it is you on the video tape. Unless they see really tiny marbles, really tiny marbles might be a clue we are dealing with a politician.

[gunauthor]

Visit San Francisco? I'd rather have syphilis.........

[starmac]

All gun owners should put every city councilman, mayor, police chief and anybody else on their email list and question how somebody could possibly have a gun EVERy time a crime using a firearm in SF is reported. Clog the system with thousands and thousands of emails. Maybe we need to start using liberal ways to deal with these things.

I tried living in Cali for a very short time in Cali (southern) in the 70's, it was a cesspool then, and hasn't gotten any better as far as I am concerned. Back then they had some kind of ***** lovers quarrel in city hall and some ***** shot, Iirc the mayor and a couple of city councilmen/women/shehes/heshes/convertables, whatever the heck they were. It was reported that there were over 4,000 queers at the funeral. I decided then, the bay area had nothing of interest that warranted a visit from me.

[Mytmousemalibu]

They should stay open and every customer that buys a gun can borrow a giant Big Bird costume to wear during videotaping the buyer. Wear the iconic Johnny Cash shirt with him flipping the bird while you're at it.

[NavyVet1959]

Visit San Francisco? I'd rather have syphilis.........

I don't think they are mutually exclusive.

Of course, one could argue that syphilis is better than AIDS. We *are* talking about San Francisco...

[Mk42gunner]

I think Robbie Barrett had the right idea. When California decided that regular citizens couldn't buy his guns; he decided not to sell any to the various gov't entities in the state. Not sure if he is still doing that or not.

Robert

[David2011]

I think Robbie Barrett had the right idea. When California decided that regular citizens couldn't buy his guns; he decided not to sell any to the various gov't entities in the state. Not sure if he is still doing that or not.

Robert

Georgetown, TX gun manufacturer STI did the same thing. Good on 'em.

David

[MtGun44]

It's San Fran. Who would be surprised? Left Cali many, many years ago,
not going back except the occasional visit. San Fran is the worst.

[Artful]

Georgetown, TX gun manufacturer STI did the same thing. Good on 'em.

David

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/02/23/gaining-momentum-now-42-gun-companies-have-stopped-selling-to-law-enforcement-in-anti-2nd-amendment-states/

Feb 2013
The list of companies that have stopped selling firearms and ammunition to law enforcement agencies in states that are restricting the Second Amendment has more than doubled since Wednesday (http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/02/20/have-any-more-gun-makers-stopped-selling-to-anti-2nd-amendment-states-oh-yeah-lots-more/) and is more than five times larger than just one week ago (http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/02/15/group-of-second-amendment-supporting-gun-makers-now-refusing-to-sell-arms-to-law-enforcement-in-new-york-and-other-gun-restricting-states/). There are 44 companies on our list, with more being added as we receive notification. Here are the additions since Wednesday: (http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/02/15/group-of-second-amendment-supporting-gun-makers-now-refusing-to-sell-arms-to-law-enforcement-in-new-york-and-other-gun-restricting-states/)


Barrett Firearms (http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10152600613640038&set=a.370014790037.361087.269478890037&type=1)
Exile Machine (https://www.exilemachine.net/shop/pages/no-le-exemption-in-restricted-states-37.html)
Tier One Arms (http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_1_5/1422948_We_are_done_doing_business_with_New_York_l aw_enforcement.html)
Bravo Company USA (http://www.bravocompanyusa.com/)
Primary Weapons Systems (http://www.facebook.com/primaryweapons?ref=stream#!/primaryweapons/posts/10152539397510456)
Crusader Weaponry (http://www.facebook.com/sean.sorrentino?ref=name#!/CrusaderWeaponryPage/posts/469901256393076)
Top Gun Supply (http://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=486085834773141&id=137574462957615)
Kiss Tactical (http://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=486085834773141&id=137574462957615#!/permalink.php?story_fbid=490634950973996&id=219316314772529)
Clark Fork Tactical (https://www.facebook.com/CFTInc/posts/483204168395898)
OFA Tactical (http://www.facebook.com/pages/OFA-Tactical/239900362739829#!/permalink.php?story_fbid=486333438096519&id=239900362739829)
One Source Tactical (http://www.onesourcetactical.com/storepolicies-termsofuse.aspx)
Templar Tactical Arms (http://www.facebook.com/309092729200150/posts/526310060725055)
NEMO Arms (https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=607395575942025&set=a.4011342132348 30.110615.345155042166081&type=1&theater)
Old Grouch’s Military Surplus (http://www.facebook.com/GreatSurplusDeals/posts/10151036285343078)
Big Horn Armory (http://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=494998780557408&id=494647487259204&comment_id=80959230&notif_t=feed_comment)
Midway USA (http://www.facebook.com/OfficialMidwayUSA/posts/489251294465797)
CMMG Inc (http://www.facebook.com/CMMGInc/posts/476105212438554)
Rocky Top Tactical (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Rocky-Top-Tactical/172451992823087#!/permalink.php?story_fbid=453395964728687&id=172451992823087)
Badger Peak (http://www.facebook.com/BadgerPeak#!/BadgerPeak/posts/520955584621922)
Controlled Chaos Arms (https://www.facebook.com/controlledchaosarms/posts/10151538556676584)
SRT Arms (http://www.srtarms.com/price.htm)
Norton Firearms (http://www.nortonfirearms.com/us-constitution)
Citizen Arms (https://www.citizenarms.com/)
Evolution Weaponry (http://evolutionweaponry.com/)
Doublestar Corp (http://www.star15.com/)
JCW Industries (http://www.jcwindustries.com/)
Huntertown Arms (http://huntertownarms.com/)
Ruger (handguns after microstamp law)
Smith & Wesson (handguns after microstamp law)


