Posted on 02/25/2013 12:11:57 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Oregon gun owners cheered by the demise of Sen. Ginny Burdick's proposals to ban large magazines and scary-looking semiautomatic weapons should leave the Champagne in the fridge for the time being. The Legislature's gun-control advocates are still hard at work, and the direction in which they're heading would create problems for law-abiding citizens over the long term and, perhaps, do nothing to enhance public safety.
We're leery of slippery-slope arguments, but two concepts supported by Burdick and Sen. Floyd Prozanski, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, could grease the transformation of concealed-handgun policy into something resembling smoking policies around the state. Sure, it's legal to smoke, but the places in which you can do it keep disappearing. A bill considered this week would even prohibit people from smoking in vehicles in the presence of minors.
Just to be clear, we're not talking about a proposed expansion of background checks for gun purchases. This is a good idea, as is Burdick's abandoned proposal to ban big magazines.
We're talking, rather, about legislation that would effectively prohibit people with concealed handgun permits from bringing their guns into schools and the state Capitol. Yes, school districts could choose to allow concealed weapons, and license holders could seek special permission to bring their weapons into the Capitol. But the former is unrealistic -- few districts, if any, will say "yes" -- and the latter is at the very least a hassle, and potentially an insurmountable roadblock.
Concealed handgun privileges are subject to limitation, and license holders should accept that. State courts and federal facilities are off limits, for instance, and private property owners have the right to say "no" to weapons. What license holders shouldn't accept without protest, however, are further limitations that don't address demonstrated problems.
And what are the problems that would be fixed by the limitations Burdick and Prozanski support?
We asked Burdick during a recent editorial board visit to share instances in which a license holder had compromised safety by bringing a gun into a school. She could recall only an episode in which a janitor had brought a gun into a school in a backpack, and the details were vague. However, schools already may bar employees from carrying weapons.
And what about the proposed Capitol prohibition? What mayhem have gun owners committed to justify the further limitation of their privileges?
They had a rally, in anticipation of which a number of other groups canceled their trips to the Capitol, says Prozanski. He also notes that some of those who participated in this act of political speech brought their guns – legally – into the Capitol building itself.
Lawmakers need to do better than this. The rally was a well-publicized political event that endangered no one.
No matter what happens this session, gun owners can be sure that the impulse to bar concealed weapons in more and more places will endure. As originally conceived, in fact, Burdick's Capitol proposal would have allowed concealed handguns to be prohibited in any public building – libraries, city halls, wherever. Gun owners haven't seen the last of this idea.
Incremental limitations on unpopular, though legal, behavior are nothing new, of course. Smokers have been targeted in this way for years, and in many cases – banning smoking in parks and other open-air venues, for instance – the supporting health-related arguments are either nonexistent or plainly silly. But that hasn't slowed the momentum.
Annoying Oregon legisl00ture gun-grabbing Nanny State PING!
Annoying Oregon legisl00ture gun-grabbing Nanny State PING!
No. Because normal, legal gun owners pose no risk to anyone else by the normal use of their firearms.
Criminals possessing firearms are the problem. Apples and oranges.
However, in terms of cultural shift, they are the new smokers. Nobody thought, in the 60’s or 70’s that smoking would end up as restricted as it is.
The anti-gun people will keep it up until guns are eliminated in society.
Not going to happen. There are a lot more of 'us' than there are of 'them', and attempts to 'eliminate guns in society' will result in a lot fewer of 'them' than currently are above ground.
Smokers don’t pose a threat either. Unless some smart ass progressive jumps our case.
Still smokin’. Cigs and gun barrel.
so the solution is to reduce one by one the off areas.
eliminate business’ which invite the public ability to prohibit ccw or the like.
force cross state authorization.
this is about the effete elites fear of the general public.
(if voting really mattered the effet elites would outlaw voting)
Both are demonized by the CDC for the same reason:
“threat to public health”.
Nor do smokers.
Criminals possessing firearms are the problem. Apples and oranges.
So you are equating smokers to criminals? Speaking of apples and oranges..........
No...Christians, especially Catholics are the new smokers.
“No. Because normal, legal gun owners pose no risk to anyone else by the normal use of their firearms.”
What “risk” to anyone else is posed by smokers? I want definitive proof, not some quote from some article that used science based on the globull warming hockey graph.
I don’t need to wait for an answer, the fact is that you won’t be able to provide any. As a matter of fact, the single long term study conducted over generations found that exposure to SHS actually indicated the opposit, that it created a positive correlation of long term diseases resulted from exposure to SHS.
Yep, think about it, exposure to SHS has decreased so dramatically that people now complain about catching a wiff of tobacco smoke while outside! Yet, the instances of allergies and asthma are increasing exponentially while we have not seen the “expected” decreases in health care costs.
The article is pointing out that what people now assume as “fact,” was truly just repeated propaganda over time. All they have to do is use the same approach that they established with tobacco to demonize guns and abracadaba, you turn society to shun guns and eventually you have a political environment that will ban them.
You fell for the propaganda once, why not use it on a new evil? Don’t worry, many a FReeper fell for it, some so fully that they actively lobbied against private property rights to ensure that their clothes didn’t smell bad after they went out socializing.
It’s pretty apparent in the Oregonian responses that Soros posters are at work
It would be more accurate to say that smokers, gun owners, White males, and all conservatives are the new ni**ers.
They’re certainly treated as such by those in the media.
88ers.
It figures that once I quit smoking that I’m still a social pariah! All that money I’m saving by not buying cigarettes is now going towards guns and ammo. Bought a Ruger American Rifle today and a Redfield scope to go with it as a present for making it 90 days smoke-free. If I can make it a year I’m promising myself a Barrett for Christmas.
You’re still a pariah if you’re White and male - and certainly owing to being a conservative.
On the other hand, a Ruger and a Barrett provide a lot of consolation; go ahead and buy the Barrett now - you deserve it.
“There is no God given right to keep and bear Virginia Slims...”
Well, not for smoking maybe, but it’s right there in Genesis that God gave man the right to every seed-bearing plant on the Earth for food. So if want to eat a tobacco salad, that at least, is covered.
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