Slog - Comments on Sen. Kohl-Welles Unveils Gun-Control Bill

Comment by Rotten666

Rotten666 — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 13:04:25 -0800

So we can have another massacre in a no gun zone? Makes sense to me.

Comment by tsm

tsm — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 13:05:53 -0800

Sen. Jeane Kohl-Welles (D-36, Seattle) held a hearing this morning on another bill that addresses the tragedy at UW last year ... Her bill would allow college campuses to ban guns.

The UW had a weapons ban in place when Griego was murdered. It still does. I honestly don't see how ensuring that a statute that failed to prevent the murder stays in place addresses the murder in any meaningful way.

Comment by Imperfect Voter

Imperfect Voter — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 13:19:52 -0800

Handguns, by their very nature, are concealable, and as long as campuses do not search everyone entering, then such bills are ultimately meaningless. Gun carriers, good, bad, and in between, can bring their weapons of choice and no one will know, until tragedy strikes.

Jeanne's simplistic legislation is feel-good politics, and little more.

Comment by infrequent

infrequent — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 13:22:25 -0800

i kinda agree with the above sentiment.

Comment by Westside forever

Westside forever — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 13:24:33 -0800

Nothing more than cynical window-dressing. The NRA may be pretty crazy on a lot of issues, but the idea that criminalizing gun possession will deter criminals is just plain illogical.

Comment by Chris

Chris — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 13:25:53 -0800

I am in full agreement with 1-5. What a stupid measure.

Comment by Fifty-Two-Eighty

Fifty-Two-Eighty — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 13:25:59 -0800

It will become moot after the Supremes strike down mindless, across-the-boards gun bans in Heller anyway, so yeah, feel-good legislation, at best.

Comment by Chris

Chris — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 13:30:01 -0800

The Supremes?

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/159/369362634_30ee5a9454.jpg

Comment by vesuvius

vesuvius — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 13:38:23 -0800

as we all know, it is the countries with guns everwhere, like the USA, which has like about 150 millions guns all over, that are by far the safest.

It is those silly gun controlling nations like Japan and over in Europe that are beset with horrible violent crime, unsafe streets, and tragic deranged massacres every two weeks or so.

Comment by ahava

ahava — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 13:53:01 -0800

I think this legislation is useless, but I have a question:

@9, do you have any data to back up your statement or was it said tongue-in-cheek?

Comment by subwlf

subwlf — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 13:55:54 -0800

Tongue-in-cheek, People!!

But who's cheek?

Comment by vesuvius

vesuvius — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 14:01:50 -0800

@10:

I do not have links or data. I believe it exists. I have personal knowledge that it is incredibly dangerous to walk around at night in most US cities and small towns, and incredibly dangerous to even go into some crime ridden neighborhoods, but when travelling in Europe and Japan people do not have the same level of utter fear of violence most have in the USA, women aren't so afraid to go out at night, and while there are a few worse neighborhoods you can walk around most parts of most big cities in a way you can't do in the USA.

I know that the USA has well over a hundred million guns, they are easiliy available everywhere, and we have higher rates of crime and violence.

I agree any legislation at a school or local level isn't going to change things much.

Do you feel this is wrong, that there is more crime in Europe and Japan where they have fewer guns?

Comment by torrentprime

torrentprime — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 14:18:46 -0800

So there was a problem with licensed, trained, and law-abiding people carrying guns on campus? You know, the only ones that will follow this type of law in the first place?
("Lets outlaw drugs so no one uses them")

Comment by linus

linus — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 14:57:21 -0800

it's not guns that cause crime...thats like saying forks cause obesity....it's our twisted hyper-individualistic selfish culture
finland* and switzerland have huge gun ownership rates...and there crime rates are low

8 yes i am aware of what happend in finland, there's always nuts out there that will be used as an excuse to take away our rights to speech,privacy and armned resistance

Comment by Will in Seattle

Will in Seattle — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 15:37:45 -0800

Guns won't make you safer. Minor things like fellow staff/faculty being given pictures of people not allowed by no contact orders - and switching offices but not posting the new location - those will work much better.

