.jpg)
Please ask our state representatives to pass HB 1152: Secure storage requirements for firearms in vehicles and residences. Responsible gun ownership is more than simply knowing how to use a weapon, it is also about understanding and practicing safe storage of firearms to prevent theft and/or access by children.
Storing firearms locked, unloaded, and separate from ammunition is associated with a 78% lower risk of self-inflicted injuries and 85% lower risk of unintentional injury among children. Most such tragedies could have been avoided by observing proper storage protocols.
Our state representatives are now considering a bill requiring safe storage: HB 1152, which establishes secure storage requirements for firearms left in homes and vehicles and penalties for violations of these requirements. Please contact our state representatives TODAY and urge them to pass HB 1152.
Paula Simpson Barnes
Paula Simpson Barnes
Shoreline
HB 1152 is what you get when people who loathe guns and don't understand them work to harass gun owners through legislation.
ReplyDeleteWhen you live your daily life, you pass scores of unseen handguns carried in public, both legally and illegally. Even in bright blue Shoreline. That you do not see them does not mean that they are not there. The continuous push in our state to create ever more places where guns may not be legally carried poses a quandary for the law-abiding.
The vehicle requirements of HB 1152 are ridiculous. You have to bolt a safe somewhere in the car out of view. You have to unload your pistol and clear the chamber before placing it into this safe IN FULL PUBLIC VIEW. The best practice for locking your gun in your car is to do it rarely, and when you do, quickly slip the holstered loaded pistol into the trunk without being seen. If you are forced to drop the magazine, LOUDLY rack the slide to clear the chamber, then lock inside the safe that you had to bolt in the trunk, it increases the odds that you will be spotted doing this and make your car a target where before it was not. Many people faced with this dilemma will say that if hiding the gun in the car isn't good enough to be legal, why not just carry it into the Parent/Teacher conference at school? At least there it won't be stolen, and nobody will be the wiser. Current law already makes it illegal to store a gun in an unlocked car, or in a locked car where it's visible from the outside.
The home provisions of the bill are unconstitutional. Many people live in homes with only responsible adults. It is a violation of 2A for the state to dictate to childless gun owners that they are required to make every firearm unsuitable for home defense unless they carry it on their person while at home, which nobody does. Gun owners with children should follow these provisions. Gun owners without children don't need to. Current child endangerment laws address the issue of guns irresponsibly left in the open around kids.
Guns fall into the wrong hands through theft from cars and homes, but our legislature loves nothing more than releasing car thieves and burglars from jail as quickly as possible. Rather than addressing the criminals who drive the commerce in stolen guns, the legislature proposes to make crime victims into criminals just for owning guns. It's similar to the effort to punish car manufacturers from high-trust societies, rather than the criminals who steal the cars in our low-trust society.
HB 1152 isn't about gun safety. It's a purposeful attempt to create impossible situations for responsible gun owners. It's about pushing concealed carriers to show their guns to everyone in the parking lot when they have to unload in public. Ask yourself whether you really want to see other parents unloading their carry guns in school parking lots, or if you'd rather not be alerted by the unmistakable sound of a slide being racked three times. HB 1152 is unconstitutional, and the state will have to pay to defend it when lawsuits result.
Another passive aggressive attempt to remove our freedoms.
ReplyDeleteAs someone who thinks weapons are out of control in our country, I oppose this proposed law. We need to have a few laws that can be enforced when guns are found to be used in crimes, but more laws does not make us safer. When a law enforcement professional who should know better (!) leaves his handgun in the glovebox of his van while he runs into a store for just a minute, and a child gets the gun and shoots someone else in the van, it's clear that laws don't change behavior. Fewer laws, more enforcement. Please and thank you.
ReplyDelete