Kamala Harris - For California Attorney General 2010

Bill would ban gun shows at Cow Palace

By Christine Morente, San Mateo County Times
April 19, 2009

DALY CITY — Every other minute, the Cow Palace marquee flashes: "Gun Show Coming, Gun Show Coming."

That's a message that must stop, state Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, said Friday in a news conference announcing the reintroduction of a bill intended to end gun shows at the venue.

"It's astounding a state-owned property is being used to promote weapons of death," Leno said. "We know they're used legally, but in a neighborhood that experiences unconscionable rates of gun violence, it's just maddening."

Crossroads of the West Gun Show is scheduled to take place at the Cow Palace on May 2-3.

Joined by San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris and many community members, including Daly City Councilman David Canepa, Leno said Senate Bill 585 follows the desires of residents.

"Local voices should be respected," Leno said.

"We want peace on our streets," added Sharen Hewitt, executive director of the Community Leadership Academy and Emergency Response project.

The Sunnydale public housing project is across the street from the Cow Palace, while Visitacion Valley, Bayview-Hunters Point and the Mission District are nearby.

Since 2005, 44 percent of the homicides and more than 30 percent of the guns seized in the city and county of San Francisco have occurred in those communities, according to law enforcement officials.

On Monday, a 16-year-old boy was shot eight times at the Sunnydale project. He lay there dead for four hours until emergency responders arrived, said Shawn Richard, founder of Brothers Against Guns.

The San Francisco resident said he will do whatever it takes to convince lawmakers to pass Leno's bill.

Richard said he has seen young people buy weapons at the Cow Palace during gun shows and then illegally sell them in surrounding neighborhoods.

"I know them personally," Richard said. "You have people working illegally (at the shows); individuals that play a part in getting those guns through."

He added, "I lost two brothers to gun violence. I will push this bill so there are no more gun shows at the Cow Palace."

The bill was first introduced in 2007 when Leno was an assemblyman. It passed the Assembly but failed in the Senate by a few votes, Leno said.

On Tuesday, the Senate Public Safety Committee passed the current version of the legislation, which now heads to the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Meanwhile, the city and county of San Francisco and the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors unanimously passed resolutions in the past asking the legislature to prohibit gun shows at the Cow Palace.

Alameda, Marin and Los Angeles counties have banned shows at county-owned facilities with local ordinances.

San Francisco and San Mateo counties have been unable to do the same because the venue is owned and operated by the state Department of Agriculture's Division of Fairs and Expositions.

Bob Templeton, producer of Crossroads of the West Gun Show, said there hasn't been any evidence of illegal activity at the arena, and it will remain a "highly regulated environment."

According to California gun laws, a person interested in buying a firearm must go through a background check and a 10-day waiting period.

Templeton said guns are not sold at the Cow Palace, and he refutes comments by others that guns are sold in the parking lot.

To stifle illegal activity, undercover agents with the Department of Justice are at the event, while uniformed Daly City police officers patrol the venue and parking lot.

In addition, he promised to take down signs advertising the show around the community and to ask Cow Palace management to stop announcing the event on its marquee.

"We understand an event like a gun show poses legitimate public safety concern and we're sensitive to that," said Templeton, of Salt Lake City. "We want to be responsive to those folks' concerns and we also want to continue our right to assemble and right to have a show there."

The upcoming event is expected to draw 2,500 to 3,000 people from the Bay Area.

The gun show has been at the Cow Palace for 25 years, Templeton said, and he does 52 shows a year like it across the country.

Dave Workman, of the Bellevue, Wash.-based Second Amendment Foundation, called the gun show a "red herring" and said the event is demonized.

He quoted a 2002 study from the Department of Justice that revealed less than 1 percent of incarcerated felons got their firearms from gun shows.

"There are certainly more effective ways to prevent bad guys from getting guns and they don't need to involve shutting down a legitimate commercial enterprise on public property and interfere with law abiding activities," Workman said Friday. "Whether you use the (Cow Palace) property for a rodeo or a car show ... you can set your regulations. That doesn't mean, nor should it mean, that government can prohibit a gun show. That's discriminatory in my mind."

Source: InsidetheBayArea.com

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