More than a few times in recent years, tragic—and seemingly preventable—deaths have led to bills and legislation named after the victims. “Megan’s Law” gave us problematic sex-offender registrations. “Kate’s Law” was a failed attempt to deter illegal immigration. Such proposals are frequently bad policy that the government shouldn't be engaged in.
And now we have “Kari’s Law." It's based on a Texas law, and sponsored in Congress by the political odd couple of Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) in the House, and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota) in the Senate. It's a bill that would "require multi-line telephone systems to have a default configuration that permits users to directly initiate a call to 9-1-1 without dialing any additional digit, code, prefix, or post-fix."
Why is it named Kari's law? I suspect you know. Because of a gruesome murder in 2013 in Texas:
The measure was named for Kari Hunt Dunn, who in 2013 was stabbed multiple times in a hotel room by her estranged husband, as her children watched. Her then-9-year-old daughter repeatedly dialed 911, but was unable to reach emergency responders because the hotel phone required her to first dial 9.
The downside of seizing on an emotions stirred by a gruesome murder to make sweeping changes to federal law are especially apparent here. The decline of landlines and the rise of cell phones mean that almost anyone can call 9-1-1 immediately without having to unlock a device, much less actually dial 9-1-1.
I don't know whether Dunn or her children had cell phones. But while her death is tragic, it's a statistical rarity. Should it result in a law that affects the more than 50,000 hoteliers in the country?
Landline systems are are an increasingly less relevant in today's world, but businesses that use them might face costly upgrades under Kari's Law.
Further, it’s impossible to know if such laws could have prevented the tragedy that spawned them, or curtail future deaths.
Dunn’s estranged husband Brad has basically said that if Kari's Law were around, whe would still be dead because he was intent on killing her.
"Nobody could have saved her," Dunn said. "I stabbed her 21 times ... in five minutes. ... If my daughter would have dialed 911, it would not have saved her. ... Even if a doctor would have showed up ... there was no way to save her.
Brad Dunn still thinks the Texas version of Kari's law is good because it could help people save precious seconds if somebody were to have a heart attack in a hotel room. Yes, Kari's Law has the endorsement of Kari's killer, even though ... it wouldn't have saved her.
Larger chains like Marriott are catering to millennials who hate phone calls (seriously) and prefer text messaging. In fact, Marriott allows people to check into their room via an app, and some hotels even send automated texts to guests after they check in to make sure their stay is going OK. Those sorts of hotels are even getting rid of landlines completely.
But imagine a rural motel with an outdated system—a classic low-margin business. They're faced with a potential federal law that gives them two years to upgrade a system made by a company that went out business a decade ago. If it can't be upgraded, it'd have to be replaced, and not for cheap.
Wouldn't Kari's law, if enacted, give that hotelier the incentive to just get rid of landlines altogether and just put a placard with the front desk phone number?
And if a murderer came and cell reception was bad, what would happen?
We'd probably need another law, I'd guess.
