Mistake in gun bill could defeat the effort

[Bob33]

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

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.

[CementFinisher]

  our representatives make me sick

[bearpaw]

I am pretty sure I was told this is dead....

But they will be back with something they think will pass next time! 

[Hunter4Life]

The biggest threat this session is HB 1588, the Universal Background Check bill.  This bill had 38 sponsors in the state house.  This bill is sitting in the House Judiciary Committee.  It is scheduled for Executive Session on 2/19/13 at 10:00 AM.

[Heredoggydoggy]

Any police that come into my house uninvited had better be single.  I'd hate to think that I was responsible for the creation of widows and orphans... 

[Northway]

It's hard to believe that wording actually made it into the bill.

How inept can a group of politicians be? Nobody would even take ownership of that content; not even hardcore Seattle liberals!!

This is yet more evidence that the best and brightest from this state, and the nation in general are not getting involved in politics. The political environment is such that most folks avoid it as a profession, even if they are passionate about the subject.

What are we left with? Mediocrity in the form of men like Ed Murray. This is not a problem confined to the left wing, either. 

[Special T]

It just goes to show that these jokers that represent us DONT READ WHAT THEY SIGN! They are obviously stupid if they co sign the damn thing and don't take the time to read the whole thing!  THIS is how we end up with laws that don't work OR make a real difference. THIS bill is getting attention, but so many others do not, and the "I'm sorry it was overlooked" is accepted.  What jackwagonsigns thier name to stuff they don't read? Am i the only one who read ALL the paperwork when i signed the morgage for my house? Bought a car? 

[mossy8352]

No surprise look at the political idiots that passed the draconian Obummer care law with out reading it!

[Northway]

It just goes to show that these jokers that represent us DONT READ WHAT THEY SIGN! They are obviously stupid if they co sign the damn thing and don't take the time to read the whole thing!  THIS is how we end up with laws that don't work OR make a real difference. THIS bill is getting attention, but so many others do not, and the "I'm sorry it was overlooked" is accepted.  What jackwagonsigns thier name to stuff they don't read? Am i the only one who read ALL the paperwork when i signed the morgage for my house? Bought a car? 

Not only an oversight by the elected official, but poor management skills when it comes to their staff. So you're busy and it's tough to read the full content of every bill? Okay, maybe, whatever; but to not even manage or procure able staff to pour over the content and appropriately summarize?

We're looking at a blatant failure of potentially dozens of individuals.

I can't stress how huge of an error this is, and that's without even getting into the merit of the bill. I don't make a practice of calling for heads, but folks should lose their jobs over this one.

[300UltraMagShooter]

Ha ha ha ha....

it is too funny when you see liberals get a tiny bit of reality.....  it must be such a rude awakening...  but this is just one of those liberals that are brainwashed in cities such as Seattle.

This weirdo I'm sure will not even come close to really waking up.  Even with this article, you can still see the nonsense of "(can't "fully blame" them)... 

as you can tell by that statement, they didn't change their brainwashed mind in the slightest... they are still as anti-gun as ever...  and still worship at the thrown of govt.

it is still funny even when this tiny bit of reality check smacks them in the face....  and you can't help but think of the future when they or their posterity will really get a wake up call. 

Sadly, we are not only fighting these morons, but we are having to fight the weak minded folks on "our side" that don't have the courage or knowledge to stand up against "reasonable" gun control. 

This weirdo liberal deep down actually believes that "reasonable" gun control is just that... and actually believes the talking points coming from his masters.  I'm ok with that... just a part of reality we have to deal with.

But what really bothers me, our side should know better.

[Worldhunter]

Unbelievable!!

[Bob33]

Westneat, part 2, published today:

http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2020421786_westneat24xml.html

Dems keep shooting themselves in foot

How can legislators keep introducing a bill they don’t support? Because not only are they sometimes not reading their bills. They aren’t writing them, either. Lobbyists are.

Last week’s crazy story about the senators who didn’t support their own gun bill has raised more than a few existential questions.

Such as: If a bill is introduced, but nobody wrote it or even likes it, does it technically exist?

If the lawmakers didn’t make the law, then who did?

And to paraphrase the 2,500 people who wrote, called, or commented about this story from around the nation: What the bleep is going on in Olympia?

I’m referring to the Orwellian tale of three Democratic senators who sponsored an assault-weapons ban, Senate Bill 5737. Only to discover —when I called them, apparently — that it would allow police to search gun owners’ homes without a warrant.

The specter of police going door to door obviously is the gunner nightmare come true. It does seem unconstitutional. But all three senators said they wouldn’t support such a plan, either. It was in the bill by mistake.

As a militia regiment of readers pointed out, this strained credulity. Two of the lawmakers — Sens. Adam Kline and Jeanne Kohl-Welles, both D-Seattle — backed the same legislation twice previously, most recently in 2010. Eight House Democrats also sponsored a nearly identical bill in 2005.

“Senator Kline flat-out lied to you,” read a typical email. “You are too naive to call yourself a journalist.”

Maybe so, but I still don’t think Kline lied. Because when the same bill came up in 2010, he also said then that he didn’t support the home inspections.

“There’s no purpose in having that clause,” Kline said during a 2010 public hearing, agreeing with an NRA lobbyist who had called the police searches “a gross violation of the Fourth Amendment.” Kline pledged then to take the provision out of the bill.

Of course he didn’t — Kline co-sponsored it again this year with the same provision. I don’t blame anyone for doubting him. He has, after all, put in the same alleged mistake three times now. But it’s also true he’s on record opposing police inspections before.

The deputy chief of staff of the Senate Democrats, Jeff Reading, insists nobody in Olympia supports these police searches: “The provision is nutty,” he said. “And obviously unconstitutional.”

So ... why does it keep coming up? Is there some gremlin that creeps into the Democrats’ bill-writing room to slip in nutty, unconstitutional clauses?

As it turns out, in a sense, there is. It’s part of an increasingly popular, fast-food-franchise-like practice called “model legislation.” Special-interest groups write up their dream bills and then shop them to statehouses around the country.

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is the best known such boilerplate bill factory, proliferating hundreds of right-wing bills from Stand Your Ground to repeal of Obamacare. This police-search provision came from a left-wing version — a model assault-weapons ban written by the Brady Campaign and the San Francisco-based Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

Our bill tracks almost word for word with bills introduced in 2004 in Michigan and a few other states, as well as in 2005 here. At the time, the gun-control group had put out a 73-page guide called “Banning Assault Weapons — A Legal Primer for State and Local Action” in which it offered sample language, including this same police-search provision.

So our bill was a cut-and-paste job. How can legislators keep introducing a bill they don’t support? Because not only are they sometimes not reading their bills. They aren’t writing them, either. Lobbyists are.

If this keeps up, what will be the point of even having a Legislature? Might as well have lobbyists take their boilerplate direct to the voters. (Wait, scratch that thought. Tim Eyman doesn’t need any encouragement.)

In the end, the assault-weapons ban, stripped of police searches, died Friday when it didn’t clear committee. Lawmakers insist there never was a drive to send cops door to door. OK, but since there are think tanks pumping out model bills advocating exactly that, the gunners are wise to worry.

Legislators, I know you feel misunderstood. But we’re not mind readers out here. Don’t support something? Then don’t keep proposing it!

And we’d be more likely to take your word for it if you stopped ceding your jobs to the lobbyists.

[bigtex]

It is amazing how many mistakes there are in bills.

I found one in a bill today. It was to reclassify a certain entity. Well it added this entity to the proposed classification, but it didn't remove it from it's current classification.   

[Atroxus]

Tagging for follow up from home.