When a San Francisco Supervisor Upheld the Second Amendment

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors recently declared the National Rifle Association a “domestic terrorist organization,” which drew considerable pushback from law-abiding gun owners nationwide. The proclamation would also have surprised a San Francisco Supervisor who exercised her Second Amendment rights to defend herself against an actual terrorist group. 

U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein started her political career as a San Francisco Supervisor during the 1970s, when the San Francisco Bay Area jostled with violent groups such as the New World Liberation Front. The Supervisor had good reason to proclaim the NWLF a “terrorist group.”

The NWLF targeted Feinstein as a ruling-class enemy of the people and shot out 15 windows in her beach house. The terrorists also detonated a bomb with construction-grade explosive in a flower box outside her daughter’s window. Certain that the terrorists intended to take her out, the Supervisor took the precautions she felt appropriate.

Feinstein purchased a five-shot .38 revolver, practiced regularly, and secured a conceal-carry permit. The future San Francisco mayor and U.S. Senator betrayed no reservations about the Second Amendment. Likewise, she never confused violent groups such as the NWLF with the National Rifle Association, which aims to uphold the constitutional right to keep and bear arms.

After election as a U.S. Senator in 1992, Feinstein did not show the same clarity when government agencies claimed innocent life, a hallmark of terrorists. That year, at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, an FBI sniper shot Vicki Weaver in the head as she held her ten-month-old baby. In 1993, Attorney General Janet Reno deployed military force against civilians in the standoff at Waco, Texas. The ensuing conflagration claimed the lives of 75 people, including 25 children.

Janet Reno also sent two dozen federal agents, armed with machine guns, to seize six-year-old Cuban refugee Elian Gonzalez. Instead of granting asylum to the youth, whose mother had perished in the escape attempt, the Clinton administration returned the boy to the Cuban dictatorship of Fidel Castro.

“One of my earliest votes in the Senate was to confirm Janet Reno as attorney general,” Feinstein said in a 2016 statement after Reno passed away. “I said at the time that Janet combined an expertise in criminal justice with a deep sense of independent thought, and not once did she prove me wrong.”

The NWLF that targeted Feinstein is long gone but the terrorist threat may now be worse. Under Senate Bill 1391, signed last September by Gov. Jerry Brown, anyone under the age of 16 could gun down one, two, or numerous people, escape prosecution as an adult, and gain release at age 25.

Meanwhile, the violent MS-13 gang is responsible for “reign of terror” that claimed 14 lives in Mendota, near Fresno. The San Francisco Supervisors ignore MS-13 and target the NRA as a domestic terrorist organization

The San Francisco Supervisors have also proclaimed convicted felons “justice-involved persons,” and a paroled criminal a “returning resident.”