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Can you believe this crap
TooBig
Member Posts: 28,560 ✭✭✭
Found at: http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2020373291_westneat17xml.html#.USEXugbndv1.facebook
One of the major gun-control efforts in Olympia this session calls for the sheriff to inspect the homes of assault-weapon owners. The bill's backers say that was a mistake.
By Danny Westneat
Seattle Times staff columnist
Forget police drones flying over your house. How about police coming inside, once a year, to have a look around?
As Orwellian as that sounds, it isn't hypothetical. The notion of police home inspections was introduced in a bill last week in Olympia .
That it's part of one of the major gun-control efforts pains me. It seemed in recent weeks lawmakers might be headed toward some common-sense regulation of gun sales. But then last week they went too far. By mistake, they claim. But still too far.
"They always say, we'll never go house to house to take your guns away. But then you see this, and you have to wonder."
That's no gun-rights absolutist talking, but Lance Palmer, a Seattle trial lawyer and self-described liberal who brought the troubling Senate Bill 5737 to my attention. It's the long-awaited assault-weapons ban, introduced last week by three Seattle Democrats.
Responding to the Newtown school massacre, the bill would ban the sale of semi-automatic weapons that use detachable ammunition magazines. Clips that contain more than 10 rounds would be illegal.
But then, with respect to the thousands of weapons like that already owned by Washington residents, the bill says this:
"In order to continue to possess an assault weapon that was legally possessed on the effective date of this section, the person possessing shall ... safely and securely store the assault weapon. The sheriff of the county may, no more than once per year, conduct an inspection to ensure compliance with this subsection."
In other words, come into homes without a warrant to poke around. Failure to comply could get you up to a year in jail.
"I'm a liberal Democrat - I've voted for only one Republican in my life," Palmer told me. "But now I understand why my right-wing opponents worry about having to fight a government takeover."
He added: "It's exactly this sort of thing that drives people into the arms of the NRA."
I have been blasting the NRA for its paranoia in the gun-control debate. But Palmer is right - you can't fully blame them, when cops going door-to-door shows up in legislation.
I spoke to two of the sponsors. One, Sen. Adam Kline, D-Seattle, a lawyer who typically is hyper-attuned to civil-liberties issues, said he did not know the bill authorized police searches because he had not read it closely before signing on.
"I made a mistake," Kline said. "I frankly should have vetted this more closely."
That lawmakers sponsor bills they haven't read is common. Still, it's disappointing on one of this political magnitude. Not counting a long table, it's only an eight-page bill.
The prime sponsor, Sen. Ed Murray, D-Seattle, also condemned the search provision in his own bill, after I asked him about it. He said Palmer is right that it's probably unconstitutional.
"I have to admit that shouldn't be in there," Murray said.
He said he came to realize that an assault-weapons ban has little chance of passing this year anyway. So he put in this bill more as "a general statement, as a guiding light of where we need to go." Without sweating all the details.
Later, a Senate Democratic spokesman blamed unnamed staff and said a new bill will be introduced.
Murray had alluded at a gun-control rally in January that progress on guns could take years.
"We will only win if we reach out and continue to change the hearts and minds of Washingtonians," Murray said. "We can attack them, or start a dialogue."
Good plan, very bad start. What's worse, the case for the perfectly reasonable gun-control bills in Olympia just got tougher.
Danny Westneat's column appears Wednesday and Sunday. Reach him at 206-464-2086 or dwestneat@seattletimes.com
One of the major gun-control efforts in Olympia this session calls for the sheriff to inspect the homes of assault-weapon owners. The bill's backers say that was a mistake.
By Danny Westneat
Seattle Times staff columnist
Forget police drones flying over your house. How about police coming inside, once a year, to have a look around?
As Orwellian as that sounds, it isn't hypothetical. The notion of police home inspections was introduced in a bill last week in Olympia .
That it's part of one of the major gun-control efforts pains me. It seemed in recent weeks lawmakers might be headed toward some common-sense regulation of gun sales. But then last week they went too far. By mistake, they claim. But still too far.
"They always say, we'll never go house to house to take your guns away. But then you see this, and you have to wonder."
