“Although San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi was a strong advocate of gun control while on the Board of Supervisors, he surrendered 3 handguns when police recently booked him on misdemeanor domestic violence charges,” KCBS reports.
Mirkarimi apparently owned them while sponsoring legislation last summer to bolster San Francisco gun control laws against a lawsuit by the National Rifle Association.
“Mirkarimi was elected sheriff in November after serving seven years as one of the city's more liberal supervisors,” Fox News tells us.
Indeed, “As a longtime member of the progressive bloc on the Board of Supervisors, Mirkarimi was a vocal advocate of gun control,” The San Francisco Examiner informs us.
But after being arrested on three misdemeanor charges including domestic violence battery, Mirkarimi was forced to turn over all his guns to authorities.
“If Mirkarimi were convicted on the domestic violence charge, he would not be able to carry a gun as sheriff,” reporter Joshua Sabatini claims.
True, but it would entail more than that. If convicted, “thanks” to the infamous Lautenberg Amendment, he would be a prohibited person under federal law, forbidden not only to carry a gun, but to own or even touch one—forever.
And a protective order is enough to disenfranchise him from his fundamental right to keep and bear arms prior to being convicted of anything.
While it appears corroborating information of a pattern of previous abusive behavior against female partners is emerging, along with documentation of his “well-known temper” and his own lawyer calling him “a bit of a tyrant,” it’s important to remember Mirkarimi is innocent until proven guilty, and also to keep in mind partners in failed relationships sometimes lash out motivated by revenge.
But even if convicted, a prohibition of a fundamental natural right over a misdemeanor is overkill. And while I don’t pretend to give a damn one way or another about what happens to this Mirkarimi character, who as far as I’m concerned is hoist on his own petard and not likely to have an epiphany on individual liberty even if he manages to beat the…uh…rap, his predicament points to a disconnect between crime and punishment driven more by the political correctness he and his kind have demanded, enabled and enforced, than by public safety.
Because remember: Anyone who can’t be trusted with a gun can’t be trusted without a custodian.
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