Gun Grabbers Play Race Card; Guns Blamed for Seattle Shootings

Seattle has been under siege for three weeks since the so-called ‘Capitol Hill Occupied Protest” zone was created. Now the area has seen an uptick in violence, including two fatal shootings. (Screen snip, YouTube, Fox News)

U.S.A.-(AmmoLand.com)- Gun prohibition lobbying groups have evidently decided to play the race card, mixing messages for gun control with allegations of racism, while another fatal shooting in Seattle’s so-called “CHOP” zone is being blamed on guns, rather than on the perpetrators or the fact that far-left protesters forced police to abandon their East Precinct headquarters, and closed their zone to cops.

The Seattle-based Alliance for Gun Responsibility, a billionaire-backed gun ban group posted a blog entry June 26 on its website that said this:

“Attempts to oppress people of color, and Black people specifically, turned the gun lobby from a sporting organization promoting marksmanship and firearm safety to extremists intent on opposing commonsense firearm laws. Today, the gun lobby traffics in white supremacist messaging and consistently stokes fear about people of color in an attempt to drive gun sales.”

This came six days after Everytown for Gun Safety, the Michael Bloomberg-backed anti-gun lobbying group released an email blast over the name of Shannon Watts, founder of the anti-gun-rights Moms Demand Action attacking the National Rifle Association.

“The NRA’s leaders have yelled about needing guns to protect against tyranny for years,” the Watts message said. “Yet, when President Trump threatened to deploy the military to states across the country, the NRA was silent. While police and the National Guard have been brutalizing and tear gassing protestors, the NRA has not had a word to say about tyranny.

“That’s because the NRA and Donald Trump don’t have disagreements,” the note added. “Their inflammatory, racist rhetoric and their extreme ‘guns everywhere’ agenda are their joint priorities.”

This alleged racism might come as news to such notable NRA members as Niger Innis, Carl Rowan, Jr., Col. Allen B. West, Karl Malone, Prof. Robert Cottrol and if he were still alive, Roy Innis, late chairman of the Congress of Racial Equality, and countless other members who are racial minorities.

Screen capture of the June 26 Alliance for Gun Responsibility blog.

The NRA has not responded to the allegations. The national gun rights organization is habitually demonized by gun prohibition lobbying groups which use NRA as a bogey man for fundraising efforts. It’s almost a reflex for gun control proponents to attack NRA and blame the group, while virtually ignoring the existence of other rights groups such as the Second Amendment Foundation, Gun Owners of America and Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.

These new race-based attacks preceded another fatal shooting in Seattle’s Capitol Hill Occupied Protest (CHOP) zone, where a 16-year-old was fatally shot and a 14-year-old boy was seriously wounded by gunfire apparently from CHOP “security” in an early-morning incident. Both teen victims were black, an ironic fact considering the CHOP zone was ostensibly occupied by protesters with the Black Lives Matter movement.

Instead of calling for the disarmament of armed protesters within the seized upper Seattle neighborhood and a full police investigation, Socialist Councilwoman Kshama Sawant declared, “violence was happening on Capitol Hill and in other parts of the city long before the CHOP occupation was created by the movement and we should completely reject the false claims — claims that have no basis in statistical analysis — that the CHOP occupation and the movement was the reason for any of the violence,” according to the Seattle Times.

Seattle’s KUOW quoted Council President Lorena Gonzalez, who asserted, “This is, frankly, being caused by unscrupulous gun dealers who allow far too easy access to weapons that are then utilized by people in this way.”

The teens were in a Jeep that apparently entered the CHOP zone at about 3 a.m. Monday. Shooting immediately erupted, sending both to Harborview Medical Center. The older teen died and at this writing, the younger teen was in intensive care. It was the second fatal shooting in the zone in 9 days. On June 20, as earlier reported by AmmoLand, 19-year-old Lorenzo Anderson was gunned down by assailants still unknown

People involved in the occupation protest insist their closing off of the area and prevention of a police presence aren’t at fault. They’ve claimed the Jeep occupants opened fire and that gunfire was returned. The Seattle Times report said “several unidentified people” fired shots into the vehicle.