That's no gun-rights absolutist talking, but Lance Palmer, a Seattle trial lawyer and self-described liberal who brought the troubling Senate Bill 5737 to my attention. It's the long-awaited assault-weapons ban, introduced last week by three Seattle Democrats.
Responding to the Newtown school massacre, the bill would ban the sale of semi-automatic weapons that use detachable ammunition magazines. Clips that contain more than 10 rounds would be illegal.
But then, with respect to the thousands of weapons like that already owned by Washington residents, the bill says this:
"In order to continue to possess an assault weapon that was legally possessed on the effective date of this section, the person possessing shall ... safely and securely store the assault weapon. The sheriff of the county may, no more than once per year, conduct an inspection to ensure compliance with this subsection."
In other words, come into homes without a warrant to poke around. Failure to comply could get you up to a year in jail.
"I'm a liberal Democrat - I've voted for only one Republican in my life," Palmer told me. "But now I understand why my right-wing opponents worry about having to fight a government takeover."
He added: "It's exactly this sort of thing that drives people into the arms of the NRA."
I have been blasting the NRA for its paranoia in the gun-control debate. But Palmer is right - you can't fully blame them, when cops going door-to-door shows up in legislation.
I spoke to two of the sponsors. One, Sen. Adam Kline, D-Seattle, a lawyer who typically is hyper-attuned to civil-liberties issues, said he did not know the bill authorized police searches because he had not read it closely before signing on.
"I made a mistake," Kline said. "I frankly should have vetted this more closely."
That lawmakers sponsor bills they haven't read is common. Still, it's disappointing on one of this political magnitude. Not counting a long table, it's only an eight-page bill.
The prime sponsor, Sen. Ed Murray, D-Seattle, also condemned the search provision in his own bill, after I asked him about it. He said Palmer is right that it's probably unconstitutional.
"I have to admit that shouldn't be in there," Murray said.
He said he came to realize that an assault-weapons ban has little chance of passing this year anyway. So he put in this bill more as "a general statement, as a guiding light of where we need to go." Without sweating all the details.
Later, a Senate Democratic spokesman blamed unnamed staff and said a new bill will be introduced.
Murray had alluded at a gun-control rally in January that progress on guns could take years.
"We will only win if we reach out and continue to change the hearts and minds of Washingtonians," Murray said. "We can attack them, or start a dialogue."
Good plan, very bad start. What's worse, the case for the perfectly reasonable gun-control bills in Olympia just got tougher.
Danny Westneat's column appears Wednesday and Sunday. Reach him at 206-464-2086 or dwestneat@seattletimes.com
Comments
He added: "It's exactly this sort of thing that drives people into the arms of the NRA."
In other words, they screwed up by accidentally leaving in their true intentions. This lawyer is not concerned with a violation of our rights, he's concerned with the exposure of their true agenda.
"It shall be illegal to murder a person with a semi-automatic firearm. This law does not prohibit or allow the murder of people with any other firearm or weapon."
frig do they do?
Screw interns all day long?
So if they don't read these bills,what the
frig do they do?
Screw interns all day long?
Depends on the Intern! [:I][:0][:X]
Or...
Then again not all Interns are created equal...
I beleave it only when it happens...Cops come into your resedence for inspections...[:(!]
that's very naive and foolish, because by then it's too late and you're snagged
Dems are the new nazis.
Those who wish to increase their control of the people are signing onto anything and everything at present in order to take advantage of the deaths of children in the hopes of getting something, anything, passed into law.
It does not matter that the proposed legislation would have done nothing to thwart any of the recent headline killings.
It does not matter that the proposed legislation will do nothing to thwart future headline killings in the same vein.
It is simply playing emotional politics in order to enact people control measures that have been desired for decades. How many WA State Senators who supported the bill read it? Obviously not many.
What greater proof of agenda-driven politics does one need?
Brad Steele
The is about gun control and the mods moved it that's crap
Yea, gun control thread should never be in a gun rights forum, it should be in the what's for supper forum.[:0]
I beleave it only when it happens...Cops come into your resedence for inspections...[:(!]
They already do in New York City...and without a warrent. The NYPD worries about the paperwork afterwards. Their excuse is that if you have nothing to hide you won't object....and New Yorkers put up with it, and they will also vote against anyone who is not for gun control!