I’m off to Olympia today to show my elected representatives my dislike for at least one of the laws they;ve written. Here is the post from last week about it. You are welcome to join hopefully around 300 of your fellow Washington gun owners there.
I’ll be driving myself and Mr. Completely down and we’re hoping to see The Heartless Libertarian there as well, though his employer has decided to throw a wrench into that.
I’ll be taking all my A/V equipment and I’ll use whatever they’ll let me into the room with. Pictures and hopefully video will be here tomorrow.
I’ve written a statement to be submitted at the hearing, though I’m pretty sure I’m not up to doing any speaking. The Gun Owners Action League asked folks to keep their statements down to around 100 words. I have no idea how in the hell I’d ever do that. This is as succinct as I can possibly be.
To the members of the Washington State Senate Labor, Commerce, Research and Development Committee:
I was saddened to hear that my elected representatives had submitted SB-5197 and was extremely disheartened to read that my own Senator, Debbie Regala had signed on to co-sponsor yet another attempt to regulate the purchase and trading of firearms between enthusiasts at their monthly gathering spots; what are more commonly known as “Gun Showsâ€.
SB-5197 is an attempt to criminalize and make public the private dealings between private, law abiding citizens that is being cloaked in the guise of “fighting crimeâ€, despite the fact that the number of criminals who purchase their firearms at gun shows is very near to non-existent. To say that SB-5197 will have very little impact on crime would be an understatement, since no state which has passed legislation against gun shows has seen any measurable drop in their crime statistics.
In closing, Senator Rodney Tom helped draft and propose SB-5197, and I would like to use an analogy that I’m sure his constituents in Redmond would easily understand, as I hope the members of this committee will:
Crime is not a hardware issue, it is a software issue.
Thank you
You all have a good day. If you’re heading down that way, I’ll be the tall goofy loking guy trying to get his video camera in the building.
Good for you guys! You-all have a good time representin’! 🙂
Good luck, and great quote about the software- with your permission I’ll re-use that.
How did it go in Olympia? I’m getting married in 8 days, and couldn’t spare the time. But I’d be happy to make a followup call to any reps who were responsive.