Back to News
November 3, 2012
Nevada Anti-gun Legislator Should Win a Silver . . . for Intolerance
To Silver State Assemblyman William Horne, D-Las Vegas, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, goes the silver medal for intolerance when it comes to the public expressing its opposition to more gun control in Nevada.
After a recent 8-5 vote of that state’s Advisory Commission on the Administration of Justice to not even hear a proposal to ban so called “assault weapons”, the assemblyman had something of a meltdown, according to press reports.
The subject of Horne’s scorn was Elko Republican Assemblyman John Ellison for writing an op-ed column encouraging Second Amendment supporters to email Horne in opposition to any ban. Pointing out the obvious, Ellison had written: “Here in Nevada many people use these weapons for recreational use for target shooting, hunting and self-protection.” Also, many livestock owners carry them in their vehicle to keep predators from livestock.”
Horne chastised Ellison for writing the column and for supposedly implying that he supported such a ban. Ellison did no such thing, but he had directed citizens to email Horne, given his leadership role. Isn’t this how democracy is supposed to work?
Taking a quick look back, it was Horne who single-handedly killed a bill in the last legislative session that would have allowed properly-licensed individuals to carry concealed weapons on college campuses. The Amanda Collins Act, named after the 25-year-old woman who was brutally raped at gunpoint in a University of Nevada, Reno, parking garage, the bill overwhelmingly passed in the state Senate with bipartisan support. Horne refused to even hold a hearing on the bill.
So, for his clear indifference to the will of citizens and his fellow legislators, as well as intolerance for the exercise of the First and Second Amendments (sadly, an all-too-common affliction with some politicians), we award Chairman Horne his medal. That it is only a second-place award owes only to the anti-firearms furor that exists in other environs, such as Chicago, Illinois as a whole, New York City, and the District of Columbia, and because Nevada is, after all, the Silver State.
Categories: Government Relations, Top Stories
25650
