Subdeacon Joe Posted September 1, 2013 Share Posted September 1, 2013 http://www.sacbee.com/2013/09/01/5698182/dan-walters-gun-bills-a-blind.html Dan Walters: Gun bills a blind spot in California Legislature's crusade for rights dwalters@sacbee.com Published Sunday, Sep. 01, 2013 Both houses of the state Legislature spent several hours Mondayworking on pending bills, and a strong subcurrent was the protection andenhancement of personal and civil rights. The beneficiaries ofMonday's bills included, in no particular order, immigrants, prisoninmates, women, abortion clinics, gays and lesbians, beer drinkers,bicyclists, Internet users, pregnant women, drug transporters, publicschool students, the mentally ill and, interestingly enough, mountainlions. One lengthy Assembly discourse marked the 50th anniversaryof the march on Washington to demand an end to racial segregation andthe denial of voting rights to African Americans. Were one to look at the broader array of legislation, the list wouldbe even longer. One recently enacted bill, for instance, creates thelegal right of transgender public school students to be treatedaccording to their self-designated status, regardless of theirbiological genders. So far, so good. In America, a basicgovernmental duty is to protect constituents' civil and human rights,and while we may debate the specifics, the bedrock mission remainsvital. However, there is a significant exception to theLegislature's zealous protection of rights, one group of law-abidingCalifornians whose rights are being assaulted, even though they arespecifically mentioned in the nation's Constitution – the millions ofCalifornians who own and use firearms for hunting and target-shooting. Thesame Democratic legislators who passionately argue for the protectionof other rights, including those of felons, are pushing at least twodozen bills that would harass law-abiding gun owners. They arguethat imposing more restrictions on guns, gun owners and ammunition wouldsomehow improve public safety, but offer no empirical evidence to backthat contention. One wonders whether the Democrats who carry anti-gunbills really believe they'll have some beneficial effect on society, orare just following what has become the knee-jerk party line. Whatevertheir motives, the Democrats seem to believe that gun owners can bepolitical targets because they tend to live in suburban and rural areasthat don't support their party, and that they can make legal gunownership so expensive and full of petty hassles that shooters will justgive up on their hobbies. If anything, the opposite will occur.California's already heavy-handed gun regulations, until recently thetightest in the nation, have had the effect of persuading shooters andhunters to buy even more guns and ammo before they become even moreexpensive and less available. That would be the likely result should anew batch of rules be enacted. It's all quite nonsensical – and undercuts the reverence for human and civil rights that the Legislature professes to hold. Call The Bee's Dan Walters, (916) 321-1195. Back columns, www.sacbee.com/walters . Follow him on Twitter @WaltersBee. © Copyright The Sacramento Bee. All rights reserved. Link to comment
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