Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

A couple of bills are working their way through committee in the Washington State House of Representatives.

The first is HR-1387 which seeks to require a license (similar to the current CPL) to own or purchase an "assault rifle" as defined similar to the way California and New York have defined the term. It appears to outlaw the sale or transfer of "high capacity" magazines to anyone except the police or an FFL for destruction.

http://lawfilesext.leg.wa.gov/biennium/2017-18/Pdf/Bills/House%20Bills/1387.pdf#page=1

Some relevant text:

This first item requires a license to own.

18 (1)(a) Except as provided in subsection (2) of this section, a
19 person shall not possess, manufacture, transport, purchase, acquire,
20 transfer, deliver, import, sell, or offer to sell an assault weapon
21 or large capacity magazine without being in possession of an assault
22 weapon license issued pursuant to section 3 of this act.

This next one prohibits private sales of non-licensed "assault rifles" without going throught a FFL and getting a license issued.

28 (6) The assault weapon licensure requirement in subsection (1) of
29 this section does not apply to any of the following:
30 (a) From the effective date of this section until July 1, 2020:
31 The possession of an assault weapon or large capacity magazine by a
32 person who legally possesses the assault weapon or large capacity
33 magazine on the effective date of this section.
{edit: This means "current owners" who own this stuff prior to the date the law becomes effective. I.e., grandfathering.}
However, a person who
34 legally possesses an assault weapon or large capacity magazine under
35 this subsection (6)(a) may not sell or transfer the assault weapon or
36 large capacity magazine to any other person in this state other than
37 to a licensed dealer, to a federally licensed gunsmith for the
38 purpose of service or repair, or to a law enforcement agency for the
39 purpose of permanently relinquishing the assault weapon or large
40 capacity magazine;

There is another section requiring the police/sheriff to issue licenses to any applicant who qualifies so Washington State stays a "shall issue" State.

Next is House Bill 1122 which starts off innocently enough with the proposition that "Unsafe storage of firearms can have devastating consequences for our communities and our children." then lays out a litany of things a person can be found guilty of if their firearm isn't stored safely.

The concern of the NRA is that the text is so vague it can be read to require "firearm owners lock up their firearms at all times when not in use." If this interpretation is correct, it could mean that you wouldn't be able to keep a firearm ready in case your house is broken into during the night. Given that there are some sketchy neighborhoods here in Washington State, this is a concern by local gun advocates and the NRA.

http://lawfilesext.leg.wa.gov/biennium/2017-18/Pdf/Bills/House%20Bills/1122.pdf

I'm surprised the Democrats are trying to push this type of legislation here given how unpopular most previous attempts at gun control have been in this State. In fact, I think there's only been one actual GC friendly law that's been enacted recently and that was done by Initiative, not legislation.

So, what do you guys think? Serious concerns or is Chicken Little running around making noise again?

Goddamn it, Democrats. Drop gun control, already. It's a losing issue, and pushes otherwise reasonable single-issue voters (oxymoron) to the hard, hard right.

Sounds like more poorly thought out legislation. A bunch of "solutions" in search of a problem.

I think as usual the NRA is blowing smoke out its butt and bending over backwards to scream "bad democrats hate second amendment bad." At the same time, this is a lot of text and it quickly becomes a blob reading through it to me which makes it feel like kitchen sink legislation. Sounds like someone is trying to check the gun control box on their "elect me" check list.

I don't think its unreasonable to hold someone accountable for unsafe practices in gun ownership. We already hold people accountable for reckless behavior in vehicle or machinery maintenance. I'm unsure why guns should be any different. The given legislation seems purposefully written to allow prosecutorial discretion and I think that makes for murky execution that is both good and bad and will come down to a case by case basis for whether the prosecution is fair or unfair. Nervousness is thus warranted, but I think crying about how the state is going to start locking up everyone who doesn't lock up their guns is premature. This is something the courts would have to better define, but that's also something the courts are good for even if it sucks for the person who has to be the first case through appeals.

