Cops Buying 'Illegal' Air Guns, Says S.F. Merchant

Joe Eskenazi

A BB gun for every occasion

​We've written a bit about the Kafka-esque situation regarding BB guns in San Francisco. Police officers, following a draconian city ordinance forbidding anyone from possessing "toys projecting missiles by air or gas," continue to impound the air guns and cite their owners with a misdemeanor. Meanwhile, a 2004 state law -- specifically written to override ridiculous local ordinances like this -- renders the San Francisco law obsolete. And yet police are still citing and impounding BB guns simply because no one has told them to stop. It's akin to the cops seizing your beer because of a Prohibition-era local ordinance.

While it may have been a chore to find decent bubbly during the dry years, the above photo demonstrates that tracking down scarily realistic air guns in San Francisco isn't like stumbling upon a four-leaf clover. Throughout the city -- and, especially in Chinatown, where this photo was taken -- many shops sell BB guns. And for less than the price of a medium cheese pizza.

The shopkeeper at this store was flabbergasted to learn of the tenuous legality of selling BB guns in San Francisco -- largely because some of her best customers are police officers who, she says, had shown her identification designating them to be so. "I asked them why they needed these toys -- they have the real thing," said the merchant, who asked we not use her name. "They said they can't play with their children with real guns."

Joe Eskenazi

'Do not shoot at any human or animals' reads the fine print

​The least expensive air pistol cost only $10 at this store; the priciest, a very realistic-looking silver revolver, was $100. Machine gun-like air rifles, that fire BBs repeatedly, cost only $30 or so. All of the guns' barrels had a telltale orange nubbin on the tip. Without it, the guns are quite realistic. One of the merchants we spoke to mentioned that some customers have come back to buy second guns claiming the first was impounded by police. The SFPD told us they take the guns and issue misdemeanor citations -- but the District Attorney's office told us they always drop the charges because there's no law that has been broken.

Meanwhile, last month higher-ups at Big 5 Sporting Goods told us that the chain's only San Francisco store had opted not to sell BB guns because of possible legal problems based on the city's anti-BB gun ordinance (Section 602, incidentally).

As we noted before, however, you can walk out of that Big 5 after purchasing a crossbow capable of piercing the heart of a man wearing a suit of armor. There is a universe, somewhere, where this all makes sense.