The Death of the Constitution by Laziness and Local Bureaucrats

From the Seattle Times:

“They always say, we’ll never go house to house to take your guns away. But then you see this, and you have to wonder.” 

That’s no gun-rights absolutist talking, but Lance Palmer, a Seattle trial lawyer and self-described liberal who brought the troubling Senate Bill 5737to my attention. It’s 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: 

“In 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.

Then:

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. 

“I made a mistake,” Kline said. “I frankly should have vetted this more closely.” 

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

Mistake my arse.  This is exactly what the gun control crowd wants in their deepest, darkest wet dreams  - gun confiscation of scary "assault weapons," then registration and inspections  - first on "assault weapons," then on all other types of firearms.

The only mistake here is that someone actually read the bill before it was made law and saw what was in it. They would have pushed this through easily, riding on the backs of dead children in Connecticut every step of the way.

I don't know which is worse - the fact that we live in a country where our elected representatives feel emboldened to introduce such clearly unconstitutional legislation or that our elected officials often pass such legislation without even reading what's in it. And what's worse - we rareley hold them accountable.