That last part seems to leave open that you can't have someone in your vehicle or home with your guns and leave the vehicle or home, since you are temporarily transferring the gun to them while you are gone.
What about someone who wants to gift a gun to their family or friend? The last section seems to prohibit that, also.

 LordofHats wrote:
Sounds like someone is trying to check the gun control box on their "elect me" check list.

That's about it.

More of the "assault weapon" legislation that has no bearing on the actual capabilities of the firearm and is easily skated by simply changing things like grips or stocks? Check.
Ban on/restriction of an arbitrarily decided value for magazine size without realizing that tens of millions of these items likely already exist in the state and are impossible to control through state borders? Check.

Not sure why you'd need a license to own an AR-15 but not a Mini-14 given that they're both capable of taking basically the same capacity magazines firing the same round at the same potential rate of fire with the same rough accuracy and same potential range with identical muzzle velocity, but "Assault Weapon/Rifle" legislation seems to miss this sort of thing every time .

Remember when the US Supreme Court used to insist that the 2nd Amendment did not in fact guarantee the right of citizens to own firearms?

I've heard that was the case up until 2008, but I've never actually fact-checked it.

 Breotan wrote:

I'm surprised the Democrats are trying to push this type of legislation here given how unpopular most previous attempts at gun control have been in this State. In fact, I think there's only been one actual GC friendly law that's been enacted recently and that was done by Initiative, not legislation.

So, what do you guys think? Serious concerns or is Chicken Little running around making noise again?

2... the first one, since I've lived in the state was the idiotic "must have BGC in order to transfer firearm" law. Now, I'm fairly left leaning, but I called what this law would do, before it passed. And sure enough, some of the museums around Olympia, the I-5 corridor and JBLM have all been forced to return their WW2 collections to the owner because a museum cannot get background checked.

The second one, may not actually be a state thing... but I agree with it, and read the full text of the law before voting, just to make sure... was the one which can, by court order (and there's a whole bunch of rigamarole that goes into it) have firearms removed from a person who is a risk/threat of doing imminent harm. The limitations are pretty strict on this one, as it covers mental health/suicide threats, Domestic Violence and the like, AND provides harsh penalties for false reporting, with the bar for proving false reporting being not too high, but not too low either.


As for the bills in the OP... I'd say this can qualify as serious concern.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Relapse wrote:
That last part seems to leave open that you can't have someone in your vehicle or home with your guns and leave the vehicle or home, since you are temporarily transferring the gun to them while you are gone.
What about someone who wants to gift a gun to their family or friend? The last section seems to prohibit that, also.

As mentioned above... we already got that covered... but I think for the bills at hand, what it's specifically prohibiting is the transfer of firearms items that would be made illegal by the passage of this bill. (ie, if 30 round magazines are made illegal, I can still own it, but I cannot gift/transfer it to anyone else, except for the purpose of destruction)

 Breotan wrote:
<snip>

So, what do you guys think? Serious concerns or is Chicken Little running around making noise again?

I have a few thoughts.

Personally, the first bill weirds me out. You guys didn't previously have to fill out paperwork or follow any sort of licensing procedure to buy these things? I mean, my video games have license agreements I have to sign before I can play them, you guys don't require licenses to own guns? Little weird in itself.

The House Bill 1122 quote seems sensible. It's pretty obvious that doing unsafe things when storing your guns can have pretty devastating consequences for the people nearby. Guns are a very dangerous tool, and storing them unsafely isn't going to end well because of what "unsafe" means. And yeah, I'm sure all of those things are possible consequences, but the reality is that not all of those things are going to occur to any individual who doesn't store a firearm safely. That's just a list of possible charges, the specific charges that will be filed will be more selective based on the specifics of the thing you did and what occurred. They may also be including things you can be found guilty of for the afore-mentioned "devastating consequences" that occurred as a result of a person's decision to store a firearm unsafely.

(also, are you really opposed to storing firearms safely or something?)

Oh, right, the NRA. Yeah, they're not a reliable source of information about anything.

