Over the last few months, there has been several letters published I’d like to comment on. First, there’s the stink the left made about Sen. Miloscia’s comments. The senator has the same First Amendment right as anyone else. Except when a bunch of butt-hurt leftist wackos disagree? No. It doesn’t worth that way, sorry. Wasn’t it the left’s slogan, “working together,” or did I miss the part that said only when they get their way?
The Constitution and Bill of Rights apply to everybody equally, including the senator, people. Just because he isn’t a butt-hurt liberal does not mean the left can deny him his First Amendment rights.
Second, there’s the letter from Mr. Eto in the April 17 Mirror edition — very well written, I must say. If anyone would care to actually look up the record, gun laws have been on the books since the National Firearms Act of 1934. President Lyndon Johnson’s Gun Control Act of 1968 added numerous onerous provisions, which, by the sheer volume of required records, forced many gun shops out of business and solved no crimes. The Brady Bill’s instant background checks was another joke perpetrated on the public by the left. The National Rifle Association fought a long, but losing, battle trying to get mental health records included in those background checks. It was the American Medical Association and psychiatrists who successfully kept mental health records out of the National Instant Criminal Background Check System database. Even in Washington, there’s no communication between Washington State Police and the mental health people. You can be nutty as a bucket of squirrel droppings, and WSP can’t access those records. I wish that were different. It needs to be.
Then there’s determinate sentencing. I was heavily involved in both the three-strikes law and Hard Time For Armed Crime. Both were the first laws of their kind in the nation and a model for federal laws that quickly followed. Today, both are used as tools to get a guilty plea to a lesser charge. Neither is used as intended. And look at our nut job governor and his clemency pencil. He ordered the release of a three-strikes convict who committed another armed robbery less than a month after “Gov. Inkslee” commuted his sentence. Who is dumber, the criminal or Inkslee? As for Mr. Eto’s thoughtful dialogue: We tried. We tried hard. We sat at the negotiating table tens of dozens of times only to have liberals at the table refuse to back what we thought we’d hammered out.
Background checks didn’t stop the shooters at Fort Hood, San Bernardino and Orlando. Could they have stopped Aurora, Colorado, Tucson or Sandy Hook? Nope. Those were committed by nut jobs. Those records can’t be accessed by any background check system. How about the murders here over the last three years. Where did those guns come from? Sportco in Fife has had several burglaries. Federal Way Discount just lost more than several guns to thieves who couldn’t possibly have submitted to a background check at 3 a.m. unless there’s a gun shop behind 7-11 or in the Fred Meyer parking lot.
The Republicans didn’t shirk or run from their responsibility. They just used common sense. House Bill 1501 was in no way necessary. It is already illegal for a domestic abuser or felon to possess a firearm: 18 United States Code, Section 922. And Revised Code of Washington 9.41 is the problem. Those records are not entered into the NICS database. The idiot governor can order that to happen, but he would rather spend his time releasing violent offenders to re-offend.
Mike Silvers, Federal Way