The Seattle Times quoted Antwan Bolar, a 43-year-old staying in a tent inside the CHOP, who contended, “The bloodshed you’re talking about has nothing to do with the movement. That’s people who would have been doing it in North Seattle or South Seattle anyways — it’s just concentrated here.”

But Seattle Times reporters dug this up:

“In 2019, SPD (Seattle police) investigated three homicides on Capitol Hill, including two in Cal Anderson Park, according to Seattle Times data, though they were spread months apart. No homicides had occurred in the neighborhood in 2020 until Anderson’s death.

“Two people have died and four were injured in four separate shootings in and around the occupation area over the past week and a half, not including the June 7 shooting of Dan Gregory by a man who drove into protesters before CHOP was formed.”

It’s not just gunfire that is giving the CHOP zone a bad reputation. Nor is it the fact that protesters stubbornly refuse to leave the area despite indications from Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan, and published reports by local media, have indicated the CHOP protest was being evacuated.

The area appears to have attracted individuals who are just looking for trouble. Case in point was the attack on Fox News’ Dan Springer and his colleagues Monday morning as they were preparing for a live shot report.

According to Fox News, protesters began shouting vulgarities and Springer decided to cancel the shot. One protester allegedly “chest-bumped” Springer and threw coffee in his face and on his jacket. The Seattle Times confirmed the account.

And buried in the Times story is a report about a knife fight in Cal Anderson Park, where many of the protesters had been camping. This fight occurred not long before the fatal shooting Monday.

Playing the race card is right up there with name-calling as defensive postures that indicate a group’s other arguments have failed.

Some activists on social media have wondered if this new strategy isn’t an effort to counter all of the first-time gun-buying that has erupted over the past three months since the COVIE-19 pandemic panic began. This rush on gun shops has created a lot of new gun owners who might be rather zealous of their newly-re-discovered right to keep and bear arms, as reported earlier.

KOMO News, the Seattle-based ABC affiliate, interviewed retired Pierce County, WA sheriff’s sergeant Jesus Villahermosa, a use-of-force expert, who said re-opening the CHOP zone might require force. According to the report, Villahermosa believes negotiations between the protesters now occupying the CHOP are not accomplishing much.

“I really believe at this point, the protesters have really forced the hand and we’re going to have to use force,” Villahermosa told KOMO.

RELATED:

Far-Left ‘Defund Police’ Efforts Fueling Gun Sales, Creating 2A Activists

 


About Dave WorkmanDave 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.

Dave Workman
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Rock

It ALL comes down to the complete failure of the DEMOCRAT MAYOR, her accepting the rioters with open arms and bending over for them in this case, along with her police force running away like little girls (sorry little girls). Yeah, a hand full of ANARCHIST KIDS took a city and it police for down in no time.

Tionico

dont forget the police were ORDERED to stand down and surrende,r by that insane Durkan critter. Even her Chief of Police is on record as opposing Durkan’s orders. She’s still mad at her for ordering the surrender.
Someone strong enough to put on their Big Boy Pants needs to go arrest Durkan, and that crazy Crayshamer city council troublemaker. Something about violating their oaths of office……… a felony crime.

gregs

its not the color of the skin, its the ideology and sanity of the mind that is the problem. a firearm is an inanimate object that requires human interaction to function, otherwise it is just a paperweight. I don’t have numbers, but I believe a great number of new gun owners are women and people in “marginalized” groups. the white supremacists have theirs already. little of the violence comes from the right side. don’t forget that the KKK was the enforcement arm of the democrat party which now has become the blm and antifa. the democrats legislators and govenors didn’t… Read more »

JoeUSooner

WHOSE version of “commonsense”?? That of millions of law-abiding, responsible, legal gun-owners (who have never been part of the “problem” and never will be)? Or a bunch of hoplophobic idiots with irrational fears of inanimate objects? I know which choice my money is on…

GUNFUN

Or maybe we aren’t saying anything about the army being deployed on peaceful protestors is because our idea of peaceful doesn’t include being hit in the head with a brick.