Also, if you feel the need to have a self-defence weapon for home use to defend against a break-in at night... I would recommend not a firearm, because when you wake up suddenly in the middle of a night due to a break-in, you're probably not going to have a clear enough mind to use a shotgun properly, and a shotgun is the proper weapon for home defence because it is difficult to miss with, does huge damage with a single shell, and is incredibly intimidating since everyone knows that when a person with a shotgun is aiming it at you at a range you will find in a house, that is the point to give up and either leave or be arrested, because fighting is not going to work. For an effective, unregulated weapon you can use for home defence that is not a firearm, should you choose to go that route, I recommend a sturdy, heavy baseball bat because they are relatively cheap, totally unregulated, easy to come by in the USA due to the popularity of baseball, hurts like hell when you get hit by it, but has a low enough lethality that you are more likely to club an intruder into submission than kill them, you don't need a specialized storage system for it, and they are easy to lean up against the corner off your bed in a way that makes them quick to grab by the handle. Clubs may be a very old weapon, but they still work very well for some purposes. I believe your goal should also be to incapacitate an intruder, not kill them, because sometimes humans make the honest mistake of interpreting something as an intruder that is actually much more innocuous.

Despite the resistance to regulate guns, I think it is an admirable goal to keep firearms available to the public, but simply require a significant amount of paperwork to own and buy them, owing to how dangerous they are. I believe that the goal of the Democrats in terms of gun control is not to remove all guns from American society, but instead to implement and enforce regulations on firearms with the aim of keeping them legal to own, but simply requiring people to act safely with them in a manner which too many are not choosing to do on their own. This does require giving up some freedom for some security, and yes, I have read that quote and I agree with it, but if you read that quote much more carefully, you will notice that it does not simply say freedom for safety, it says essential freedom for a little temporary security, which is much more specific about the exchange being made. In this case, you still have the essential freedom - to own guns. The safety you are getting is not small and temporary, it will permanently have a large improvement of safety because guns will be safer to own and have for everyone. Thus I believe the exchange is a good one in this case.

 Pouncey wrote:
I mean, my video games have license agreements I have to sign before I can play them, you guys don't require licenses to own guns?

Uh, what? Those two things have nothing to do with each other, why are you comparing them?

The House Bill 1122 quote seems sensible. It's pretty obvious that doing unsafe things when storing your guns can have pretty devastating consequences for the people nearby. Guns are a very dangerous tool, and storing them unsafely isn't going to end well because of what "unsafe" means. And yeah, I'm sure all of those things are possible consequences, but the reality is that not all of those things are going to occur to any individual who doesn't store a firearm safely. That's just a list of possible charges, the specific charges that will be filed will be more selective based on the specifics of the thing you did and what occurred. They may also be including things you can be found guilty of for the afore-mentioned "devastating consequences" that occurred as a result of a person's decision to store a firearm unsafely.

The issue is that "locked up at all times when not in use" is a standard of safety that goes way beyond "not available to anyone but the owner". For example, if I'm alone in my house with the doors locked my guns are as secure as they can ever be, locking them behind another layer of locks adds nothing. So you can have situations where failure to follow the strictest RAW leads to serious criminal charges, even if no safety hazard ever existed. Secure storage is a worthy goal, but it needs to be handled in a way that doesn't punish people for reasonable and safe use of their guns.

For an effective, unregulated weapon you can use for home defence that is not a firearm, should you choose to go that route, I recommend a sturdy, heavy baseball bat because they are relatively cheap, totally unregulated, easy to come by in the USA due to the popularity of baseball, hurts like hell when you get hit by it, but has a low enough lethality that you are more likely to club an intruder into submission than kill them, you don't need a specialized storage system for it, and they are easy to lean up against the corner off your bed in a way that makes them quick to grab by the handle. Clubs may be a very old weapon, but they still work very well for some purposes.

A baseball bat also requires physical strength and a wide swing arc that isn't practical in narrow hallways. It's better than nothing, but it's a good way to make an intruder angry and then get beaten to death by your own baseball bat.

