Full confession: This column took Sept. 1 off for the opening day of Washington State’s grouse season, a truly glorious event that should mark an official nine-week holiday for outdoorsmen and women who – as our all-time-favorite former Game commissioner Terry L. Karro of Winthrop once put it – “work to hunt.”
Time from the office to “bring law and order” to game birds, deer, elk and other prey is time well spent.
It also allows one the opportunity to sort of digest certain events, bringing us around to an incident that occurred over the past weekend on the trail. According to published reports in the Wenatchee World and Seattle Times, an unidentified 52-year-old Snohomish man who was hiking near Blewett Pass when he blew a hold in his backside with a .40-caliber semiautomatic pistol. A longtime buddy sends an e-mail headlined “That’s gonna leave a mark.” Oh, you think?
The incident caused two discussion threads to be started, and promptly locked by moderators, on a popular Northwest hiking forum. They can be read here and here, and they're fairly amusing.
The gent in question had, according to the story, “moved his .40-caliber handgun from its holster to his back pocket Saturday to see if that position would be more comfortable.” We’re willing to bet it didn’t turn out too comfortable. So, what kind of person moves a handgun from a perfectly good holster to a hip pocket? The kind who shoots himself in the butt, that’s who.
However, a bullet in the rump may not be nearly as painful as politically shooting one’s self in the foot. In Yakima County, thanks to the doggedness of a local resident, the County Commission has had to revise its gun policies when they were advised that previous policies violated this state’s preemption statute. They learned that park gun bans are not permitted (a lesson that does not appear to have sunk in too deeply with officials in the City of Seattle), so they changed the policy, according to the Tri-City Herald.
That may not be anywhere near as publicly embarrassing as the situation in San Francisco, where the Metropolitan Transit Authority has flip-flopped on its long-standing policy of not accepting or allowing advertising that promotes the use of firearms. The MTA recently took a lot of heat and ribbing over how it doctored advertisements for an action movie, replacing guns in the hands of two people with mace and a badge, or just fists.
According to the San Francisco Weekly, the MTA may be forced to re-examine the policy due to the Second Amendment Foundation’s recent victory in McDonald v. City of Chicago, the Supreme Court case that resulted in the incorporation of the Second Amendment to the states. This flap involves advertising for the upcoming Sept. 24-26 Gun Rights Policy Conference in San Francisco. This is the 25th anniversary of GRPC, and it has the earmarks of being a “big one.”
SAF paid for 16 large ads that are now placed in bus stop areas around the city, advertising the event. Reliable sources told this column that the city had “asked” the advertising group to pull down the advertisements, but had not “told” them, so the advertisements remain. SAF was, and remains, prepared to file a lawsuit against the city if the advertisements are taken down.
SAF Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb said San Francisco was chosen for the gathering for several reasons. Not the least of those is SAF’s recent victory against the city’s 2005 handgun ban proposition, a case that went through the state court system. SAF had joined with the National Rifle Association, other gun groups and some private citizens to overturn the ban in what amounted to a replay of a 1983 lawsuit filed solo by SAF against a ban imposed by then-Mayor Dianne Feinstein.
Knowing San Francisco’s official anti-gun sentiment, Gottlieb said he wanted to hold this year’s conference “in the belly of the beast.” Next year’s gathering is scheduled in Chicago, which ought to provide some interesting fireworks, considering SAF’s Supreme Court win.
One final note: Over the coming Labor Day weekend, hikers should be cognizant of a couple of things: Hunting seasons for black bear, grouse, rabbits and other species opened Wednesday. Wear bright colors.
And don’t stuff loaded pistols in your hip pocket when a perfectly good holster is available.
BULLETIN: King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg has announced he will seek the death penalty against accused cop killer Christopher Monfort. He is charged in the slaying of Seattle Police Officer Timothy Brenton and attempted murder of rookie Officer Britt Sweeney, who actually returned fire as the suspect vehicle fled the scene.
Monfort is now paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair since he was wounded by police detectives who moved in to make an arrest on the day of Brenton's funeral. He remains in custody at the King County Jail.
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READ:
These Dogs Don’t Hunt: The Democrats’ War on Guns
Assault on Weapons: The Campaign to Eliminate Your Guns
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