SPREAD THIS ONE FAR AND WIDE!!!!!


Three WA Senators ‘dancing in blood’ to push anti-gun agenda?

Veteran gun rights lobbyist Joe Waldron, who retired from the Marine Corps as a lieutenant colonel after a career that included service during the first Gulf War, has found a new battleground, right here in Washington State.

http://www.examiner.com/gun-rights-in-s ... gun-agenda

Well, I might get flamed for this, but I agree with Klein. I think that parents should be held accountable. It they are reckless enough to have an unsecured firearm in a house, and that child uses that firearm in a crime then the parents should be liable. If the kids are trained in gun safety and are kids "in their right minds", then there will never be an issue.

This bill's exceptions are pretty broad as to allow the gun owner options to secure the firearm from children. All those options are reasonable and fair, not to mention common sense.

I would like to see some basic verbiage added to section 2 to say "....and that child uses the firearm in a crime". This would help clarify and indemnify those parents who have children who are safe gun handlers. Section 4 expands on this thinking, but it should be part of section 2 as well.

As far as the additional $2 fee, bullshit! I have no problem paying it if it goes towards firearm safety, firearm education etc, but to pad the general fund is absurd.

You are right of course, but this is beside the point. The author's bias becomes obvious at the "tax and spend Democrats" point. This doesn't have anything to do with guns per se - the point is to incite people to vote Republican by manufacturing outrage.
1) Take any gun-related regulation
2) Declare it anti-gun
3) Bash liberals
4) Profit!!!

In reality this stuff is anti-gun is the same sense as driver's licenses, road street signs, and fuel economy are anti-car.

Want to expand on your points, please? I'd be very interested in what you have to say.

Of course!

I say that if you are really interested in making sure that gun rights do not go away, you cannot make it a conservative rallying point. If you do this, you automatically exclude half of the population (and 70% of the young population, which will be instrumental in maintaining the laws 20 years from now). You cannot make this a Republican cause, you have to work with both parties, and you have to make it an education issue, rather than partisan rallying points. There is, by the way, nothing in liberal ideology that is against gun ownership. There is also plenty of reason for SENSIBLE gun regulations to exist.

On the other hand, there are partisans. They are only interested in gun issue in so far that it attracts voters to their cause (which would - without Guns, Gods, and Gays - be deeply unpopular because it only benefits about 0.05% of the population financially). For them creating outrage wherever possible is incredibly important - that is how they get paid. But this actually destroys the cause which they are claiming to support.

More on guns and partisan politics here:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc ... guns/8608/

Soly, what you said makes no sense. This is not a political party issue, or a conservative versus liberal issue, or even a old versus young issue. This is all about the slow, gradual over regulation of firearms to the point where the Second Amendment doesn't even matter, because the regulatory burden of gun ownership has rendered it null and void.

Career politicians love the gun issue. So does law enforcement. Power is meaningless without control. Politicians jump on the band wagon regardless of political affiliation because it is a safe, neutral subject they can be seen as having taken action on. Add to the bullshit re election resume of affirmative actions taken over four years in order to get re elected to another four years of doing nothing but bullshit legislation. Hogs at the public trough, period.

Conservative rally point ? I don't think so. The massive increase in new gun owners over the past 10 years come from all walks of life, and most of them are younger gun owners. They don't give a shit about anything other than how some really bad politically motivated knee jerk legislation may impact their right to gun ownership and usage thereof. That is common sense talking. All of the old tired cliche "us versus them" stuff does not hold water.

That is the trend, regardless of labeling by any party to the contrary, either in the media, or the political arena. Lead, Follow, or, Get Out Of The Way.

Soly, alas you seem to have blinders on.

FACT: Democrats have pretty much painted themselves with the broad brush of gun control.
FACT: In this state, Democrats have pretty much run the Legislature for the past decade, and they're the ones under whose rule we've seen higher taxes, more government spending, more tax requests....vicious cycle.

This is, by its very nature, a partisan issue because the Dems in Olympia have made it so. That's not my fault, it's their fault.

If someone claims to be a gun rights activist yet continues to vote for the very people who are eroding our gun rights, one of us is nuts, and it's not me.

If you don't like the term "tax-and-spend" then trot down to Olympia and tell the Democrat caucus to stop taxing us, and stop spending like the well will never run dry.

Or, just live in denial and criticize me for telling it like it is.

I agree with you. It SHOULD NOT be a conservative vs liberal issue. Making it a conservative issue actually is detrimental to gun rights. Really solving problems requires uniting people, not dividing them. However, the article above (and the author's reaction to my post) are very clearly about making it a partisan issue(*).

