Dear Mr. Knox,
I received the attached and was informed that it came from one of your updates. I would like to point out that the NRA doesn't speak for all gun owners in Arizona, nor, I am sure, many parts of the United States.
There are many of us in the Canyon State opposed to SB-1307, aka Shannon's Law. While I still find her death a tragedy, Shannon's Law will do nothing except add yet another unenforced law to the books.
In order to judge how effective this law will be, I posed the following questions to the Senate and have posed similar questions in the past to the Legislature as a whole:
How many people have been arrested for random shooting into the air in
the past five years?
Of these, how cases were taken up by the District Attorney's office?
Of these how many were prosecuted?
Of these, how many went to trial?
Of these, how many convictions were there?
According to everything I have read, the answer to these questions is at or very near ZERO. Please explain to me how passing this law will prevent random gunfire when the cops don't even arrest anyone for this crime (apart from the one arrest this New Year's when the cops just *happened* to see someone do it)?
Without arrests, even the strictest laws are useless. In addition, I am sure you know that there are ALREADY two laws on the books that make firing a gun into the air a FELONY. So, this law will make it a super-duper felony? Gee, that's sure to stop idiots who do this....
This legislation will make the Legislature and the NRA feel good about themselves, it will do nothing. It won't work, so yet more laws will be passed to compensate for the failure to enforce.
Why not turn this bill into an education bill? I read in the Arizona Republic that one neighborhood reported a 40% REDUCTION in random gunfire this New Years...simply by handing out and posting flyers saying people in the area would watch out for and report random gunfire to the police. Wow...citizens taking the initiative and having success. How novel.
Instead of passing another law which will be ignored, why not take this opportunity to get an educational campaign in place similar to a Block Watch program? I think the community involvement would go much further at reducing random gunfire than another law.
Thus, I am urging a NO vote on Shannon's law.
Sincerely
Tim Weaver
District 19 Resident
Glendale, AZ 85308
>Neal Knox, in his January 21 update writes:
>
> Here in Phoenix, where I will again speak at the Arizona State
> Rifle & Pistol Association annual banquet tomorrow night,
> legislators are again gearing up to pass "Shannon's law" -- which
> prohibits recklessly firing celebratory shots into the sky, which
> killed a 14-year-old Arizona girl.
>
> Gun owners aren't opposing the present version for it merely
> duplicates the two existing felonies for doing such a stupid thing.