NRA Sues San Francisco After City Declared Gun Group A ‘Domestic Terrorist Org’

on February 18, 2014 in San Francisco, California.
SAN FRANCISCO, CA - FEBRUARY 18: A view of San Francisco's famed Painted Ladies victorian houses on February 18, 2014 in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
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The National Rifle Association is pushing back against an official San Francisco declaration that labeled the controversial gun lobby group a “domestic terrorist organization.”

On Monday, the NRA sued the city of San Francisco and members of the city’s board of supervisors — both in their individual and professional capacities — for its passage of a recent resolution that called out the group for “propaganda” and vowed as a city to encourage businesses to sever ties with the powerful gun lobby.

In the suit, the NRA called the resolution unconstitutional and “far from original,” comparing the city’s “unlawful efforts to coerce businesses to cut ties with the NRA” to similar declarations passed in New York state and in Los Angeles.

“Courts have sustained First Amendment claims in both Los Angeles and New York. Regrettably, the court, too, must step in to instruct elected officials that freedom of speech means you cannot silence or punish those with whom you disagree,” the suit says, calling the resolution a “frivolous insult” that poses a “nonfrivolous constitutional threat.”

The San Francisco board of supervisors passed the resolution last week in an effort to substantially respond to the shooting attack at the Gilroy Garlic Festival in July, as well as the recent spate of mass shootings that have killed more than 50 people in the U.S. in the month of August alone.

In a statement posted to Twitter, NRA executive Wayne LaPierre said the suit should serve as a reminder to “politicians” that the NRA will “never stop fighting for our law-abiding members and their constitutional freedoms.”

Catherine Stefani, San Francisco’s District 2 supervisor, who penned the resolution did not immediately return TPM’s request for comment.

Read the NRA suit below:

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Notable Replies

  1. I’m all for the NRA spending more of its depleting resources on attorneys. With any luck it can successfully sue itself into insolvency and have to close up its little house of horrors.

  2. I can see the board meeting now
    “OK guys, the way back to financial security amid these scandalous lawsuits is to spend more money and time embroiled in a lawsuit!”

  3. Desperate people do desperate things…

  4. In all defamation cases TRUTH is an absolute defense.

    Or to put another way, I would love to see a case go on trial, and when I say on trial I mean to include trial in the media, arguing in a court of law that indeed the NRA is a terrorist organization. San Fan’s attorney could call any number of parents of victims or victims that survived to argue what the NRA is doing is terrorism. They could subpoena politicians supporting the NRA and force them to testify as hostile witness to the NRA’s buying them.

    It would be great fun for all involved except the NRA.

  5. Would I have declared them a ‘domestic terrorist organization’? I’m not sure. But it sure feels like karma has caught up to them after all the lies and shite they’ve spewed over these many years. Serves them right.

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