Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Will Washington State Gun Bill Be Model For Nation?


The race to see which state can provide the most onerous, anti-freedom gun control bill is ever accelerating. Washington state's latest entrant allows  police to inspect a gun owners home if he/she has "assault" weapons (whatever that means.) The question in our mind is, what happens if the inspection turns up a violation?  The only answer is confiscation!

So much for those who think this is all about keeping people safe, don't be deceived. This is about eliminating guns from American society and once disarmed, government can do whatever they want to us.  

The "low information" citizens will think getting guns out of society will make it safer, they could not be more wrong. Law abiding citizens will be subjected crime by the knuckle-dragging members of society. 

All the plans to "make us safe" by eliminating guns are Trojan horses meant to deceive us and all should be soundly defeated. If not, all American freedoms will disappear.

Conservative Tom


Washington State Gun Bill Contains Home Inspection Provision

February 20, 2013 by  
Washington State Gun Bill Contains Home Inspection Provision
SPECIAL
A Washington State bill would allow sheriffs to conduct home inspections once per year to ensure gun owners are “safely and securely” storing their “assault weapon.”
Gun grabbers love to denigrate 2ndAmendment supporters by claiming their fear that registration leads to confiscation is hyperbole or simple nuttery. And then there is Washington Senate Bill 5737, an “assault weapons” ban introduced last week.
“They (gun grabbers) always say, ‘We’ll never go house-to-house to take your guns away.’ But then you see this, and you have to wonder,” said Lance Palmer, a Seattle trial lawyer and self-described liberal.
The “this” he’s referencing is a provision in the bill that would allow sheriffs to conduct home inspections once per year to ensure gun owners are “safely and securely” storing their “assault weapon.”
With the bill, Washington joins the parade of States competing in the biggest gun nanny contest. But clearly, the home inspection issue gives Washington a leg up.
“I’m a liberal Democrat — I’ve voted for only one Republican in my life,” Palmer told The Seattle Times. “But now I understand why my right-wing opponents worry about having to fight a government takeover.”
When called on the home inspection provision, the bill’s sponsors, Senators Adam Kline and Ed Murray, claimed to be surprised that the provision was in there.
Kline claimed not to have read the eight-page bill closely enough.
“I made a mistake. I frankly should have vetted this more closely,” he said.
Murray said, “I have to admit that shouldn’t be in there.” He admitted such a provision would probably be unConstitutional.
He then said an “assault weapons” ban has little chance of passing anyway, so he put in this bill more as “a general statement, as a guiding light of where we need to go.”
This bill makes it clear that if gun grabbers are willing to try to sneak a provision through that calls for inspection, which requires a registry, the natural next step is confiscation for those who don’t meet the arbitrary definition of “safely and securely” storing those weapons.

11 comments:

  1. Fact-checking…

    Tom, go to the Washington State legislature homepage and read the bill yourself. This is the official latest version of the bill that is on-record and was referred to committee for action.

    I noted from the article this statement: "When called on the home inspection provision, the bill’s sponsors, Senators Adam Kline and Ed Murray, claimed to be surprised that the provision was in there." What probably happened is that some over-exuberant staffer inserted the inspection provision into the bill on his/her own initiative without alerting Kline/Murray, and they never checked the language after the draft was written. That was incompetence on their parts, but the fact that it was cleaned out of the final version of the bill as introduced and referred to the committee establishes that this was probably not the intent of the legislators in the first place.

    Here is what it says about those who own assault weapons prior to the bill becoming law (assuming the bill is ever passed by the legislature)…

    "(5) In order to continue to possess an assault weapon that was
    19 legally possessed on the effective date of this section, the person
    20 possessing the assault weapon shall do all of the following:
    21 (a) Safely and securely store the assault weapon;
    22 (b) Possess the assault weapon only on property owned or
    23 immediately controlled by the person, or while engaged in the legal use
    24 of the assault weapon at a duly licensed firing range, or while
    25 traveling to or from either of these locations for the purpose of
    26 engaging in the legal use of the assault weapon, provided that the
    27 assault weapon is stored unloaded and in a separate locked container
    28 during transport.
    29 (6) Notwithstanding any other provision of this section, any person
    30 in this state who, after the effective date of this section, acquires
    31 title to an assault weapon by inheritance, bequest, or succession,
    32 shall, within thirty days of acquiring title, do one of the following:
    33 (a) Comply with all of the requirements of subsection (5) of this
    34 section;
    35 (b) Dispose of the assault weapon pursuant to subsection (3)(a) of
    36 this section; or
    37 (c) Permanently disable the assault weapon so that it is incapable
    38 of discharging a projectile.
    p. 7 SB 5737
    1 (7)(a) Any person convicted of violating subsection (1) or (2) of
    2 this section is guilty of a class C felony.
    3 (b) Any person convicted of violating subsection (5) of this
    4 section is guilty of a gross misdemeanor."

