If you want to buy a gun while you’re visiting San Francisco, you can’t. The last gun store in the city has closed in protest of California’s insistence that gun buyers are criminals.
Steven Alcairo announced the closing of his store, High Bridge Arms, in September of this year. And while it may seem like a bad business move to close your location when you stand without competition, Alcairo saw it as the only thing he could do to stand up for gun rights.
The regulations that have been enacted require gun store owners to videotape each gun sale and report ammunition sales to the police. These invasive measures were the last straw. In Alcairo’s words:
“I’m not doing that to our customers. Enough is enough…Buying a gun is a constitutionally protected right. Our customers shouldn’t be treated like they’re doing something wrong.”
He’s absolutely right. Pharmacies don’t have to report how many Plan B pills they sell, nor do websites have to report the names and amounts of fetish pornography they provide each customer. This measure just affects gun owners.
Gun safety advocates don’t understand why Alcairo would close. They say that it would not affect his bottom line to comply with the regulations.
High Bridge Arms has been open for 63 years. The owner, Masashi Takahashi, says that he is too old to keep up with the city’s regulations. He is in his 70s and Alcairo says he is done with it.
Customers have been voicing their frustrations with the shop having to close and pointing to the new laws as the reason. When a city makes it so difficult for independent gun shops to operate, they are contributing to the problem. On top of that, they are villainizing the customer base, who is doing nothing wrong.
A Wal-Mart spokesperson has even come out and said that they also videotape gun sales. Other parts of California have adopted the practice as well.
There is reason, aside from common sense, to protest the measures reaching into other parts of the state. More rural areas have more gun owners buying more ammunition.
When asked about the gun laws being passed in California, a North Dakota gun shop owner described the practices as, “being a mess” and that it would require a lot of his time. In small business, time very much means money. Another shop owner said that if someone came in and bought 1,000-5,000 rounds it wouldn’t raise an eyebrow. They very well may be hunting prairie dogs off their land.
The same is most likely true for the more rural regions of California, namely, Northern California and any other farmland in the state. Criminalizing the purchase of weapons and ammunition via videotaping and reporting purchases just adds to the stigma the left has created around owning a gun in the first place.
Owning weapons is part of life for most rural folks. Farms are remiss to not have one. Coyotes get after chickens, mountain lions can threaten larger animals and people, animals need to be put down even to stop their suffering. The fundamental lack of understanding of why people own guns is echoed in these ridiculous laws.
There are a million reasons to own a gun. Post below why you own yours and what you think of San Francisco’s laws.
