By golly, the NRA may be right!

Great Debates
1

I’ve lately been a little irritated with the NRA over their paranoid opposition to any gun regs. However, this morning’s Sunday Seattle Times (by no means a bastion of conservative thought) has an article by one of their staff columnists. The column headline reads “SLIP-UP MAY SLAM DOORS ON GUN LAW”, and the lead sentence starts the column off thusly.

“Forget police drones flying over your house. How about police coming inside once a year, to have a look around?” Then he goes on to give details.

Senate Bill 5735, introduced last week by three Seattle Democrats, would ban the sale of semi-automatic weapons that use detachable ammunition magazines, and that also would also make illegal clips that hold more than ten rounds. Actually, both these provisions, considering what has happened lately, seem rather reasonable to me.

But then, the bill goes on with this bombshell, and again I quote directly from the columnist, who is quoting exactly from the bill.

“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.”

Then the columnist goes on. “In other words, come into homes, without a warrant, to poke around. Failure to comply would get you up to a year in jail.”

You can’t really blame the NRA for being paranoid when this sort of stuff gets put into the legislative hopper. Two of the sponsors of the bill are now backpedaling, saying that they didn’t know the provision was in the bill, and blaming it on an unknown staffer. A democrat staffer said the bill will be reintroduced without this provision.

Give one lots of confidence in the legislative process, doesn’t it? The bill was only eight pages long, one of probably the most important pieces of legislation to be introduced this session, and the sponsors didn’t have the time to read it. And if a citizen hadn’t seen it and brought it to the attention of the newspaper, it just may have gone sailing thru.

I think reasonable gun control just got a lot harder here in the State of Washington.

2

This is part of why the NRA refuses to compromise.

They start off with one law that seems “reasonable” or “common sense” (both of which are weasel words that can mean whatever you want). But then you start asking questions about how the law would be enforced, what agency would be responsible for it, etc. and it rapidly spirals out of control. Check out what a disaster California’s handgun ammo registry was.

People on this board have said before that the “slippery slope” argument is a myth and wouldn’t really happen, but the evidence is coming to us from Seattle.

3

http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2020373291_westneat17xml.html

4

Unless there’s an updated version, the bill explicitly states the following:

I don’t see any mention of a mandatory inspection.

5

Ah, well, I guess that columnist was lying. You can’t trust anyone any more.

Sorry, folks.

6

Even if an inspection will be required, I don’t think it’s quite as draconian as it sounds.
We already have some similar situations:
If you own a vehicle, you have to renew the license every year, and submit to an inspection… If you run a food-based business, or a hairdressing business, from your home, you have to renew the license every year, and submit to a health dept inspection. If you run a babysitting/daycare business from your home, you have to have a license and submit to an inspection.

And, yes, if you own an assault rifle, you have to have a license , and ,maybe, submit to an inspection. The inspection could consist of you bringing your gun to the local sheriff’s office, in a locked but portable gun safe, with the ammunition locked in a separate compartment.
Or, you could choose to invite the sherriff onto your property,and show him your gun safe to renew your gun license. Simliar to the way you invite the building inspector from the city engineering department onto your property to renew your license to operate a daycare center.

Yes…it’s a bit unusual, and somehow seems un-American. But it doesn’t mean that jack-booted stormtroops will invade your house with no notice and no warrant and begin bashing holes in the walls looking for illegal guns.

7

Actually, the title of the bill in your link was “SENATE BILL 5737 (Corrected Copy)”. Evidently this copy has had the offending provision removed, as I don’t think the Times columnist would deliberately lie about the bill that was first submitted.

Missed the edit window by about two seconds, or would have included this in the previous message.

8

http://apps.leg.wa.gov/documents/WSLdocs/2005-06/Htm/Bills/Senate%20Bills/5475.htm

So it did have that verbiage, which has apparently been removed.

.

9

Seems to me that the writer of the article was time traveling:

Interesting, though in a “how the heck did the writer in the OP article came up with that anyhow?”

10

I just want to point out that The Seattle Times is conspicuously conservative for western Washington state.

11

(missed the edit window…this is the continuation of post #6)

Yes, I realize that my analogies arent quite accurate.The examples of a food service, or a home daycare service are businesses open to the public–as opposed to gun ownership which is all about private property. But guns, like cars, are private property that, when used in public can be dangerous. So we allow the government to establish certain, reasonable regulations about them.

12

so according to this bill a regular handguns with factory provided standard capacity magazines, say a Glock 19 would be considered an assault weapon?
Just a regular run of the mill popular handgun is now an assault weapon?

What if I just want to keep my handgun for home defense out of the public sort of like driving on private roads I would still have to suffer through these “reasonable” “common sense” regulations?

13

A moot point, since the verbiage has been removed, but subjecting citizens to warrantless searches is not ‘reasonable’, and is a violation of the 4th Amendment.

And of course, the proposed ban is not ‘reasonable’ at all.

14

Uh, as noticed, the verbiage is not coming from the bill that is the issue, the cite you used was from 2005 and not the bill that is proposed now.

15

Uh, I think I mentioned that.

16

Well, not much of an issue I grant it, but I’m always curious of the sourcing, I’m always interested on how items like this pop out, and seeing that you came with that cite as a reply to “no mention of a mandatory inspection.” then the cite should be relevant to the bill that is the issue. Not from more than 8 years ago.

What I suspect is that this could be part of the source that confused even the writer of the article in the OP, normally there are many blogs that fall for a mistake like that and blast notes to people like the article writer; so, who pointed this cite to you?

Again, not very important, but just curious in a “know your sources” kind of thing.

17

In the UK anyone with a shotgun or firearms licence (and a lot more of us have guns than you would think) is subject at least in theory to this kind of random check. What’s the problem with it? It’s not a fishing expedition where they trawl through your house for hours, they just check the right number of guns are locked up in the right place.

18

Man, I wish whoever writes such stuff does a little fact checking first. I don’t know how many wild goose chases I’ve been sent on. This study purports x, that country’s experience (10 years ago was y but now the opposite but I’m quoting for truth on y), gah. It’s almost enough to make one suspect there is a massive spin organization out there…

19

Now it’s all semi-automatic rifles with detachable magazines, and not just assault rifles?

20

I find it interesting that this issue and how it relates to the second amendment gets so much attention, when the Patriot Act, signed into law in 2001 by George W. Bush, basically strikes out a number of constitutional rights, and no one seems to care.
First thing Obama should have done was to overturn the Patriot Act. But he seems to not want to lose the power it entitles him to.