High Bridge Arms was opened in 1952 by renowned Olympic shooter Bob Chow. For 63 years, the San Francisco gun shop was a fixture in the city’s Mission District. Last Friday, the store closed its doors for the final time.
High Bridge Arms was the latest casualty in a city determined to make strict gun control the law of the land. Already encumbered by laws regulating everything from magazine capacity to store advertising, owner Andy Takahashi drew the line at a new ordinance that would force High Bridge Arms to videotape all purchases and provide San Francisco Police Department with buyers’ names, addresses and driver’s license numbers.
“Just the idea of giving that information willingly to the police department, for no real reason, seemed very unreasonable to me,” said Steven Alcairo, High Bridge Arms general manager. With the store now closed, not a single gun store exists within city limits.
