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 Linda Thomas
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Linda is the morning news anchor and features reporter for KIRO Radio. This is her local news blog, with an emphasis on social media, technology, Northwest companies, education, parenting, and anything else that grabs her attention.

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Gunrally.jpg
A man holds an AR-15 semi-automatic riffle at rally in support for gun rights at the Capitol in Hartford, Connecticut. At a similar rally in Olympia, participants raise concerns about legislation that could affect gun owners' rights in the wake of the Dec. 14 school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)

Where do you stand in the great gun debate of 2013?

January 20, 2013 @ 5:57 pm (Updated: 7:00 pm - 1/20/13 )

"Millions of gun owners killed no one yesterday."

With signs like that, up to 1,500 people rallied over the weekend in Olympia protesting gun restrictions.

Also in Thurston County, the Sheriff's Office collected 26 weapons - 16 long guns, 10 handguns - and three five-gallon buckets of ammunition. They also handed out about 70 gun locks.

Second Amendment supporters and gun control activists are making their views known in corner bars, coffee shops, city halls, on social media, and through rallies. (State-by-state report on gun legislation)

Washington Ceasefire will announce the results of the first significant poll on guns and gun laws in this state in eight years on Tuesday.

Wednesday, the Bainbridge Island Council enters the gun debate with a vote on a resolution supporting national efforts to implement stricter regulations on gun ownership and reinstating the Federal Assault Weapons Ban.

Looking ahead to Saturday, people who turn in a handgun or rifle to Seattle authorities and you can get a $100 gift card from Amazon.com, $200 card for a classified assault weapon.

This issue is not going away.

Where do you stand in the gun debate?

By LINDA THOMAS

More from Linda Thomas

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Comments (81)


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  • mnpat wrote...
    "Where do you stand in the gun debate? "
    January 21, 2013 6:56 am
    I stand behind the constitution as with all of the Amendments.
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  • Seattle Dad wrote...
    Gun owner control
    January 21, 2013 7:47 am
    More laws on gun ownership will not save one person from being shot or killed. Not one. It will not reduce the beating or stabbing deaths of anyone either. Laws putting away people that would kill or maim others due to their mental danger is where the focus should be. No where else. Gun bans only make low information citizens feel good. They wouldn't know a semi-automatic gun from a cap gun.
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  • RonJ wrote...
    And we all know
    January 21, 2013 6:42 pm
    it's about feeling good. To hell with substance.
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  • mpblue wrote...
    A thought for Linda
    January 21, 2013 8:19 am
    How about a more constructive discussion involving five people from all aspects of this issue over coffee at a local coffee house. Informal, open and you can record it as part of a feature for KIRO radio as part of the on-going local and national discussion.
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  • DJFavorite wrote...
    good idea.
    January 21, 2013 8:37 am
    I wish I thought of it.
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  • cdbtx wrote...
    Gun Control
    January 21, 2013 8:38 am
    Ban on Semi-Automatics, can happen and has happened 3 times in the last 20 years.. Supreme Court will uphold that ban.

    Limiting the number of cartridges held in a magazine - there's likely to be a limit.. more like 20.

    Background checks, again - no problem with that

    I'm a gun rights person - although I don't own a gun and have no desire to have one in my house.

    Do I think Gun Control will change anything - absolutely not, it's political fodder for the fools.

    I have much more fear of being involved in an accident by someone DUI than being shot.

