F. Paul Valone: Misinterpreting guns bill

Regarding the May 9 column “Feeling homicidal? OK, here have a gun”: It appears you are once again publishing opinions by people baying at the moon. Had this guy done even rudimentary research, he would have known that much of what he was screaming about as being in House Bill 562 has actually been law since 2013 (without incident, we should note).

For example, the educational property provision became effective on Oct. 1, 2013. Ditto for the suppressor hunting measure. For the former, the language in HB 562 merely allows concealed handgun permit-holders to transfer guns to and from closed compartments within locked motor vehicles. For the latter, it is short-barreled rifles, not suppressors, that are added to firearms usable when hunting.

I loved this one: “And then it gets worse. It would allow hunting with silencers – which means any would-be assassin or mass murderer would now have easy access to silencers at local gun shops or even, heaven help us, from Amazon.com.”

It is a patently false: Nothing would change one’s ability to purchase suppressors, which are tightly regulated by the BATFE and fairly difficult to obtain, requiring background checks that include fingerprints plus approval by the applicant’s sheriff.

This story was originally published May 12, 2015 at 4:37 PM with the headline "F. Paul Valone: Misinterpreting guns bill."