Last summer, a nine-year old childaccidentally killed an Arizona gun range instructor who let her fire an Uzi, because isn't it every little girl’s dream to experience the recoil of a large automatic weapon? And Holy Mother of Pearl! We finally have an Arizona politician attempting to address the senseless death.

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Rep. Victoria Steele’s (D-Tucson) bill, HB 2371, would prevent children under the age of 14 from shooting automatic weapons at gun ranges. This seems reasonable. On its face, the proposal doesn’t affect any volatile constituencies. So of course the bill failed to get out of committee. Because while America demands that these children not be allowed to see the next R-rated shoot 'em up foisted upon us by HollyTown Liberals and Liam Neeson, Arizona demands that these kids be able to fire the same weapons as Neeson's fictional character.

"I understand that there is gun tourism, places that draw families," Steele told me. "But this would be a minor change. Really small. It would only count for children who are 13 and younger. To me, that doesn't sound unreasonable at all. I mean, who would a law like this impact?"

Steele clearly isn't thinking about the junior high kids and all of their back-to-school reports about what they did over their summer vacations. Classmates won’t be impressed with stories about things like “camp” or “the Smithsonian,” when “shooting guns (but not automatic ones) at a roadside range while my parents got lit on frozen margaritas” is all the rage these days.

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Then again, maybe Arizona lawmakers are just too busy with ongoing attempts to rip health insurance from its citizens that gun policy just isn't a priority for them this term.

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Except for the bill blocking local cities and municipalities from closing gun show transfer loopholes. And the already thrice-vetoed bill that would allow concealed weapons at libraries and other public buildings. And the totally constitutional bill to nullify federal gun laws. But other than those three, who can really find the time (or the votes) these days? Yet for some reason Rep. Steele persists on possibly losing billions of tween gun tourism dollars for the sake of some pie in the sky (Pull!) public safety fantasy.

"This is an issue that needs to come up," Steele said. "Just because it's not going to change this year does not mean that we should stop talking about this. Honestly, is even this too much to ask?"

At which point Arizona Republicans laughed and laughed.

[Arizona Republic]