I believe your goal should also be to incapacitate an intruder, not kill them, because sometimes humans make the honest mistake of interpreting something as an intruder that is actually much more innocuous.

no.

First of all, if someone has broken into my locked house there is no "honest mistake" involved. If they happen to immediately surrender on discovering that I'm home and survive the encounter, great, but if it's anything less than immediate surrender then their continued survival is not a relevant concern.

Second, if you are not justified in immediately killing an intruder then you are not justified in using lethal force at all (and yes, attacking someone with a baseball bat is lethal force). If you feel that the danger is low enough that it is safe to use less than 100% effectiveness and attempt to disable the intruder then it's no longer legitimate self defense and you should face criminal charges for attempting to cripple them. And let's not pretend that "just incapacitate them" is an easy or neat thing to do. You're talking about either knocking them out with a blow to the head, possibly causing permanent brain damage, or breaking bones/joints until they are no longer capable of fighting. Either way you're inflicting serious injuries, potentially fatal ones.

I wasn't trying to argue with you, and I really don't want to.

You asked the forum for our thoughts. Those are mine.

And the reason I'm not going to argue with you is simply because I don't think there's a reasonable possibility that it will do anything useful. Neither of us is going to convince the other, that's very, very obvious from what you said in the OP and what you said in your reply to me.

Err, I'm not the OP. And if you can't argue your position you should consider it a sign that you're probably wrong, and need to reevaluate your beliefs.

 Peregrine wrote:
Err, I'm not the OP. And if you can't argue your position you should consider it a sign that you're probably wrong, and need to reevaluate your beliefs.

I can argue my position. I can point out why specific things you said are just flat-out incorrect or erroneous assumptions went in to them. I can back up my statements with reasoning as to why they're valid.

But, well, I know that what's going to happen if i try to do that, is that we'll basically end up just arguing over more and more tangential things until one of us has a priority that's more important than arguing on a webforum.

Because it's very obvious that you are not the least bit willing to even entertain the idea that you might be wrong, and in order to convince you to change your mind, I have to be able to convince you you're wrong, and that's just not going to happen. When you're reading my posts, you're not looking to try to understand my viewpoint or treat it as valid in any way, you're looking for specific sentences and terms that you can then try to tear apart to discredit my statements as a whole.

IOW, you can't successfully defend your position and should probably reevaluate your beliefs.

 Peregrine wrote:
IOW, you can't successfully defend your position and should probably reevaluate your beliefs.

Yes, thank you, I will do that.

Hugs?

 Pouncey wrote:
You guys didn't previously have to fill out paperwork or follow any sort of licensing procedure to buy these things? I mean, my video games have license agreements I have to sign before I can play them, you guys don't require licenses to own guns?

We have all the standard stuff from the days of the Brady Bill, need to get a background check, five day wait, can't buy across state lines without going through a FFL, that sort of stuff. Current law applies to all firearms. Washington State is an open carry State so the only license we've needed so far is the concealed pistol license. I don't believe we have any laws on purchasing magazines or ammo.

 Pouncey wrote:
(also, are you really opposed to storing firearms safely or something?)

Storing your firearms is a good idea but exactly what does "storing safely" mean? Must it be in a gun safe any time I am not specifically using it? Is locking my front door good enough? The wording is so vague even something simple such as setting your rifle down while you pull out your wallet to pay for something could be construed as a violation. This law seems to be aimed at careless gun owners but is a well meaning law a good law if it's written this poorly? The only thing I think I can agree on is the need for proper firearms training but even that lacks specifics as to what proper firearms training consists of.

 Pouncey wrote:
Oh, right, the NRA. Yeah, they're not a reliable source of information about anything.

Actually, they are, if you can tune out the fearmongering and fundraising. Their news bulletins are frequently wrapped in demagoguery but they usually have enough factual data to point you in the right direction to do your own research. For example, a lot of news articles will cover legislation but not point you to the actual bill in question. The NRA does at least this much.

