Gun Control marches on in California...

San Francisco supervisors want voters to approve a sweeping handgun ban that would prohibit almost everyone except law enforcement officers, security guards and military members from possessing firearms in the city.

The measure, which will appear on the municipal ballot next year, would bar residents from keeping guns in their homes or businesses, Bill Barnes, an aide to Supervisor Chris Daly, said Wednesday. It would also prohibit the sale, manufacturing and distribution of handguns and ammunition in San Francisco, as well as the transfer of gun licenses.

It looks like San Francisco is planning to follow in the footsteps of Washington DC, such a crime-free paradise of gun control as the left has been able to create. Luckily, their efforts are probably illegal:

The proposal was immediately dismissed as illegal, however, by Gun Owners of California, a Sacramento-based lobbying group. Sam Paredes, the group's executive director, said the state has for years had a "pre-emption law" on the books that bars local governments from usurping the state's authority to regulate firearms.

Thank god I don't live there. And thanks to Freedomsight for spotting the article.

UPDATE: Publicola has more. This appears to be a proposal by the local politicians to put their gun control measure on the ballot. I'm not sure why they would choose to do that, rather than simply passing the measure outright, unless they are afraid of the electoral consequences and seek to blame "the people" at election time.

I'm not sure what effect the Governator might have on this effort. He's certainly a political figure who might be able to bring some pressure to bear on the issue during the run-up to the public ballot. Not that such opposition could be counted on; the girly-man governor has failed us before, despite waving around all those fashion accessories. But he's also shown some political courage on the issue.

This touches on an issue that I've mentioned before, along with other gunbloggers. The gun control effort knows that, in order to succeed, they have to get on the offensive and stay there. If they set the agenda, they win, because they can keep coming back until they find a way to sell their policies that people will believe, however briefly. We have to put them on the defensive, and that means repealing bad laws and passing desirable ones.

UPDATE: Volokh has more.