BELLEVUE, WA – The Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) announced today it will ask California Attorney General William Lockyer to investigate the rent-free use of office space at San Francisco General Hospital by the Million Mom March, and the Trauma Foundation.
SAF founder Alan Gottlieb made the announcement following published reports that the hospital had allowed the Trauma Foundation to use offices in one of its buildings, which were then provided to the Million Mom March on a rent-free basis. The Trauma Foundation was investigated in 1995 for misusing grant funds from the Centers for Disease and Control to promote a grassroots gun control lobbying effort.
More recently, it was disclosed by both the San Francisco Examiner and Gun Week that the Million Mom March had used the hospital as its national headquarters. Gun Week is also reporting that the same office space, on the third floor of the hospital’s Building 1, had hosted a meeting of the anti-gun Physicians for a Violence Free Society. The Trauma Foundation’s switchboard also lists the same space as headquarters for the Pacific Center for Violence Prevention, yet another gun control organization.
The Trauma Foundation has used hospital facilities, apparently rent-free, since it was founded in 1981, according to newspaper reports. At least two San Francisco Supervisors, Leland Yee and Aaron Peskin, are also looking into this rent-free use of a publicly-owned facility by the Trauma Foundation and Million Mom March.
“Clearly,” Gottlieb said, “there is a pattern emerging that this particular office space has been utilized, possibly for two decades, as a headquarters for political activities designed to undercut the rights of law-abiding gun owners, not only in California, but across the country. That goes beyond simply being wrong. It may be a criminal misuse of public property for political purposes.
“Gun owners in California, especially those who live, and pay taxes, in San Francisco have a right to full disclosure of this questionable arrangement,” Gottlieb continued. “We believe an independent investigation by Attorney General Lockyer is fully justified, and that if long-term illicit use of this public facility is uncovered, those responsible should be punished.”
The Second Amendment Foundation is the nation’s oldest and largest tax-exempt education, research and legal action group focusing on the Constitutional right and heritage to privately own and possess firearms.. Current projects include a damage action lawsuit against the cities suing gun makers, an amicus brief in support of the Emerson case holding that the Second Amendment is an individual right and a lawsuit in Cincinnati supporting the right of self-defensive carry.