Disarming law-abiding San Franciscans.

ITEM: The Christian Science Monitor for January 31 reported that San Francisco could become "a pioneer in gun control," saying, "In a city so often intent on making brash political statements, [Board of Supervisors member] Chris Daly's tone is decidedly practical." Mr. Daly "has proposed a ban on handguns in the city, prohibiting any resident from making, buying. or even owning them. If approved by voters this fall, the ballot measure would give San Francisco the toughest handgun laws of any major city in the United States."

The Monitor continued: "Once again, this most liberal of cities stands poised to take the lead on one of the most controversial areas of public policy.... Whether the handgun ban would be a useful addition to this [existing] suite of gun-control laws, however, is uncertain."

CORRECTION: If the ban passes, one thing is very certain: it would not stop crime any better than other gun-control measures. Recently, the National Academy of Sciences, with a deck stacked almost exclusively with gun control advocates, used 328 pages to summarize an analysis of almost 400 academic articles, books, and official publications only to discover (surprise!) that it could not detect a solitary gun-control regulation that had reduced violent crime, suicide, or accidents.

Such citywide bans have been tried previously. For example, it is illegal in Washington, D.C., for private citizens to possess handguns. Yet, as a spokesman for the National Rifle Association has pointed out, Washington's experiment with strict gun control is not exactly a great model for San Francisco. "If gun control worked, Washington, D.C., would be the beacon," commented Andrew Arulanandam. "However, it's the murder capital of the United States." Chicago, a city that vies with Washington, D.C., for murder capital of the world, is another city that has banned handguns. Tellingly, there are efforts to overturn those counterproductive handgun prohibitions in both D.C. and Chicago.

If the San Francisco measure passes, residents would be forbidden to keep guns in their homes or businesses. Also outlawed would be the sale, manufacture, and distribution of handguns and ammunition, as well as any transfer of gun licenses. The law would take effect in January 2006, and law-abiding San Franciscans would have 90 days to surrender their handguns --which is even stricter than in D.C. or Chicago, where those who already owned weapons were permitted to retain them. At that point, there would be another certainty. San Francisco's handgun prohibition, as noted by the head of the Gun Owners of California, would only reduce the "occupational hazard" for criminals.

Taking guns away from law-abiding citizens goes against all that has been learned about reducing violent crime. Criminals understand deterrence, which is why jurisdictions that are more sensible have in recent years passed right-to-carry (RTC) laws, allowing citizens to protect themselves. Thirty-eight states have such RTC laws, up from just l0 in 1987. These states have 27 percent lower average violent crime rates than non-RTC states--including 32 percent lower murder rates, 45 percent lower robbery rates, and 20 percent lower aggravated assault rates. This is no coincidence. In their comprehensive study of RTC laws, researchers John Lott and David Mustard found, "When state concealed-handgun laws went into effect in a county, murders fell about 8 percent, rapes fell by 5 percent, and aggravated assaults fell by 7 percent."

Even more important than these statistics is the matter of liberty. In police states, only the police and the military are permitted to have firearms. Do San Franciscans really want to go down that road? As George Washington put it: "A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined."