PA Bill Number: HB335
Title: In inchoate crimes, further providing for prohibited offensive weapons.
Description: In inchoate crimes, further providing for prohibited offensive weapons. ...
Last Action: Removed from table
Last Action Date: May 1, 2024
2A activists fight back as Rasmussen shows majority oppose new gun controls :: 03/20/2015
Core activists with the Evergreen State’s fledgling American Rights Movement (ARM) are strongly disputing a column in yesterday’s Spokane Spokesman Review about the way an onerous piece of legislation was defeated, and about their alleged unwillingness to work with the sponsor of that bill, Rep. Laurie Jinkins, a Tacoma Democrat.
By no small coincidence, this flap erupted 24 hours after Rasmussen Reports issued a report on What America Thinks about Gun Control, that said more than half of likely voters “continue to oppose stricter gun control laws.” The Rasmussen piece also noted that 74 percent of Americans believe the Constitution affirms an individual right to keep and bear arms.
The Spokesman Review column, by Shawn Vestal, discussed the defeat of House Bill 1857, discussed by this column nearly two weeks ago in a report about the newly-founded ARM and the difference between true grassroots and “astroturf,” a term that applies to the well-financed anti-gun Everytown for Gun Safety. Vestal contended that “The gun lobby has again helped undermine a piece of common-sense public safety legislation.”
A lot of people obviously disagree that HB 1857, the so-called “extreme risk” disarmament measure, had anything remotely to do with “common sense.” But what appears to have ignited members of the rights group is how Vestal’s report portrayed Second Amendment advocates as being unwilling to negotiate with Jinkins.
ARM founder Robert Arco posted his reaction on the group’s Facebook page. Where Jinkins was quoted saying she “met with the NRA and with the gun lobby a couple of times,” Arco’s account is far different. He said activists “asked on numerous occasions to speak with her to try and find a middle ground.”
“She refused and would not take calls or requests for meetings,” Arco asserted. “That was her choice, not ours.”
HB 1857 was the measure that – depending upon one’s perspective – would have allowed temporary “extreme risk” protection orders that, among other things, would have “temporarily” disarmed people alleged to be dangerous, either to themselves or other people. The bill was considered a tool to give families of allegedly troubled people a means of getting them some help. It was inspired by a similar, and rather hastily-adopted, measure in California that ostensibly will prevent another case like the Santa Barbara mayhem last year.
Vestal’s column quoted the NRA’s Brian Judy, who testified against the Jinkins measure, noting, “We’ve been hearing for two years from the proponents of Initiative 594 that they don’t want to take away guns. However, we have this bill now before us that creates a new process with one goal: to take away guns.”
That’s a genuine concern that too many of the gun prohibition camp dismiss as paranoia. However, as the recent controversy over M855 ammunition demonstrated, it’s not paranoia when they really are out to get you. No sooner had the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives temporarily shelved the proposed ban on so-called “green-tipped” bullets than did an anti-gun member of Congress come back with legislation to ban a wider range of ammunition, a move blasted the other day by the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.
Another ARM activist, Dana Day, was also quoted in Vestal’s column. “It is abundantly clear,” she said, “that the true purpose of HB 1857 is to remove guns and attack gun rights. What HB 1857 intends to do is criminalize gun ownership by coupling it with other events.”
Perhaps this dispute between gun control advocates and Second Amendment activists may be summed up thusly: What seems like “common sense” to those who dislike firearms comes across as nonsense to people who are tired of being penalized for crimes they didn’t commit.
And that brings us back around to the Rasmussen Report. According to Rasmussen, most Americans believe current gun laws need to be more strictly enforced. That’s different than wanting more laws passed. Washington voters passed I-594 last November supporting so-called “universal background checks,” but now prosecutors and police can’t seemingly define the parameters of the new law, especially what it says about “transfers” of firearms.
If they don’t understand the law, how are average citizens supposed to understand it? This may have something to do with the revelation by Rasmussen that 62 percent of Americans “don’t trust government to enforce gun laws fairly.” One can find evidence of this in states like New Jersey, New York and Maryland, for example, where officials have rather wide latitude in deciding who gets a carry permit.
The ability of a private citizen to defend himself or herself at home or away from home should never be left to the discretion of some official who may not care for widespread public gun ownership, gun rights advocates contend. As it applies to the failed HB 1857, those same advocates are wary of any proposal that might put their rights at risk from some angry relative, estranged spouse or domestic partner.
This dispute between gun control advocates and Second Amendment adherents over who did what regarding HB 1857 boils down to “he said, she said,” and one’s perspective. One the one hand are people who insist there must be far tighter regulation of the constitutionally-affirmed individual right to keep and bear arms, and on the other side are gun owners who merely wish to be left alone.
Remember Newton’s Third Law. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This basic principle seems to baffle gun prohibitionists who seem both astonished and fearful that firearms owners are not ready or willing to simply surrender.
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