USA

“Spies cannot be usefully employed without a certain intuitive sagacity.” – Sun Tzu

Bill

Logic, understanding, analysis, and use of facts have all left the minds of these commentators!!

“White privilege” seems to describe the things I’ve worked hard to earn, with God’s help, all my life! They can also earn the “ privilege” if they learn and earn!!

Tionico

and ANYONE of any level of malanin in their epidermis can do the same, and many have. WHY do not more individuals figire that out and make something USEFUL of themselves? There is a long list of very successful individuals who have rejected the mould their “race” would cast them into and gone on to greatly benefit all mankind. I could begin naming some, but won’t as I’d forget far too many of them. These lying divisive hucksters forget that when God made man, He made them IN HIS OWN IMAGE. Male and female are the only distinctions HE makes,.… Read more »

Luv2shoot

Maybe it’s time for us to start blaming the hun grabbers for the violence by these “peaceful protesters “. It’s their policies that prevented law-abiding citizens from being able to protect themselves. Start passing lies and misinformation about them by taking a page from their playbook. support the police to get more of them on our side and support GOA and 2A, etc.

Green Mtn. Boy

The summer of Leftard luv is Over !

USA

All it took was a threat of bikers stomping their soy ass’s into the asphalt and the gov magically cleaned up the govs mess to protect their investment so the soy op can be used again on another day but I’m sure we will praise the Police for their heroic display of theatrics perhaps even give them an Emmy. Considering Denver has a couple thousand cops it’s a safe bet that since only 100 got to be on stage the threat was extremely minimal which shines a bright light on how they stood down from the beginning. Exit, stage left!… Read more »

Superman

Do you ever read the bilge you post?

Tionico

quote: “This is, frankly, being caused by unscrupulous gun dealers who allow far too easy access to weapons” You mean, llike that self-appointed “guardian” of the zone, the armed, concealed carrying felon, who also was recorded on video as handing out weapons of various sorts out of the trunk of his car to anyone who wanted one, no age or background check (as now state mandated for ALL gun transfers) ? Yeah, that works real well. Welcome to LaLa Land. And SHeirff Villahermosa has it right. Now thay are firmly ensconced, there are only two ways to end it. One,… Read more »

MarkE

This isn’t the race “card” – it is the race “deck”. This race card has been used for everything from the heartbreak of psoriasis to toe nail fungus. There is no common sense, reason, or logic behind any of these left-wing rotes, and “race” is just another card in the progressive-agenda rolodex. This obsession to ban firearms has now reached Elmer Fudd – where his shotgun is now replaced with – and you can’t make this stuff up – a scythe. Race here, too? People need to stop trying to analyze this as being some kind of debate over substance… Read more »

USA

To give credit where it is due I’m highlighting this case which has SAF’s name on it. It is good to see concealed carry proven to be a constitutional right that at the time of 2A ratification did not require a permit which subsequently means permits are factually un-constitutional therefore voluntary at best. “The Second Amendment protects the right to keep arms and the right to bear arms. Neither right is inferior. The only historical laws that Heller denounced for matching the severity of the District of Columbia’s ban on keeping handguns were bans on carrying handguns openly. As dictionaries… Read more »

Last edited 3 years ago by USA
Get Out

Folks, that’s why it’s imperative that you lock up your guns, these guns go berserk and are then blamed for causing 525% rise in crime and mayhem. People inside of the CHOP are innocent and were forced by these same guns to murder and rob etc.. I don’t think my hip waders are gonna be high enough for this much bovine excrement the gun banners dumped on us.

Last edited 3 years ago by Get Out
RJL

ACLU+BLM=CPUSA