Eris wrote: Thu Jun 07, 2018 2:34 pm
YankeeTarheel wrote: Thu Jun 07, 2018 2:07 pm
If you actually READ the article, it's clear that if you take reasonable precautions to safeguard your guns, and if you promptly report if a gun is stolen or missing, you will not be liable. But if you just leave it loaded in your night stand and it's taken by a minor or stolen and used in a crime, then you're in the deep shit.
Read the article? Read ... the ... article. Huh. I never thought of that?
OK, I'll admit that I first commented without reading the article - I went for the cheap joke instead of the insightful comment. Allow me to try and make up for that.
The proposals points are given as:
1 Safe storage: Guns should be stored in a locked container, and rendered as unusable to any person other than the owner or authorized user.
2 Unauthorized access prevention: It will be a civil infraction if a minor, at-risk, or prohibited person obtains a firearm when the owner should have reasonably known they would have access to it.
3 Violation of the safe-storage law, or the unauthorized access regulation could result in a fine between $500 and $1,000.
4 If a prohibited or at-risk person, or a minor obtains a firearm and uses it to commit a crime, injure or kill someone (including themselves), the gun owner could be fined up to $10,000.
5 If a civil case results from a minor, at-risk, or prohibited person accessing a gun, it will be “prima facie evidence” — meaning fact unless proven otherwise — that the owner is negligent.
6 The new gun law will go into effect 180 days after it passes and Mayor Durkan signs it.
7 The chief of police will have one year to conduct a survey to determine levels of compliance.
8 The city auditor will monitor the law’s influence on gun injuries and deaths in Seattle.
Point 1, I think, needs to make clear that a firearm designated for home defense may be kept loaded and accessible while the gun owner is home. Also, the "rendered as unusable to any person other than the owner" needs to go entirely, since there is no "smart gun" technology that can reliably do that.
Points 2 and 3 seem good to me.
Point 4 seems excessive in it's fine, and I also don't like it that it punishes people for someone committing suicide, which is a human right, not a crime.
Point 5 has to go, as it inverts the long standing tradition of "innocent until proven guilty". I know that standard doesn't always apply in civil cases, but I object to that as well. It should be a universal standard and I object to any attempt to further undermine it.
Points 6, 7, and 8 are fine, though I somehow doubt they will really care about the auditors report. It's not like they are going to repeal the law if the auditor comes back and says it had no effect or a negative effect.
I have problems with both #1 and #3 (and, by extension, #4 and #5). First, how do you render the gun unusable to anyone but the owner or other authorized user, which is a requirement
in addition to locking it in a container? Do I have to disassemble it and store some parts in a different place? Maybe even off-premises? How else do I render it unusable? Is this code for so-called smart guns?
Also, if it's in my locked, alarmed home that has multiple security measures to prevent and discourage unauthorized entry, why should I be more liable than if I have no home security but stick my gun in some stupid cheap little lock box that itself is easily stolen and/or pried open? Why can't my home count as a locked container, just as I can put a gun in a locked hard-sided piece of luggage with all my clothes and other stuff when I fly, rather than in a locked container in an unlocked suitcase? If it's behind a lock, why should the size of the container or the presence of other things in that container matter? Why doesn't my house count if it is at least as secure as one of the commonly used cheap lock boxes?
How secure does a locked container have to be to remove my liability? Is this something that gets adjudicated on a case-by-case basis, with no way for the gun owner to know if he's done enough to secure his firearm until he's found either liable or not? If someone comes equipped well enough to break into a well-secured home, might they not also be prepared to get into a locked container? And given that if someone illegally breaks into my secured home they might also break into, or steal my locked container and access the gun, why should I be liable in one case and not another, for the illegal actions of a criminal of whom I'm the victim?
Yes, if you have children or other people in your home who shouldn't have access to your guns, then you should be required to keep your guns secured in some form of supplemental limited access storage. But if you don't, having them in your secured home should be sufficient to overcome such liability. Otherwise this is just a law that has no real purpose other than to add restrictions and liability onto gun owners.
Oh, and #7 is just stupid, since, if simply failing to store a gun properly, even if no one accesses it, is a crime, honestly answering a survey is potentially admitting to a crime.