U.S.A. –-(Ammoland.com)- Seattle has become one of the most anti-gun-rights cities in the United States, and its leadership—now wringing its hands over a Memorial Day shooting incident that left a mother and toddler wounded—will likely propose additional gun control laws, probably including yet another attempt to repeal state preemption.
In the wake of the latest shooting, City Councilwoman Teresa Mosqueda, said the incident “‘underscores the deep need to move forward’ on gun violence prevention programs and restrictions on firearms,” according to KING5 News.
The same story quoted her colleague, Councilwoman M. Lorena Gonzalez, advocating for “common-sense gun legislation.”
Mayor Jenny Durkan later in the week acknowledged, “We believe they are connected to some of the other incidents of violence and gunshots that we’ve had.”
KOMO News reported that a 20-year-old man was arrested in connection with the shooting. He reportedly was under Department of Corrections supervision, which in the Evergreen State apparently doesn’t mean much. At age 20, he couldn’t legally buy a handgun, nor carry one, especially if he’s under DOC “supervision.”
Gun rights activists might suggest to the two councilwomen that they should consider cracking down on people under DOC supervision who apparently have guns, rather than on law-abiding citizens who had nothing to do with this crime.
This was all before the mass shooting incident in Virginia Beach in which a man identified as Dewayne Craddock murdered a dozen people in a municipal building with a pair of pistols he reportedly bought legally. That would have required passing a background check. He bought one gun in 2016 and the other last year, according to CNN. Craddock was killed in a shootout with responding police. It has not yet been revealed whether Craddock had a license to carry.
Anti-gunners habitually announce new gun control proposals on the heels of such incidents, even when they happen at the far end of the country.
Back in Washington State, according to an updated report from the Department of Licensing, there are now 616,698 active concealed pistol licenses, including 99,843 in King County which encompasses Seattle, the city administration needs to get something straight. It’s not the good guys with guns who are shooting up the city. It’s bad guys who, despite a string of restrictive gun control efforts in recent years including two multi-million-dollar citizen initiatives funded by a billionaire-backed Seattle-based gun prohibition lobbying group, haven’t been the least bit affected.
When it comes to concealed pistol licenses, anti-gunners in Washington state seem to be swimming against the stream. The May number reflects an increase of 8,238 new CPLs since the beginning of 2019. Last year saw the state add 17,711 new licenses. The number of active CPLs in the state has nearly doubled since January 2013. This amounts roughly to one in ten adults in the state being licensed to carry, and they uniformly recognize that Seattle city government is not their friend.
For the third year since the city began collecting a “gun violence tax” on the sale of firearms and ammunition, those tax revenues have gone down. This puts the lie to a prediction in 2015 from then-Councilman Tim Burgess that this tax would rake in between $300,000 and $500,000. It took a lawsuit by TheGunMag.com and Second Amendment Foundation to force the city to reveal that its 2016 tax collection was $103,766.22. The following year saw the city pull in $93,220.74. Last year, the score was even lower, with only $77,518 coming into the city coffers.
That tax was opposed by the Second Amendment Foundation, National Rifle Association and National Shooting Sports Foundation, which sued unsuccessfully to overturn it. SAF’s Alan Gottlieb accurately predicted three years ago that the tax would be a failure on all counts—revenue and crime reduction—and the data supports him.
Part of the problem is that one of the city’s biggest gun stores pulled out immediately in 2016 and moved north, taking its customers and their money with it. The other big retailer sends its customers south to its outlet in Fife, in neighboring Pierce County.
The other part of the problem is simple. Seattle gun owners just decided to go outside the city to buy guns and ammunition.
The gang bangers who seem to be involved in what now appear to be multiple shootings probably didn’t acquire their firearms legally in either case. In 2014, the Alliance for Gun Responsibility pushed through a $10.2 million initiative to require so-called “universal background checks” on all firearms transfers, with limited exceptions for family members. Gangs and other criminals don’t bother with background checks, nor do they hit local gun shows, where background checks are also conducted under the law.
Seattle Police recently staged a couple of drug raids in which they recovered illegal drugs and firearms. It hasn’t been reported yet whether any of those guns were stolen.
According to MyNorthwest.com, Mayor Durkan said police think the shootings are connected to “turf issues” between rival gangs.
The story said the city’s South Precinct “has experienced a 65 percent increase in shots-fired calls since this time last year.”
Speaking of last year, the city recorded 32 homicides. That was up from the 28 slayings in 2017 and nearly double the 2016 body count of 18 murders.
Recently, SAF’s Gottlieb had this to say: “The failure of this gun tax to accomplish anything good was as predictable as November rain in Seattle. [The city’s] gun violence tax has been a miserable flop. It has provided a false sense of accomplishment while penalizing business owners and the law-abiding citizens they once served.”
About Dave Workman
Dave Workman is a senior editor at TheGunMag.com and Liberty Park Press, author of multiple books on the Right to Keep & Bear Arms and formerly an NRA-certified firearms instructor.
Again, criminals dont care about gun laws! Why can’t anyone think about a future where law abiding citizens firearms are confiscated. No one would be protected at all. Think ahead, just like blocking the wall and not allowing PDT to fulfill his vow to protect our country. He is being fought constantly by dems who don’t care. They already have their fences and armed security. Dems dont speak for me. God bless PDT! Maga 2020!
From the home town of the one man responsible for introducing gun violence through gaming to more children and adolescents than any man in human history: Bill Gates. What has he done to eliminate the graphic violence his old Company pumps out? Has he expressed regret? Has he renounced these mistakes? Has he spent a dime correcting the profits made by these programmers of violence? Does he play these games himself? I don’t think so, he’d rather team up with other Billionaires to spend money foisting legislative foolishness on the law abiding people of Washington, and at the end of… Read more »
Could never reduce crime in cities because it’s why we have them. Cities are prison overflow zones. You’ve seen parking overflow areas right, well there you have it. All is good until they escape the containment zone and get into our rural areas. Might I suggest a wall? Like in the movie Escape From New York.
Seattle is fast becoming the WEST COAST CHICAGO!!!!!!!!!!!! Run by corrupt Demo-Rats just like their twin city Chicago!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Why call him a “suspect?” He was caught in the act and killed on the scene. There is no question he committed the crimes. Why not call the SOB “the murderer” since that is what he clearly is? This PC crap drives me nuts!
Did anyone else notice that GOA was not listed in the lawsuits to overturn the “sin tax” that Seattle enacted. I noticed the NRA was one of three that did!! This is for all the NRA bashers to notice,while they proclain GOA as the best thing since sliced bread! Thank you to all the groups who stood up in opposition to the tax as well as the citizens and gun retailers that responded with them! Thank you!!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_crime_rate
All I can say is that I thank God I don’t have to live on either coast of this great country. The west coast is nothing but a cesspool of rabid want to be rulers, excepting the good people that are still struggling to make it there. It is a job bigger than all the democrats to remove all the guns in this country and to keep people from having them. There are so many guns now that are not registered that they would never come to the end of them. Give it up you more than ignorant democrats that… Read more »
seattle is just a n extension of california with crappier weather.
This is what happens when women get some power…