Comment by linus

linus — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 15:40:53 -0800

then again i have been liveing in montana for the the last couple months (comeing back to seattle in a week woot-woot0 maybe there paranoid,bunker digging food hording arms stockpiling way of thinking has rubbed off on me

not that there's anything wrong with food hording and bunker dealing...these are some very nice,tolerant , fun nay LIBERAL people for supposed 'right wing nut-jobs's"

Comment by Reality Check

Reality Check — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 17:34:27 -0800

I'm with 1-7

Do criminals stop to check whether it is against the law to carry a gun?

Ohh that's right. Only law abiding people obey laws.

Typical law from the ultra-libs.

Comment by Epimetheus

Epimetheus — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 18:17:58 -0800

@3, first things first, you need a reason (9/11) before you start searching (9/11) everyone.

gun-control advocates worry that that current regulatory authority is not strong enough to withstand a constitutional challenge.

Just wait until Rudy (9/11) appoints a couple of justices, then we'll all be safe (9/11)

"Mayor Giuliani worked to get guns out of the hands of criminals and cut the murder rate by 66%" JoinRudy2008

If the 'tard had run as a democrat he'd be a shoo-in. OK, I'm just being silly, Rudy actually says he wants to enforce existing laws, like maybe those against murder, not make endless new laws, but if I said that I'd just sound like everyone else.

@9, a comparison with Japan is either naive or disingenuous, the US is not Japan (BTW, Mr. Bush; Iraq is not Japan either)

Comment by unPC

unPC — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 19:46:55 -0800

@18,
damn you caught me. Was disengenuous.
[evil laughter]

OK, Japan is not the USA. It's only England Scotland Wales Ireland Canada Australia and NZ that are more like the USA. And in those countries, unlike ours, people walk in fear of violence and crime, because they don't have a hundred million guns everywhere, as we do here, making us all so safe.

Is that the point?

Comment by Maria

Maria — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 20:45:50 -0800

Well, as a student at Seattle Central, I can say that it makes me feel better to have a law to ban guns on college campuses. This fall, a student was caught with more than one gun on his person and in his backpack, with ample ammunition. He was arrested, but no charges were pressed because he had a concealed weapons permit. He was kicked out of school..that was it! He wasn't an off duty security guard or anything that would make it seem legitimate for him to be carrying guns to school. He was paranoid that he had enemies or something, didn't seem like a stable person. I was surprised that there was not already a law banning guns on campus. I know that the comments @ 1-5 are legit, laws don't keep people from breaking them, but they are good to have in place so action can be taken when events like this arise. Jonah wrote an article about this particular incident, you can look at it in the archives.

Comment by Epimetheus

Epimetheus — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 20:57:33 -0800

@19, that was a pretty long list of countries, it would save a lot of typing if it was just called Oceania.

The point is that it would be a big job to take away all those guns, so just passing more laws isn't going to make us much safer. Note the first part of my post @18. Sure some accidental shooting with legal guns could be prevented if law abiding people turned in their guns, but by definition, criminals don't always follow the law. Wouldn't be a lot easier to just outlaw murder? sure the criminals will still ignore the law, but who is going to complain about passing such a law? I bet even the most rabid gun nuts aren't big fans of murder (Might outlaw Meth while you are at it, that would help solve some problems)

Just to show I can be disingenuous too, I wonder how many guns were in private hands in 1939 Poland?, or 1940 France?. I, know, not the same, and not because we have hundreds of millions of guns, it's more because of a couple of oceans (several thousand "nukes" don't hurt either).

Comment by checkpoint charlie

checkpoint charlie — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 07:48:49 -0800

How to have a gun free campus:
- Build a wall around campus.
- Have only one entry.
- Make everyone go through a metal detector to enter.
- Hire a crew of several hundred trained people to search for guns on campus.
- Wallah