NRA Sues San Francisco After City Brands As “Domestic Terrorist Organization”

The NRA has sued both the city and county of San Francisco after its Board of Supervisors branded the gun-rights lobby a “domestic terrorist organization.” 

Filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, the suit accuses city officals of violating the group’s free speech rights for political purposes, and claims the city is attempting to create a blacklist to prevent NRA-associated individuals from doing business there, according to Fox News. 

The lawsuit asks the court “to instruct elected officials that freedom of speech means you cannot silence or punish those with whom you disagree.”

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed a resolution last week that said the U.S. is “plagued by an epidemic of gun violence,” and accused the NRA of using “its considerable wealth and organization strength to promote gun ownership and incite gun owners to acts of violence.” The resolution called on other cities, states and the federal government to follow suit and also declare the NRA a “domestic terrorist organization.”

San Francisco Supervisor Catherine Stefani told the Associated Press she drafted the resolution after a July 28 high profile shooting in Gilroy, Calif., where a gunman entered a festival with an AK-style rifle and killed three people and injured at least 17 more before turning the gun on himself. Gilroy is located about 80 miles southeast of San Francisco. –Fox News

The NRA last week called the resolution a “ludicrous stunt” and an “effort to distract from the real problems facing San Francisco, such as rampant homelessness, drug abuse and skyrocketing petty crime, to name a few.” 

The gun-rights organization vowed to “continue working to protect the constitutional rights of all freedom-loving Americans.”