 Pouncey wrote:
...I recommend a sturdy, heavy baseball bat because they are relatively cheap, totally unregulated, easy to come by in the USA due to the popularity of baseball, hurts like hell when you get hit by it, but has a low enough lethality that you are more likely to club an intruder into submission than kill them, you don't need a specialized storage system for it, and they are easy to lean up against the corner off your bed in a way that makes them quick to grab by the handle. Clubs may be a very old weapon, but they still work very well for some purposes.

Some people do use things like bats or golf clubs but there are issues with those. Ever try to swing a baseball bat in a hallway or doorway? Also, what are you going to do if the intruder is stronger than you or has his own weapon? What about a demographically typical woman facing off against a male intruder? It's concerns like these that people consider when they decide to purchase firearms for home defense.

 Pouncey wrote:
I believe your goal should also be to incapacitate an intruder, not kill them, because sometimes humans make the honest mistake of interpreting something as an intruder that is actually much more innocuous.

This is always a concern but wounding someone can also lead to years of defending yourself in court against the intruder suing you for shooting him. The USA is breathtakingly litigious and criminals here do try to sue their victims.

 Breotan wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:
You guys didn't previously have to fill out paperwork or follow any sort of licensing procedure to buy these things? I mean, my video games have license agreements I have to sign before I can play them, you guys don't require licenses to own guns?

We have all the standard stuff from the days of the Brady Bill, need to get a background check, five day wait, can't buy across state lines without going through a FFL, that sort of stuff. Current law applies to all firearms. Washington State is an open carry State so the only license we've needed so far is the concealed pistol license. I don't believe we have any laws on purchasing magazines or ammo.

Okay then, thanks for clearing that up!

 Pouncey wrote:
(also, are you really opposed to storing firearms safely or something?)

Storing your firearms is a good idea but exactly what does "storing safely" mean? Must it be in a gun safe any time I am not specifically using it? Is locking my front door good enough? The wording is so vague even something simple such as setting your rifle down while you pull out your wallet to pay for something could be construed as a violation. This law seems to be aimed at careless gun owners but is a well meaning law a good law if it's written this poorly? The only thing I think I can agree on is the need for proper firearms training but even that lacks specifics as to what proper firearms training consists of.

This is the kind of thing where I have no doubt that the exact definition of what qualifies a gun as being safely stored is a pre-existing thing in the legal code and this new document is simply a reference to it. And then it didn't specify, because then this can allow for changes to the thing that defines what a safely stored gun is, and this alters all the laws that refer to it.

You could probably find a website with your local laws and search up what it means.

 Pouncey wrote:
Oh, right, the NRA. Yeah, they're not a reliable source of information about anything.

Actually, they are, if you can tune out the fearmongering and fundraising. Their news bulletins are frequently wrapped in demagoguery but they usually have enough factual data to point you in the right direction to do your own research. For example, a lot of news articles will cover legislation but not point you to the actual bill in question. The NRA does at least this much.

Uhh, if the value of the NRA is that if you ignore "fearmongering, fundraising and demagoguery" then you can go look up the actual info somewhere else, why not skip the NRA part entirely and just type a question into Google and find a reputable website?

 Pouncey wrote:
...I recommend a sturdy, heavy baseball bat because they are relatively cheap, totally unregulated, easy to come by in the USA due to the popularity of baseball, hurts like hell when you get hit by it, but has a low enough lethality that you are more likely to club an intruder into submission than kill them, you don't need a specialized storage system for it, and they are easy to lean up against the corner off your bed in a way that makes them quick to grab by the handle. Clubs may be a very old weapon, but they still work very well for some purposes.

Some people do use things like bats or golf clubs but there are issues with those. Ever try to swing a baseball bat in a hallway or doorway? Also, what are you going to do if the intruder is stronger than you or has his own weapon? What about a demographically typical woman facing off against a male intruder? It's concerns like these that people consider when they decide to purchase firearms for home defense.

Well, setting aside some of your specific examples, I used to sleep with a weapon in my bed because I felt that I might need it.

