Since this is a more High-profile thread than the "Totem Lake Townhall" thread, I'll post my synopsis of the forum here...
First things first: The cops were out front cooking hotdogs when I showed up. They know how to tame a riled up jukk0u. Much appreciation for the free grub (and I managed to eat a dog without getting mustard on my shirt!)
Second: The mayor and organizers did a bang up job
of putting on a smooth well-run meeting.
The meeting started with some introductions and usual thank-yous and then the City Attorney was introduced to give a civics lesson about the layers of laws and authorities; i.e. talking about state law preempting city laws, and Federal law being the supreme law...
He clarified by saying how States cannot pass laws allowing that which is illegal under Federal Law...
Someone in the crowd (jukk0u
) yelled out: "Marijuana!"
I received a dirty look but he continued without otherwise acknowledging the wise-crack.
He also spoke directly about what the state could and couldn't do regarding imposing restrictions on carry (can't restrict them in parks - but you can restrict where in the city guns can be fired... uh...hmmm... they already restrict that, but it made some folks feel less triggered)
And he addressed the constitutionality of instituting a gun and ammunition tax. (it has been ruled OK by the State Supreme court)
So.... then they talked about proposals that the city could consider. We all had been issued handy little electronic voter-fobs and our opinions on the proposals were solicited via the key pads. Results were posted in real time on the huge projector screen.
Proposals included:
-funding for more resource officers (officers dedicated to investigating enforcing gun and drug crimes)
and for more community officers posted in schools.
-funding for mental health professionals who could respond to incidents involving mentally ill, or distressed people
-funding for educational programs in schools, suicide prevention seminars, gun locks and more
and of course they mentioned instituting a gun and ammunition tax...
Of course everyone voted for fully funding everything and anything said to address guns and restrictions and etc. But city resources are finite and (IMO) funding for much of this should be obtained at the state level and our federal senators and representatives should try to obtain federal funding.
And, I bet if the city were to try and fund all of this they will try for a general sales tax increase, and the gun/ammo tax. AND all of the folks who had big eyes looking at the menu, would have little appetite for paying extra taxes...
So then they invited commentary. They segregated comments by topic, so I had to edit my statement on the fly and with each speaker I pared it down in order to not be redundant. This left my comment scant (and since I hadn't rehearsed the delivery was less than stellar). The public comments strayed quite far from what the CITY could do to address "gun safety". My comments weren't much better. Some of the progun speakers were painful to listen to, and others were quite eloquent.
Once I was given a chance to speak it was on the subject of whether existing law was sufficient and how to better enforce them.
I was fairly brief opening with the statement that criminals by definition didn't obey laws and making more laws would accomplish little more than burdening the law abiding.
I did suggest that prosecutors prosecute rather than plea bargain, and judges sentence toward the upper limits of sentencing guidelines and then suggested that the general public should contact their State Reps to get action on that.
Then the city clowncil gave statements, most of which were either outright anti-gun or were classic politician-speak saying how they were going to do "something" real soon, but never getting around to taking a stand on one side or another.
Only one young guy on the clowncil seemed to have common sense (and I don't mean he agreed with me). He re-phrased what he had heard tonight, rather accurately, indicating that he had listened carefully and might give us a fair shake.
After the meeting as I was walking out to the car, a gentleman approached me and offered that he thought I had spoken well. I told him that I felt I had rather fallen apart under scrutiny. He allowed that he knew I felt that way but wanted to assure me that I had done better than I probably felt I had.
Greatly appreciated that!
So the next event is the small Think-tank seminars. The one I am going to attend is on Monday. I will report back.