Reasonable Gun Controll?

Misstep in gun bill could defeat the effort

One of the major gun-control efforts in Olympia this session calls for the sheriff to inspect the homes of assault-weapon owners. The bill?_Ts backers say that was a mistake.

By Danny Westneat

Seattle Times staff columnist

Forget police drones flying over your house. How about police coming inside, once a year, to have a look around?

As Orwellian as that sounds, it isn?_Tt hypothetical. The notion of police home inspections was introduced in a bill last week in Olympia.

That it?_Ts part of one of the major gun-control efforts pains me. It seemed in recent weeks lawmakers might be headed toward some common-sense regulation of gun sales. But then last week they went too far. By mistake, they claim. But still too far.

?_oThey always say, we?_Tll never go house to house to take your guns away. But then you see this, and you have to wonder.?__

That?_Ts no gun-rights absolutist talking, but Lance Palmer, a Seattle trial lawyer and self-described liberal who brought the troubling Senate Bill 5737 to my attention. It?_Ts the long-awaited assault-weapons ban, introduced last week by three Seattle Democrats.

Responding to the Newtown school massacre, the bill would ban the sale of semi-automatic weapons that use detachable ammunition magazines. Clips that contain more than 10 rounds would be illegal.

But then, with respect to the thousands of weapons like that already owned by Washington residents, the bill says this:

?_oIn order to continue to possess an assault weapon that was legally possessed on the effective date of this section, the person possessing shall ... safely and securely store the assault weapon. The sheriff of the county may, no more than once per year, conduct an inspection to ensure compliance with this subsection.?__

In other words, come into homes without a warrant to poke around. Failure to comply could get you up to a year in jail.

?_oI?_Tm a liberal Democrat ?_" I?_Tve voted for only one Republican in my life,?__ Palmer told me. ?_oBut now I understand why my right-wing opponents worry about having to fight a government takeover.?__

He added: ?_oIt?_Ts exactly this sort of thing that drives people into the arms of the NRA.?__

I have been blasting the NRA for its paranoia in the gun-control debate. But Palmer is right ?_" you can?_Tt fully blame them, when cops going door-to-door shows up in legislation.

I spoke to two of the sponsors. One, Sen. Adam Kline, D-Seattle, a lawyer who typically is hyper-attuned to civil-liberties issues, said he did not know the bill authorized police searches because he had not read it closely before signing on.

?_oI made a mistake,?__ Kline said. ?_oI frankly should have vetted this more closely.?__

That lawmakers sponsor bills they haven?_Tt read is common. Still, it?_Ts disappointing on one of this political magnitude. Not counting a long table, it?_Ts only an eight-page bill.

The prime sponsor, Sen. Ed Murray, D-Seattle, also condemned the search provision in his own bill, after I asked him about it. He said Palmer is right that it?_Ts probably unconstitutional.

?_oI have to admit that shouldn?_Tt be in there,?__ Murray said.

He said he came to realize that an assault-weapons ban has little chance of passing this year anyway. So he put in this bill more as ?_oa general statement, as a guiding light of where we need to go.?__ Without sweating all the details.

Later, a Senate Democratic spokesman blamed unnamed staff and said a new bill will be introduced.

Murray had alluded at a gun-control rally in January that progress on guns could take years.

?_oWe will only win if we reach out and continue to change the hearts and minds of Washingtonians,?__ Murray said. ?_oWe can attack them, or start a dialogue.?__

Good plan, very bad start. What?_Ts worse, the case for the perfectly reasonable gun-control bills in Olympia just got tougher.