Cow Palace gun show in the crosshairs

Putting up a fight: Former San Mateo County Board of Supervisors President Michael Nevin endorsed legislation five years ago from then-state Sen. Jackie Speier to ban gun shows at the Cow Palace. SB 1733 passed the Senate, but did not make it through the Assembly. (Mike Koozmin/Special to The Examiner)

For the past 25 years, the Crossroads of the West Gun Show has drawn hordes of firearm enthusiasts to the Cow Palace. Meanwhile, a steady drumbeat of gun violence in surrounding neighborhoods has claimed those who live in the venue’s shadow.

Gun-ownership advocates say the two are unrelated, and they point to statistics showing that a very small percentage of firearms used in crimes are purchased at the show.

Local legislators say the event also brings illegal sales to areas outside the building.

For them, the Daly City show is the last stand in a longtime battle to ban gun expos on San Mateo County property.

“The Daly City police will tell you it isn’t just the gun show — it’s the illegal guns in and around the property and parking lots,” said Michael D. Nevin, a former president of the county Board of Supervisors who also worked for the San Francisco Police Department for 27 years.

Five years ago, Nevin endorsed legislation from then-state Sen. Jackie Speier to ban gun shows at the state-owned Cow Palace. SB 1733 passed the Senate, but did not pass the Assembly.

In 2007, then-Assemblyman Mark Leno took on the cause and introduced a similar measure. It passed in the Assembly, but failed by a few votes in the Senate.

Leno, now a state senator, has not given up. Last month, he introduced new legislation, SB 585, to ban the sale of firearms and ammunition at the Cow Palace.

The gun show is a callous display mocking the grief-stricken and gun-weary residents living in the neighborhoods that surround the venue, Leno said.

“They have told me that the presence of the gun show, with a big marquee that flashes ‘gun show, gun show,’ is an insult to the war-zone life they have to endure in their neighborhood,” he said.

SB 585 is currently on hold in the Appropriations Committee and is expected to move to the Senate floor by the end of May.

The Cow Palace, which sits on the border of San Mateo County and San Francisco, abuts Daly City’s crime-plagued Bayshore neighborhood and is directly across the street from San Francisco’s Sunnydale housing projects, with Visitacion Valley, Bayview-Hunters Point and the Mission district close by. More than 30 percent of illegal guns seized in San Francisco have come from those communities, according to Leno’s office.

The Cow Palace, however, is not the only county site where gun shows have been targeted. In 1995, the Board of Supervisors voted to ban gun shows at the Expo Center, said to have been the first ban of its kind in California. The ordinance was repealed two years later.

In 2002, supervisors passed legislation banning the possession of firearms at county facilities, effectively booting gun shows from the event center.

Supervisor Mark Church, one of the co-sponsors of the 2002 ban, said he was strongly in favor of also ending gun shows at the Cow Palace.

“The purpose of banning gun shows was to promote the public health and safety by contributing to the reduction of gunshot fatalities and injuries in the county,” he said. “The proliferation of guns has a financial impact to the county’s health and services.”

While counties including Alameda, Marin and Los Angeles have all banned gun shows with local ordinances, a legal loophole has thwarted attempts to do the same at the Cow Palace.

The problem is one of ownership, since the venue sits on land belonging to the state Department of Agriculture’s Division of Fairs and Expositions. Leno’s bill is the latest attempt to close the loophole.

“We think the third time is the charm,” he said.

Bob Templeton, producer of Crossroads of the West Gun Show, has worked with community members to address concerns. He stopped posting signs in the neighborhood, and this year took down the gun-show message from the marquee. He has also stepped up security patrols in the parking lot — although there’s been no evidence of illegal gun sales, Templeton said.

“We want to be responsive to the concerns, but we don’t think those concerns warrant denying several thousand people the right to assemble,” he said.

U.S. Department of Justice statistics appear to support Templeton’s claim. According to a 1997 survey of state-prison inmates, among those possessing a gun, fewer than 2 percent said they obtained the firearm through a gun show or flea market. The majority of inmates, 80 percent, said they obtained their weapon from family, from friends or illegally on the street.

In addition to the event earlier this month, Templeton’s organization is scheduled to bring two more gun shows, one in September and one in November, to the Cow Palace this year.

Gun-law expert and author Alan Korwin said gun-show enthusiasts should be protected by their First Amendment right to assemble peaceably.

“Just because some people don’t like your rights doesn’t provide justification for banning them,” Korwin said. “Maybe they should ban the police for not arresting the criminals and allowing all the crime to go on.” 

Last month, however, the federal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a ban on firearms on Alameda County property, including the fairgrounds, where a gun show was once held. It ruled counties could ban firearms on their property based on a U.S. Supreme Court reference to exclusion of guns in “sensitive places,” but it also upheld an individual’s right to own guns.

Taking on powerful gun lobby nothing new for local leaders

The battle to ban gun shows at Daly City’s Cow Palace pits San Mateo County and San Francisco against one of the most powerful lobbies in the nation.

The National Rifle Association’s chief attorney, Chuck Michel, called state Sen. Mark Leno’s bill misguided and said the connection between the gun show and crime in the surrounding area is tenuous.

“Gun shows are some of the most heavily regulated events in the country. There are uniformed and undercover police officers at each one,” Michel said. “For a criminal buying a gun, the worst place to go is a gun show. Guns are available on the black market real easily.”

The real motivation of the proposed ban “is about trying to eliminate the gun culture, which some people would rather not exist,” he said.

Leno said he’s receiving e-mails from around the country protesting the proposed ban.

“I’m hearing from angry citizens saying I’m trying to repeal their Second Amendment rights,” he said. “Of course, nothing could be further from the truth.”

It is not the first time the NRA has gone head-to-head with Peninsula politicians. A 2002 law prohibiting firearms on county property, effectively banning gun shows at the Expo Center, was passed unanimously, but faced fierce opposition from gun-
ownership advocates.

“It was one of the more controversial ordinances in recent years, and the NRA was vehemently opposed,” said Supervisor Mark Church, who co-sponsored the ordinance with then-Supervisor Michael Nevin. “We received a tremendous amount of input from throughout the nation.”

The local law came in the wake of an eight-year stretch of rising firearm deaths in San Mateo County, he said.

“Deaths from gunshots were among the leading causes of death from unnatural causes in San Mateo County,” Church said. “We had a compelling interest in adopting laws of this nature to reduce fatalities.”

Gun record

San Mateo County lawmakers voted to ban guns on county property following years of high firearm death rates.

Firearm-related deaths:

    Year    Total
    1991    68
    1992    78
    1993    72
    1994    62
    1995    59
    1996    56
    1997    46
    1998    42
    1999    40
    2000    26
    2001    34
    2002    33
    2003    54
    2004    39
    2005    56
    2006    41
    2007    35
    Total    841

Source: California Health Department

Where criminals obtain weapons

According to a 1997 survey of state-prison inmates who possessed a gun, the source of the firearm was:

2%
Flea market or gun show

12%
Retail store or pawnshop

80%
From family, friends, street buy or illegal source

Source: U.S. Department of Justice

tbarak@sfexaminer.com