This weapon was actually just a foot-long section of core sample my mom bought me as a souvenir (she's a science nerd).

Dunno if you've ever held a core sample.

It's not long, but it's very god damned heavy and it's extremely hard.

Because it's a foot-long cylinder two inches in diameter made of solid rock.

I suppose if I really felt a strong need to protect my home that I might need a weapon capable of killing, incapacitating, or disabling an intruder, I'd go to a hardware store, buy a few "Danger: Beware of Dog" signs, and then put them places where a person with a dangerous dog would feel the need to warn people there is a dog that might kill them.

And then I'd buy a friendly companion dog that's not dangerous at all, but loves to bark at pizza delivery guys because he thinks they're intruders.

And, well, any intruder willing to enter my house without permission at that point is probably not going to be stopped by any sort of defensive action I can do, and this will never come up for me because I have never actually earned enough ire that someone would hire a hit man to kill me.

And now my intruder problem is solved, by simply having a dog and pretending like it's dangerous so that intruders stay away.

Then I might consider keeping a phone in my bedroom at all times and buying some good locks for my bedroom door.

Then if I wake up and there's an intruder in my house at night, I can lock the door from the inside, preventing access to the room, pick up the phone and dial 9-1-1 and let the police handle the intruder because they'll be better at that than me. I'd also lock my bedroom door when I go to bed.

And really pretty much everyone who breaks into a house at night is looking to steal things and does it at night because it's easier to steal things and get away without anyone trying to stop you if everyone's asleep. My possessions are not worth a human being's life to me, not even one who breaks into my house to take my stuff. I'll just report it to the police in the morning when I wake up and buy new stuff to replace whatever the burglar took.

Also, where do you live that people breaking into your house to kill you at night is a big enough threat that you are buying guns to help you kill anyone who breaks into your house ever and you've formed very detailed plans on how to kill an intruder with a variety of weapons?

 Pouncey wrote:
I believe your goal should also be to incapacitate an intruder, not kill them, because sometimes humans make the honest mistake of interpreting something as an intruder that is actually much more innocuous.

This is always a concern but wounding someone can also lead to years of defending yourself in court against the intruder suing you for shooting him. The USA is breathtakingly litigious and criminals here do try to sue their victims.

There's a lot of propaganda about how litigious the USA is that simply isn't true. And typically your legal system does work and it's pretty good at resolving lawsuits the proper way.

 Pouncey wrote:
And, well, any intruder willing to enter my house without permission at that point is probably not going to be stopped by any sort of defensive action I can do

And this is why people have guns for self defense. Pretty much anyone can successfully use a gun to stop an intruder if they're willing to do so. Sitting in the back of a room with a shotgun pointed at the door and your finger on the trigger means nobody is getting through to hurt you. If they try, they die.

and this will never come up for me because I have never actually earned enough ire that someone would hire a hit man to kill me.

The actual risk here is not someone hiring a hit man to kill you personally, it's someone who doesn't care who happens to be in your house while they're taking all of your stuff/killing you for fun/whatever. You're in the way, you get shot so they can finish stealing all of your stuff. So it doesn't matter how much or how little ire you earn, if your house looks like an appealing target you have a murderous thug in your house.

Then I might consider keeping a phone in my bedroom at all times and buying some good locks for my bedroom door.

And then the intruder kicks your door down and kills you. Interior house doors are worthless as protection. They're made out of flimsy material and mounted on an equally flimsy frame. Putting a great lock on your door just means you have an expensive lock sitting on the floor when the cheap wood around the lock breaks. All a door gets you is a few extra seconds to grab a useful weapon and fight back.

And really pretty much everyone who breaks into a house at night is looking to steal things and does it at night because it's easier to steal things and get away without anyone trying to stop you if everyone's asleep. My possessions are not worth a human being's life to me, not even one who breaks into my house to take my stuff. I'll just report it to the police in the morning when I wake up and buy new stuff to replace whatever the burglar took.