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  • deltta wrote...
    "Ban on Semi-Automatics, can happen and has happened 3 times in the last 20 years.. Supreme Court will uphold that ban."
    January 21, 2013 8:50 am
    Really? Can you be more specific as to the "3 times"?
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  • Seattle Dad wrote...
    Do you know
    January 21, 2013 9:58 am
    what a semi-automatic weapon is? They've never been banned.
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  • WashingtonCitizen wrote...
    The most factual compilation of gun statistics was
    January 21, 2013 8:42 am
    compiled by John Lott in "More Guns Less Crime". Mr Lott was on the radio last Friday explaining Obama's "facts" of 1.5 million people were denied purchasing guns since the background checks were enacted AND 40% of guns sold in the US are done so without a background check. Both of these Obama facts ares lies. 1.5 million people have been NICS "delayed" up to 30 days or more while more information was gathered. The most common reason was a similar name in the data base belonging to a person banned from owning firearms. (Many of you may recount how Ted Kennedy was not allowed to fly 5 times because someone with a silimar name was on the no-fly list). Ultimately, 99%+ of those NICS delayed sales were approved! The 40% figure comes from a 1993 poll of 281 people (just before the 1994 gun ban experiment failure)who were asked how they obtained their guns and if they were background checked. 40% responded that they were gifted a gun from, or it was handed down by a family member like a father or grandfather. Anyone notice how it is not called Gun Control in the media anymore, but Controlling Gun Violence? How about Climate Change substituted for Global Warming? And yes Linda......you are a bleeding heart liberal like all the others on your radio station from 5AM-Noon. I gave the "more news" format a try for a week and found it to be an utter joke. I no longer listen in the morning.
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  • Chuck Gould wrote...
    Guns just are. Like rattlesnakes, spiders, diseases, etc. Guns are.
    January 21, 2013 10:34 am
    There are two "legal" guns for every three people in the US. Add in the unregistered guns, and there are probably as many guns in this country as people. They just are.

    They aren't going away, either.

    Pass a law against rattlesnakes, and you will still have as many rattlesnakes.

    It just makes more sense to go about your daily routine aware that there are snakes (in some places), spiders, diseases, and other things designed to very effectively kill human beings all around us, all the time.

    Best way to get some sensible revision of the Second Amendment and bring to back around to its originally intended purpose before the goof ball misinterpretation by the Supremes? Let it be. Literally, remove *all* "infringement" or impediment on the right to own any sort of firearm imaginable. Someday, the survivors will sort out the madness. Meanwhile,until we get entirely out of the way of the Second and let chaos prevail for a while, we will continue have all the gun nuts insisting that it's possible to be "just a little bit pregnant".

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  • DesertRez wrote...
    uh ok
    January 21, 2013 11:01 am
    I think he is trying to say that every type of weapon should be legal to civilians, and if it were we just couldn't contain our little gun-nut peasant selves and start lighting up everyone like a Mad Max movie.

    the only commonality I have seen between the recent high profile mass murders has been that the shooters have all be crazy...

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  • Chuck Gould wrote...
    Rez, some folks already cannot contain themselves.
    January 21, 2013 11:09 am
    The Second says there shall be no infringement on the right to keep are bear arms. The Supremes believe that the Second isn't a provision for disaffected citizens to raise a militia and form some organized resistance to an oppressive government, but rather an "individual right". How do you rise up as an individual? Build a sniper's nest on top of an office building and shoot down as many government-enforcers as you can before they blow you sky high?

    Nothing is more weird than people who say they are against gun control..."except of course for the following controls that will affect a bunch of folks that don't include me."

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  • MadManx wrote...
    FBI Stats
    January 21, 2013 10:55 am
    Hammers cause more death than a rifle. http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-11
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  • MadManx wrote...
    re
    January 21, 2013 10:56 am
    if you don't know that it isn't a link, copy and paste from the beginning of http to the end of the 11
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  • riprap wrote...
    A voice from the past
    January 21, 2013 12:39 pm
    I am a gun owner but my gun represents all the freedoms I have which are protected by OUR Consitution. Enough of this hysteria!!!! What are we really talking about? I thing Thomas Jefferson can say it better than I can: The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government. I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it. “Laws that forbid the carrying of arms...disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.” (Quoting Cesare Beccaria) The beauty of the Second Amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it. The policy of the American government is to leave their citizens free, neither restraining nor aiding them in their pursuits. When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty. What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? The majority, oppressing an individual, is guilty of a crime, abuses its strength, and by acting on the law of the strongest breaks up the foundations of society. The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first. An elective despotism was not the government we fought for.
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  • mnpat wrote...
    riprap...good post
    January 21, 2013 1:46 pm
    the unfortunate facts we have to deal with is the liberal mindset actually wants us to believe we trust the government......and the ones that are supposed to be keeping a watchful eye (the journalist) have not only joined the insanity but appears to be their biggest ally.
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  • HLC wrote...
    Ah the liberal mind.
    January 21, 2013 1:59 pm
    Truely a silly thing to behold. But it's still fun to listen to them.
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  • rational wrote...
    I stand...
    January 21, 2013 5:27 pm
    On the side of constitutional rights and freedom and against the fascist statists.

    And Linda, your bias is apparent, although personally I think you try to be fair.

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