Until the proclamation of civil emergency, dated November 30, 1999, is terminated, no person or entity shall purchase, sell, convey, or transfer within the City limits, or possess or carry in a public place as defined in SMC 15.02.046C, any device commonly known as a gas mask. This prohibition shall not apply to law enforcement or the military, or representatives of the press with proper credentials.
cityofseattle.net
Now let's see if I have it right here... between now and the end of the WTO conference, and hopefully the violent protests by a select group of hooligans, Seattle can expect to see a biological terrorist attack.
Your problem is that you get your news from Y2Knewswire.com, which lacks even the credibility of rags like "The Enquirer" or "The Star".
It is so easy for them to translate a temporary emergency measure aimed at protecting police officers from protesters aimed at utilizing their masks to circumvent riot control efforts into a crusade to permanently ban the sale of gas masks.
Well, given that I suspect that very few individuals normally carry around a gas-mask, I would suspect that having one in your possession might be probably cause that your were planning on getting (or creating) a situation where you might actually use it.
Most normal people are completely avoiding the area. Those who opt to venture around in a prohibited curfew zone kinda deserve to get their butts kicked in the manner they should expect. The cops certainly have enough time figuring out who is friend or foe as it is.
Under states of emergency authorities can pretty do whatever they need to do to restore order, including detaining and holding suspects beyond habeous corpus.
However, the "check" upon such powers being abused is the aftermath that politicians must face from voters and the media.
Exactly how would you handle this situation Rose?? Pass out pieces of gold to buy these rabble-rousers off??
Blow 'em a kiss and give them a loving hug of understanding??
Hell... the mayor of Seattle is a democrat and a liberal one at that.
Go figure... even they realize that order sometimes must take precedence over freedom when people no longer wish to act rationally. |