    http://www.leg.wa.gov/pub/billinfo/2013-14/Htm/Bills/Senate%20Bills/5737.htm

    --------------
    Notice that there is nothing here about the police inspecting your house annually. There is nothing here about confiscating your assault weapon. The only penalty prescribed for not storing your assault weapon safely and securely so that your mentally deranged teen son doesn't take it to school and slaughter kids with it is a "gross misdemeanor."

    --David

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  2. David, the key words are "(a) Safely and securely store the assault weapon;". What that means to you and I are three different things. Does that mean a locked closet, a locked safe, a safe deposit box or something else?

    Even though the pols said the home inspection was removed, how does one ensure that this clause is clear? Home inspections, although now not part of this bill, will soon become part of it. Don't believe the pols.

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  3. Someone read the bill and the pols were caught red handed, so they blamed it on someone else. It was the original intent. Don't be fooled.

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  4. David, you need to read the following article from Seattle where the bill's sponsors admit putting the clause in the bill. They figured the bill would not pass but wanted to make a statement. They want to win over the hearts and minds of Washingtonians and thought this would be a good start.

    I was right, it was meant to be there. That is what gun-grabbers want! Please stop being naive about these guys, they are after your guns and will not stop until they have them.

    Here is the link:http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2020373291_westneat17xml.html

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  5. Read your own link, Tom! It confirms what I suspected, stating... "Later, a Senate Democratic spokesman blamed unnamed staff and said a new bill will be introduced." If the legislators (as opposed to some idiot staffer) wanted the inspection language in the official version of the bill that I cited and which was referred to committee for action THEY would have put it in there themselves. Instead, they cut it out.

    Even in the dumb staffer's version of the bill, there is no reference to "confiscating" any guns. The only penalty for not securing your assault weapon from teens and mentally ill people living in your home is that it would be a gross misdemeanor. The confiscation claim was thrown in by your guy in the story you posted. Pure paranoia hype with ZERO support in either version of the bill.

    --David

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  6. David, you need to read better. Here is the piece that drew my attention. I have copied the appropriate section below. You need to read it and understand where Senator Murray is going when he says it is a "guiding light".

    "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."

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  7. Yes, I already read that. It is one of the statements that lead me to the conclusion that the "search provision" was inserted into the first draft of the bill by a staffer without the knowledge or approval of Murray. That would explain why Murray "condemned the search provision of his own bill" and said it "shouldn't be in there."

    Indeed, he cut it out of the official bill submitted to the committee for action, which obviously means he did not want it in there. If he wanted it in there, he would have left it as it was! The "guiding light" sentence was a reference back to the preceding sentence which refers to "assault weapons ban", not home inspections, much less CONFISCATING anybody's gun if not safely stored. The confiscation hype is simply a gratuitous paranoid wild extrapolation by your guy, which is not supported by a single word in EITHER draft of the bill.

    The staffer version is the bill is so sloppy, in fact, that it does not specify ANY penalty for failing the home inspection. It says violation of section 1,2 is a class C felony, and violation of section 6 is a gross misdemeanor. The home inspection provision was in section 5. Read it yourself.

    --David

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  8. >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."

    Um, "Without sweating all the details" should be OUTSIDE your quote mark, because it was a comment added by your (unbiased!) reporter, NOT part of the quote from Murray, which ended at "go".

    "Idiot" people are are staffers who embarrass their bosses by writing stuff like the "inspection provision" into the bill on their own initiative, which then causes flap like this from the paranoid gun folks who somehow manage to "see" confiscation in the bill as the penalty for failing the inspection. The legislators took the inspection out of the bill because they didn't want it in there in the first place, and it is NOT coming back. Wanna bet on that? Nah. You don't really believe it.

    --David

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  9. Any bet would be foolhardy because you will change the parameters when confiscation comes. It will occur unless Americans stand up and demand their second amendment rights.

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  10. No law will be passed in Washington state (or any other state or federal government) that authorizes the government to confiscate guns from their legal owners. If you don't like my wording, you may rephrase it.

    All that is lacking is a time-frame for our bet. Next 6 months? Next 12 months? When is your dire prediction supposed to happen?

    --David

    ReplyDelete

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