This is the EXACT OPPOSITE of how it works. If you want to steal stuff without encountering anyone you pick a target where you know nobody is home. The person who posted their vacation pictures on facebook, the person you just watched leave for work, etc. The only people who knowingly break into a house where people are present, asleep or not, are the ones who are willing to use violence against the inhabitants if they are caught. You shoot the person in your house in the middle of the night because, by being in your house in that situation, they have essentially announced "I am willing to kill you if it's convenient for me".

So do people routinely sell weapons fully loaded and chambered with the safety off? Since putting it down on the counter could be considered unsafe storage?

I'm a pretty liberal dude, but every time I buy a weapon the guy behind the counter checks that it's unloaded, clears it, puts it down and then I pick it up and clear it myself again to make sure it's safe. Hell, that's the process I follow if I have a family member visiting who wants to see one of my guns or if I want to see one of my family members weapons. We never take a weapon out of a safe without clearing it, then handing it over, then clearing it again.

But then I'm not surprised to see people make arguments that a "don't keep a loaded weapon unsecured in your home" law prevents the safe transfer of a weapon during a sale.

 d-usa wrote:
So do people routinely sell weapons fully loaded and chambered with the safety off?

well....

 Ouze wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
So do people routinely sell weapons fully loaded and chambered with the safety off?

well....

Gun shows are natures way of bleaching out the gene pool.

 d-usa wrote:

 Ouze wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
So do people routinely sell weapons fully loaded and chambered with the safety off?

well....

Gun shows are natures way of bleaching out the gene pool.

Gun shows in Washington State prohibit carrying loading guns at the show. We learned from the mistakes of others.

 Pouncey wrote:

 Breotan wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:
Oh, right, the NRA. Yeah, they're not a reliable source of information about anything.

Actually, they are, if you can tune out the fearmongering and fundraising. Their news bulletins are frequently wrapped in demagoguery but they usually have enough factual data to point you in the right direction to do your own research. For example, a lot of news articles will cover legislation but not point you to the actual bill in question. The NRA does at least this much.

Uhh, if the value of the NRA is that if you ignore "fearmongering, fundraising and demagoguery" then you can go look up the actual info somewhere else, why not skip the NRA part entirely and just type a question into Google and find a reputable website?

Actually, yesterday's bulletin features a direct link to the text of a proposed substitute to HB-1387 which takes out the most offensive elements but leaves in the rest so as to make it look more reasonable. There is hyperbole in the NRA's bulletin but it also makes some valid points such as people under 21 would find it nearly impossible to lawfully own an "assault rifle" under this proposed legislation. I suppose one could Google this but most of the results will show links to NRA web sites anyway. Seriously, though, the one thing the NRA is really good at is keeping track of all gun-related legislation throughout the country.

https://app.leg.wa.gov/CMD/Handler.ashx?MethodName=getdocumentcontent&documentId=U6wxh4on7dQ&att=false

 Pouncey wrote:
Also, where do you live that people breaking into your house to kill you at night is a big enough threat that you are buying guns to help you kill anyone who breaks into your house ever and you've formed very detailed plans on how to kill an intruder with a variety of weapons?

Have you seen what high crime areas of our cities look like? All the houses/apartments have bars on the windows. Some even have bars in front of the door that need to be opened first. Most suburbs in Los Angeles look like one big prison because of all the bars on every building. In places like New York some people even have bars across the inside of their door like they used to have in medieval days. And still such places are broken into. Seattle, where I live doesn't have these extremes yet but we do see home invasions, night burglars, and especially drug addicts looking for anything to steal. I don't have the money to turn my house into a fortress but I do have a loaded gun.

I'm pretty sure that you and I are likely never to agree on the merits (or lack thereof) regarding the use of deadly force. I'm also fairly certain we live in very different environments when it comes to how safe our neighborhoods are. I can only hope that you are willing to accept or at least understand that how you would do things isn't always an option for how others have to live their lives.

Gotta say... Peregrine has made great responses in this thread, I feel like I can't add any more to it...



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 d-usa wrote:
So do people routinely sell weapons fully loaded and chambered with the safety off? Since putting it down on the counter could be considered unsafe storage?

