Senators have pursued this before

I read Danny Westneat’s Feb. 16th column in The Seattle Times titled “Slip-up may slam doors on gun law,” [NWSunday, Feb. 17] and became quite concerned.

There was no mistake in the bill (SB 5737), which was sponsored by Sens. Ed Murray, Jeanne Kohl-Welles and Kline.

The column reads:

“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.’”

In the 2010 legislative session, Kline was the primary sponsor of SB 6396.

This is virtually identical to the current bill he has attached himself to as a co-sponsor. It contains the exact same section calling for sheriff inspections of homes [Page 7, lines 19-21].

It was not inserted into this current bill from a staffer, as claimed in the column. It was there in the beginning. With two sponsors of identical bills in separate years we are lead to believe that they didn’t know the provision was in there.

Come on, wake up and tell the truth.

--Billy Don Card Jr., Wenatchee

Bipartisan common ground

After finishing Danny Westneat’s column, I walked outside to look at the sky, positive I would see pigs flying. After all, a professed liberal (Seattle trial lawyer Lance Palmer) had actually made a true statement that also made sense in one small paragraph when he said he understood how his right-wing opponents worry about having to fight a government takeover.

He was speaking about Senate bill 5737 sponsored by Sen. Ed “not a clue what the Constitution says” Murray and signed on to by Sen. Adam “sounds good to me, Ed” Kline.

Now Murray admits it may be unconstitutional (really Ed, a first-grader would know that). Kline says he didn’t read the bill he co-sponsors closely, which is reassuring.

He’s probably spending his time sorting through his dry-cleaning receipts and cellphone statements trying to figure out how to get us taxpayers to foot the bill.

There may be some common ground somewhere the two sides could agree on, but as long as clueless Democrats continue to introduce asinine bills that violate our constitutional rights, it will never be found. There is not a shred of evidence to prove any new legislation anywhere in this nation will result in fewer firearm deaths.

--Mike Ostrem, Redmond

Editor's note: Senate Bill 5737 has since been corrected, so as not to include the aformentioned inspection inclusion. The corrected bill is available to read here.