If you want to ensure gun rights, you go about educating population. Inflammatory rhethoric hardly helps here.

That was my point.

(*) Mike Bloomberg was a Republican for majority of his career, and very supportive of gun control. Ronald Reagan was at the source of California's current gun situation. Howard Dean is as liberal as it gets, and had something like 100% rating by NRA when he ran for the nomination.

I am not trying to make it a partisan issue. That's already been taken care of by the two parties. I simply write about it.

Make it liberal versus conservative, Dem v. Repub, whatever... It shakes down that the overwhelming majority of gun control proposals come from liberal Democrats. The overwhelming majority of gun rights proposals come from conservative Republicans..

As for Mr. Bloomberg, his social policies and politics have convinced a lot of people that he was a RINO...Republican in Name Only. I can't help that.

I've seen exceptions to the rule. Former Congresswoman Jolene Unsoeld from Clark County was a liberal on social issues, but after doing a little homework, she became very pro-gun. Several Democrat members of the Washington Legislature are very tight with a buck and very pro-gun. Look at Tim Sheldon. He's a good lawmaker, and he drives many in his caucus absolutely nuts.

The problem with the party is that the libs who have been around Olympia, and Washington DC, for the longest time have risen to positions of power, and it is THEY who control the caucus agenda, and their agenda is to erode gun rights any way they can. I didn't invent that, I just write about it. That seems to make you uncomfortable and it gets under your skin.

It is nonsense to pretend that Democrats as a party and liberals as a voting block are going to warm up to expanding our gun rights and regaining what we've lost.

SAF sued Chicago and won, and the city's handgun ban is history, However, the city government under the former and current mayor are doing their damnedest to dance around both the spirit and the letter of the McDonald ruling, and we all know it. And what party do they belong to?

Adam Kline, Jeanne Kohl-Welles and Debbie Regala are all liberals and what party do they all belong to? I can't ignore that.

I'm not the one who originated the nickname "The Party of Gun Control" for Democrats.

It is dumbfounding that some people simply cannot bring themselves to acknowledge that this is a pattern with the party. It's like they are living in denial. It's dishonest and disingenuous.

The one thing that most such folks share is that they have very thin skin when it comes to facing that justified criticism.

I'd be delighted if gun rights was just a non-issue. I really don't like fighting this battle, especially when I have to occasionally discuss the problem with people who seem blind to this dilemma. Guess who those people blame first when they suddenly find themselves faced with a new gun law that personally affects them? Me and guys like Waldron, the NRA, CCRKBA and other gun rights leaders.

Oh, and while I'm thinking about it...I just re-read the column. Stop trying to misrepresent what I wrote. Demonizing the messenger is not going to alter the message.

Well, the problem with this legislation is that it singles out gun owners. We already have a statute on reckless endangerment. Here's what Mr. Waldron, the fellow I wrote about, said in an e-mail to lawmakers:



What I see here is text book Adam Kline. Pass this language now, and next year or the year after, come back with an amendment to add an "enhanced penalty" for gun owners. Kline is a patient guy and he's willing to do stuff like this.. That's what makes this bill anti-gun, and one we should all oppose.

I understand holding adults responsible. I don't have a problem with that. The mother of the kid whose foolishness ignited all of this seems to already be one of the most irresponsible people in the neighborhood. Nothing Kline sticks us with would ever deter someone like her from doing something remarkably stupid.

Presently, she's not out of the woods by a long shot. My guess is that the Kitsap prosecutor is going to take a very long, hard look at mom and her gun-packing boyfriend, who reportedly also has a background that precludes his legal possession of a firearm. It that turns out to be true, problem solved. We don't need to hold every other gun owner in the state responsible.

Subtle agenda at work in OH, WA school shooting aftermath

It hasn’t taken long for agenda-driven groups and their mainstream press enablers to start pushing not-so-subliminal anti-gun messages in the aftermath of Monday’s deadly Ohio school shooting, and last week’s accidental shooting in Washington.

http://www.examiner.com/gun-rights-in-s ... -aftermath

Great article Dave.

This excerpt, from your article:


Rings true, but that's probably one of the reasons why I like having a special gun clause in the reckless endangerment. There leaves no lawyer interpretation, grey area or questions about when and where this can be applied. We have had plenty of child involved shootings over the years, and as far as I could find not one parent was ever charged with Reckless Endangerment that is currently on the books.

To counter my own argument though and to resonate what we all have said for years; "Enforce the laws currently on the books". Well, since that's not going to happen, as it has been proven for years, this one piece of legislation gives PA's a chance to finally hold those morons responsible.