The Board of Supervisors finds as follows:
(a) The unauthorized use of firearms in the City and County of San Francisco is responsible for approximately two hundred injuries and approximately sixty deaths each year.
(b) The cost of these needless deaths and injuries is generally borne by the injured parties and their families or by the public through the provision of police, emergency and medical services, even in those instances where the person using the firearm is convicted of a crime. The average cost of hospitalization for each person injured as a result of a shooting in San Francisco was approximately $12,128 as of 1996. The total monetary costs to the citizens of San Francisco each year due to these injuries and deaths as a result of hospital expenditures alone exceeds approximately three million dollars.
(c) The manufacturers, importers and dealers of these firearms profit handsomely from the sales of firearms, but bear virtually no responsibility for the costs incurred as a result of the deaths and injuries caused by the use of their products in San Francisco
(d) In order to promote and to protect the health, safety and welfare of the citizens of San Francisco, it is necessary and appropriate to reallocate the cost of injuries and deaths arising from the discharge of firearms by imposing strict liability upon the manufacturers, importers and dealers of those firearms, who are most able financially to accept these costs due to their ability to pass the costs on to consumers of firearms.
(e) Imposing strict liability upon manufacturers, importers and dealers of these firearms for injuries and deaths caused by the firearms is appropriate because these firearms are designed to inflict serious injuries and death.
(Added by Ord. 288-00, File No. 001490, App. 12/22/2000. Former Section 3500 was added by Ord. 311-82, App. 6/28/82; repealed by Ord. 288-00)