Senate hearing exposes gun divideBy THOMAS SHAPLEY
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER COLUMNIST
OLYMPIA -- Sen. Adam Kline, D-Seattle, herded seven gun bills through his Judiciary Committee Tuesday. And they were hardly the magnificent seven.
GOP Sens. Pam Roach of Sumner and Mike Carrell of Lakewood sponsored the two slam-dunk bills. Roach would waive the $10 late fee for members of the returning service members renewing concealed-pistol licenses. Carrell would add to the list of those denied the right to possess firearms anyone found not guilty of a felony by reason of insanity.
The other five bills, all sponsored by Democrats, were more complex, and contentious.
That hearing exposed a deep cultural divide in this state. On one side of the chasm are those who generally view firearms only as weapons and regard the possession of firearms as an unnecessary risk to public safety when there is law enforcement to ensure public safety. On the other side are those who view firearms as tools not only for hunting and sport, but also for self-protection because they can't always depend on the police to protect them.
The freedom to be kept safe from the danger of firearms confronts the freedom to possess firearms to keep safe from danger.
Kline would impose the defunct federal assault weapons ban on Washington state. This attempt to limit civil liberties seems out of tune with his very real heroics in defending civil liberties against untoward state and federal homeland security restrictions.
Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles, D-Seattle, is again trying to make unsafe storage of firearms a specific violation of the state's reckless-endangerment law. It's at least the means to an end, if not an immediate deterrent. It's like seat-belt laws. The threat of a ticket won't guarantee that lousy parents will buckle up their children, but it can make the rest of us parents far more likely to do so. The bill's merit is that adults whose recklessness in the way they store firearms brings death or injury to a child should be held just as responsible as those who are reckless behind the wheel of a car.
Kohl-Welles is also the prime sponsor of a bill to require background checks for all firearm purchases at gun shows. The vast, vast majority of those who buy and sell at these shows pose no threat to the peace or public safety. But without thorough background checks, there's a very real chance that firearms are being sold to people otherwise barred from buying guns, including felons, non-citizens, domestic-violence suspects and serious mental-health problems.
Requiring national background checks for all firearm purchases at gun shows is neither an unreasonable nor unjustified impairment of what the state constitution calls "the right of the individual citizen to bear arms in defense of himself, or the state. ..."
Sen. Darlene Fairley, D-Lake Forest Park, wants to ban firearms from the Legislative Building at the Capitol and to ban the sales of .50-caliber rifles. The only real effect of banning firearms from the Legislative Building would fall on those citizens who can carry guns there now -- those with a valid license to carry a concealed pistol. The law already bars anyone else from carrying a concealed firearm under the Rotunda or anywhere in public. Those who get licenses to carry concealed pistols do so to thwart crime, not foment it. Even a senator who was reportedly the target of a threat was outspoken in his opposition to the ban.
The .50-caliber rifle is indeed a big, powerful gun that fires a big, powerful bullet. But firearm experts say it is not necessarily more destructive or more capable of firing armor-penetrating rounds than some other firearms. It is neither a "weapon of mass destruction" nor an "artillery piece."
If there is any place to bridge the broad cultural gap over the firearm issue, it should be the Legislature. An early test of the Democrats' leadership will be whether they work to bridge that gap or broaden it.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/209677_shapley30.html