I'm a pretty liberal dude, but every time I buy a weapon the guy behind the counter checks that it's unloaded, clears it, puts it down and then I pick it up and clear it myself again to make sure it's safe. Hell, that's the process I follow if I have a family member visiting who wants to see one of my guns or if I want to see one of my family members weapons. We never take a weapon out of a safe without clearing it, then handing it over, then clearing it again.

But then I'm not surprised to see people make arguments that a "don't keep a loaded weapon unsecured in your home" law prevents the safe transfer of a weapon during a sale.

That's an ingrained habit that I have, and everyone I've met.

The firearm gets cleared twice when it passes hands.

That's why I think that the "this will make the sale of guns illegal because dangerous weapons are unsecured for 5 seconds on a counter" argument is stupid.

Every store around here is pretty happy to have customers practicing open carry, and every one of them expects you to bring in any weapons for sale unloaded and in a case. If you were to try to pull a loaded weapon and place it on a counter for sale, you wouldn't have to worry about any laws making that illegal. Your best case scenario at this point would be the store kicking you out for being a dumbass, worst case scenario would be all the employees drawing their own weapons the moment your loaded gun is anywhere outside of a holster.

People need to make smarter arguments.

I don't have time to read the bill right now.

What do they consider 'high capacity magazine'?

Does the number of rounds making it 'high capacity' vary by gun type (pistols/rifles and so on?)

I personally find it funny when the number of rounds chosen to equal 'high capacity' is less than the STANDARD capacity magazine for a given weapon.

 CptJake wrote:
What do they consider 'high capacity magazine'?

More than ten rounds.

 CptJake wrote:
Does the number of rounds making it 'high capacity' vary by gun type (pistols/rifles and so on?)

Nope.

 CptJake wrote:
I personally find it funny when the number of rounds chosen to equal 'high capacity' is less than the STANDARD capacity magazine for a given weapon.

It's all part of the plan. Gun control advocates can't win outright with any sort of ban because of the Constitution and recent SCOTUS rulings so they use the "death by a thousand cuts" strategy to get what they can.

So, yet more poorly thought out gun control legislation that will overwhelmingly affect law abiding gun owners and do little to impact crime.

Oh look at that. Another state added to my "do not live there" list.

More knee jerk lets restrict peoples rights to have zero effect on anything, bull crap.

New York passed the SAFE act in 2013. Here's been the impact.

http://www.criminaljustice.ny.gov/crimnet/ojsa/greenbook.pdf

2013 - 3792 violent crimes with firearms.
2016 - 3687 violent crimes with firearms.

Pretty negligible, especially compared to prior to the passage of the SAFE act, for example, 4 years prior to 2013 they had 4,242 violent crimes committed with a firearm. Obviously getting rid of those law abiding citizens rights is worth it.

 djones520 wrote:
Oh look at that. Another state added to my "do not live there" list.

More knee jerk lets restrict peoples rights to have zero effect on anything, bull crap.

New York passed the SAFE act in 2013. Here's been the impact.

http://www.criminaljustice.ny.gov/crimnet/ojsa/greenbook.pdf

2013 - 3792 violent crimes with firearms.
2016 - 3687 violent crimes with firearms.

Pretty negligible, especially compared to prior to the passage of the SAFE act, for example, 4 years prior to 2013 they had 4,242 violent crimes committed with a firearm. Obviously getting rid of those law abiding citizens rights is worth it.

Come back to Missouri...

We're one of the few state having constitutional carry (ie, we're allowed to conceal carry firearms w/o license) and liberal firearm laws.

Keep in mind these bills havent even made it through committee, they're nowhere near law. Stuff like this gets floated in most states every once in a while even when they have zero chance of passing. It's basically for ine or two state congress people can turn to the tiny part of the base that cares and say "I'm helping!" before the bills die in committee or on the floor. They need more oomph than exists right now to pass, I dont see these making it through in a state that just removed a ban on SBR's.

I could be wrong, but thats my feeling.