Missouri- Alert Your Reps. Vote No Blair's Law!

[Bark'n]

New Bill making it a class D Felony & up to 4 years in prison for ANY type of negligent discharge inside city limits of any municipality.

I'm all for holding people accountable for injuries and death stemming from a negligent discharge. But this law does not specify causing injury or death.

I think 4 years in prison and a class D Felony for negligently shooting your television when cleaning a gun is a little bit excessive.

You may think you are immune to having a negligent discharge, but you'd be deluding yourself. Every human is capable of a moments inattention and no one is immune from that.

This Bill stems from an incident of wanton recklessness in which people shooting a gun randomly into the air to celebrate New Years struck and killed an 11 year old child in Kansas City.

Now comes the knee jerk reaction to something which righteously should have stiff consequences. However, to lump every negligent discharge into the category of wanton recklessness is a little off the mark in my opinion.

Blair’s law aims to halt needless tragedy

On Wednesday, House Minority Leader Mike Talboy introduced what’s being called “Blair’s Law,” a bill that would make it a felony to negligently discharge a firearm within the limits of any municipality. A violation would be a class D felony, punishable by up to four years in prison.

“When innocent bystanders are wounded or tragically killed, as in this case, the perpetrator can be punished under existing statutes,” said Talboy, a Kansas City Democrat. “Blair’s Law would make the act of negligently discharging a weapon a crime in itself and hopefully serve as a deterrent to those who would irresponsibly fire weapons in populated areas.”

Read more here: Blair’s law aims to halt needless tragedy - KansasCity.com

As far as I'm concerned this is a reckless bill aimed at unreasonable punishment for an act which in most circumstances fails to kill or injure. It's a slippery slope in my opinion. YMMV

[DefensiveCarry.com]

[Harryball]

Yep, this will save lives....

[sdprof]

RTFB:

A person commits the crime of unlawful use of a weapon if, with criminal negligence, he or she discharges a firearm within or into the limits of any municipality.

[Bark'n]

RTFB:

That seems to be a little more palatable as the statute is actually written.

[sdprof]

Never trust a news article or press release to give the real content of a legislative bill.

In this case, the poor reporting probably will work against the bill, as it's obviously riling up lots of folks against it.