U.S.A. –-(Ammoland.com)- A national gun rights organization based in Washington State said the gun control crusade that’s been in progress there for the past several years has just been proven a failure with the release of new data from the Seattle Police Department showing an uptick in shootings that were supposed to have been curtailed by recent gun control measures.
According to the Seattle Times, “reports of gunfire and shootings — both fatal and non-fatal — were up slightly last year compared to 2018.” AmmoLand News checked the police data to find the department logged 315 shooting reports in 2019. This included 73 incidents in which someone was wounded and 18 homicides. That’s the most people wounded in shootings in recent memory and the highest number of gun-related slayings since 2012.
What makes this even more significant is that AmmoLand spoke with the Seattle Police Department Monday to learn there were apparently 28 total murders in the city last year, down from the 31 posted in 2018.
This prompted the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, which is headquartered in Bellevue, just across Lake Washington from Seattle, to declare in a Monday news release, “That’s not what we would call a success story where restrictive gun control measures are concerned.”
CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb stated, “We find it beyond ironic that the exact opposite of what gun control proponents predicted has occurred. Their extremist agenda has failed to reduce gun-related crime as was implied when they pushed through their various measures.
As pointed out by CCRKBA, Seattle Police data show more reports of shots fired in the years following passage of Initiative 594 in 2014. I-594 was the so-called “universal background check” measure that was supposed to keep guns out of the wrong hands. CCRKBA joined with several other groups to oppose that measure, and Gottlieb even sponsored an alternate initiative, but their efforts were out-spent by the billionaire-backed Alliance for Gun Responsibility.
Prior to 2014, incidents of shots fired in Seattle didn’t top 300. Since 2015—the first full year following passage of the gun control initiative—the number of shooting incidents has consistently been above 300.
Even more ironic, in 2015, the Seattle City Council adopted a “gun violence tax” on the sale of firearms and ammunition inside city limits. The tax adds $25 to the sale of each firearm, a nickel for each round of centerfire ammunition and two cents for every round of rimfire ammunition. That was also supposed to help the city finance research and “violence prevention” programs but in 2016, the city posted 18 slayings. In 2017, the city recorded 27 murders. In 2018, the number was 32, according to SPD data. The tax has actually brought in far less than anticipated, as well, so it has been a failure all around.
Gun control proponents, and the regional news media, routinely call their proposals “gun safety legislation,” including a bill backed by Democrat Gov. Jay Inslee and Attorney General Bob Ferguson to ban so-called “assault weapons.”
But the Tacoma News Tribune quoted state Senate Republican Leader Mark Schoesler from far eastern Washington’s Ritzville, a conservative farming community, who criticized the proposal and the way it was described.
“It’s gun control and gun seizure,” he observed. “It is semi-automatic weapons because we don’t have assault rifles …. We need to remember it’s not about gun owners. It’s about criminals and criminals pay the penalty for abusing their rights.”
In addition to the proposed gun ban, there are also proposals to require background checks to purchase ammunition and a ban on original capacity magazines.
The CCRKBA statement also referred to the FBI annual uniform crime report, which shows the number of gun-related homicides in Washington has also crept upward since the Alliance has been actively pushing one gun control initiative after another. In 2016, there were 127 firearm-related slayings and in 2018, the most recent year for which FBI data is available, that number had risen to 138. While that represents fewer homicides than reported by individual cities including Chicago, Baltimore, Milwaukee and Detroit, Gottlieb says it still demonstrates the fallacy that more gun control is the solution to violent crime.
“These revelations are especially important as the Washington Legislature opens to consider even more gun control proposals,” Gottlieb said. “We’re not sure the Evergreen State can stand many more of these so-called ‘gun safety’ efforts. It hasn’t gotten safer in Seattle or elsewhere around Washington with passage of these laws, but the gun prohibition crowd simply won’t admit their gun control crusade has failed miserably.”
Grassroots Second Amendment activists will hold a rally Friday, Jan. 17 on the Capitol steps in Olympia. The event, organized by the Gun Rights Coalition, will bring gun owners to town to lobby their state lawmakers, who are facing several pieces of gun control legislation.
Data for the total number of murders, including those involving firearms, will be part of the FBI annual crime report, which appears in late September.
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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.
Do these “Publicly PAID SERVANTS” remember their OATH OF OFFICE?? It appears they LIE to “get in” and then (begin) CONTINUE to be LIARS to the constituents they are SUPPOSED to SERVE !!!!!!!!
Laddy: These public servants desire to be our masters. They consider private citizens as civilians at best, preferring we be unarmed civilians. They will never honor any oath or private citizens. Our public servants are in insurrection against our authority as private citizens.
The anti-gunners could care less about statistics. Their only purpose is to suppress the sale, ownership and availability of firearms to anybody!
DF
In my opinion, Washington is suffering the same timidity that enables the few PUBLIC school shootings. Democrats drive those who normally carry concealed into the shadows. And due to the malicious hounding and fear of prosecution, concealed carriers may be less willing to get involved to help others.
Statistics become unpredictable when human nature ceases to function normally. Inslee wants us to believe making the U.S. safer for criminals will make it safer for their victims. Does anyone believe being disarmed makes you safer? What kind of political leader would disarm his people while howling about the peril they face?
Hitler for 1
So three days ago some beserk road rager shot and hit a car and driver on the interstate in Seattle. Police caught up with him driving the wrong way on a one way street in the downtown area. Jailed with a $20,000 bond and not charged with attempted murder. It is no wonder Seattle crimes associated with shootings are increasing.
somebody go tell that nutjob they elected as a mayoress that she needs to dump the Noo Yawk and ChitCongo Playbooks on this sort of thing. It ain’t workin………
@G, Why aren’t the crimes associated with the person committing them, drunkenness or drug use? There are just not enough facts, yet, to make a proper judgement.
Seattle is one huge collective failure, and it’s dragging the rest of the state down with it.
The real fear and danger of these “gun control” measures is if a real tyrant (or group) were to gain power and decide that the country should be all (blank) and it is the fault of (blank) who need to be eliminated, there would be little resistance. Yes, you can fill in the blanks with any number of groups or beliefs. Currently, no problem, but the only constant in life is change. Watch the slippery slope!!
Just filled out my C.C.R.B. A., GOA, and SAF donations this morning. If the local post office remains true to form, they should have their donations in about a month!
Me, too, but I did it online.
It should be noted that we are defending the right of all citizens, not such those owning firearms. It should also be noted that not all firearm owners support the the right for others to own. It should be clear that freedom is to be denied, and not rights from those abusing rights. To deny rights to any free citizen will defeat efforts to maintain rights of all citizens. Public servants should not have the power people to deny rights to any free citizen. By allowing such power to our servants is allowing them to become our masters. More so… Read more »
So you are claiming to be a slave? Since when?
I was born in East St. Louis and remain in the St. Louis area. The unaddressed problem in Seattle is the same in St. Louis and the metro east. Only 17 percent of the shootings in Seattle are committed by white folks and both Seattle and the St. Louis area are consumed with gang supplied drugs and sympathetic courts allowing violent people to remain free to prey on Americans.
I will call on all patriots to stand with me and We will demand their resignation for not upholding their oath to protect the 2nd amendment that they took when entering office.