http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Gun-industry-balks-at-California-s-new-5177440.php

http://gunsnfreedom.com/ruger-and-smith-wesson-cutting-ties-with-california-over-absurd-microstamping-law/2046

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/01/26/smith-wesson-to-stop-selling-some-pistols-in-california-due-to-gun-law/

[starmac]

I have an idea most of those never had a law enforcement contract to start with, sooooo pretty easy to stop selling to them. lol

[9w1911]

San Fran can sink into the ocean, place is disgusting.

[Naphtali]

Strange that no one has confirmed that municipal elected officials must be required to pay, from their own resources, for any armed personal and familial security. Otherwise, they must rely on the same police that the tax payers must. If this is not the case, I am disappointed that these officials are not saving their tax payers and voters from such frivolous waste. I am more disappointed that voters and tax payers of the city do not insist upon such economies and personal responsibility from their officials.

[TXGunNut]

What's scary is that other city officials are watching and taking notes.

[Hamish]

The first thought that came to mind was "where was the NRA in all of that garbage that they were being subjected to?"

[Bad Water Bill]

What's scary is that other city officials are watching and taking notes.

Perhaps those city officials should contact the mayor of Chiraq and ask him how much he lost trying to keep gun stores out of his town.

Then they can check their check books to see if they want to chance spending THEIR taxpayers money.:bigsmyl2:

[Kevinakaq]

The scum pushing these regulations need a back alley meeting...

agreed.

[Geezer in NH]

Sorry for the owner, but good, liberals do not deserve guns.Winner!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Duckiller]

The majority of the voting age citizens of San Francisco do not any guns in their city.They will get rid of the legal guns first then go after the illegal guns. They have voted TWICE to outlaw handguns. Both times the State Supreme Court has told them that you can't do that. From memory the vote was about 60/40 to outlaw handguns. I am not sure that the owner of this shop wanted to fight any more. Given they way these citizens feel and the fact that you can't sell new pistols in California ( Micro stamping required that no one knows how to do) I am not sure that the owner wanted to keep fighting for a business that may have not been that successful in recent times. Not a reason to let the City and County of San Francisco to shut you down but it is a reason not to ask the NRA and the California Rifle and Pistol Association for legal help. There are other gun shops in the greater San Francisco area that will sell to law abiding citizens and sell new guns if we can convince our somewhat retarded Attorney General that just because a stupid law (micro stamping) has been on the books for several years doesn't mean that anyone knows how to implement it. Also need to convince Attorney General's staff that changing the finish on a hand gun doesn't change how it will survive their drop test. Only NEW hand guns that can be sold in California now are Single Action revolvers. Colts and clones are sure to fail so all single actions are exempt. I don't make the laws I just live with them.

[TXGunNut]

Perhaps those city officials should contact the mayor of Chiraq and ask him how much he lost trying to keep gun stores out of his town.

Then they can check their check books to see if they want to chance spending THEIR taxpayers money.:bigsmyl2:


That line of thinking would not deter folks who think they will be safer if law-abiding folks can't buy guns. Logic doesn't enter into the situation. As for the cost they'll drag out the tired old argument "if it only saves one life it will be worth it".

[NavyVet1959]

That line of thinking would not deter folks who think they will be safer if law-abiding folks can't buy guns. Logic doesn't enter into the situation.

The only people who would be safer if law-abiding folks can't buy/own guns are the criminals. So, if someone supports such laws, you know that they are either a criminal or at the very least, a supporter of criminal behavior.

[TXGunNut]

The only people who would be safer if law-abiding folks can't buy/own guns are the criminals. So, if someone supports such laws, you know that they are either a criminal or at the very least, a supporter of criminal behavior.


I tend to see the best in people. The vast majority of anti-gun-leaning folks simply don't know any better and are misled by some power-hungry individuals that have an agenda that truly frightens me.

[Lance Boyle]

The scum pushing these regulations need a back alley meeting...

I hate to stoop to that level but it's the level that that scum dwell in. They will lie about gun owners for the mission as well as fun. they don't care, it's all about listening to them and following their orders. Something something about a tree needing to be watered with blood or something is on my mind. The communists did things just like this to have their control uncontestable.

[458mag]

I hate to stoop to that level but it's the level that that scum dwell in. They will lie about gun owners for the mission as well as fun. they don't care, it's all about listening to them and following their orders. Something something about a tree needing to be watered with blood or something is on my mind. The communists did things just like this to have their control uncontestable.
Well if the democrats, and I bet most of sanfranfreeko are registered democrats, get there way it will go nation wide.