Recall last month when MRCTV reported in print and video on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously voting to label the National Rifle Association a “domestic terror” organization, and that, as such, not only were the board members positioning themselves to threaten any government-tied business that might support the NRA, but also, under the sloppy and ambiguous federal “domestic terrorism” statutes, the board members were subtly threatening anyone who might donate to the NRA?
Well, reports are popping up that the city government just backed down.
The only problem is that this is only partially true.
As Jim Geraghty notes for National Review Online:
The NRA sued, and lo and behold, San Francisco is backing down, before the suit even went to court… In a formal memo to city officials, San Francisco mayor London Breed declared that ‘no [municipal] department will take steps to restrict any contractor from doing business with the NRA or to restrict City contracting opportunities for any business that has any relationship with the NRA.’
But that’s not an entire back-off.
All it means is that the Mayor will not take any steps to go after contractors who might also support the NRA. It doesn’t withdraw the offensive and potentially libelous language of the Board’s resolution describing the NRA as a “domestic terror organization”.
In fact, since the Board’s statement was merely a “resolution”, the Mayor was never obligated to take any action on it, anyway – something more of her formal memo reiterates:
(R)esolutions making policy statements do not impose duties on City departments, change any of the City’s existing laws or policies, or control City departments’ exercise of discretion.
No kidding.
The city is still in hot water, because the Board has not publicly stated its error in portraying the NRA as a bunch of terrorists, claiming, as Board member Catherine Stefani has, that the NRA aims “to intimidate those who have already been terrorized, and knowingly threaten anyone who would organize against their financial interest.”
The NRA brought suit on September 9, less than a week after the San Francisco government gang spewed their revolting and dangerously reckless “resolution”, and, as the NRA says:
(T)he NRA challenged it as government action adversely affecting its First Amendment rights. In its filing, the NRA called the resolution a ‘blacklisting’ measure, and urged San Francisco’s federal court to ‘step in and instruct elected officials that freedom of speech means you cannot silence or punish those with whom you disagree.’
And the NRA suit still stands.
This is not merely about the San Francisco mayor not acting on a simple “resolution” on which she never had to act in the first place.
It is about the ugly, fact-empty, invective of the San Fran Board of Supervisors who called the NRA a “domestic terror organization” and about how federal overuse of the term and federal overreach when it comes to what should be state-handled crimes has poisoned many Americans’ minds as to what “terrorism” is and how it should be addressed.
If any one of those San Fran board members had made those statements about the NRA outside their politically-insulated positions in office, they would be open to massive slander and libel suits.
Instead, they throw out scurrilous and unfounded accusations, using terminology that has become overused all across America, in order to intimidate people who might, just might, want to defend their own rights to self-defense against acquisitive government bureaucrats and politicians.
We know who spreads terror, and tries to use it to their advantage. Just think about it next time you have to pay your taxes.
(Cover Photo from NRA website.)