Gun owners lined up for gun control hearings in Washington state. (Dave Workman)
By Dave Workman
Senior Editor
With nearly 1,000 people on both sides of the gun rights issue listening, Second Amendment advocates, including some retired law enforcement professionals, told a Washington State Senate panel that proposed gun control legislation in that state will do nothing to prevent crimes, but only penalize law-abiding citizens.
The Senate Law and Justice committee held hearings on six pieces of legislation ranging from a ban on so-called “bump stocks” and original capacity ammunition magazines to one that would undo the state’s 35-year-old preemption statute. Only three days earlier, gun rights activists held a rally on the Capitol steps.
Gun rights activists across the country should pay attention to what is happening in Washington because it seems to be a test tube state in which well-financed gun control groups see what they can push before trying it across the country.
Renee Hopkins, head of the Seattle-based Alliance for Gun Responsibility, was quoted by the Seattle Times telling a press conference, “We’re always open to taking things to the ballot.”
It was like firing a signal flare that even if Washington State gun owners prevail in the Legislature, their troubles may only just be beginning. Gun owners do not have the kind of campaign war chest that anti-gunners can amass.
The Alliance is a well-financed gun control lobbying effort with support during past initiative efforts from wealthy elitists including billionaire Michael Bloomberg and Bill Gates. They passed a background check measure in 2014 that cost $10.4 million.
Leading opposition to preemption repeal was Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, coincidentally based in Bellevue, WA. CCRKBA has some 20,000 of its 650,000 members and supporters living in the Evergreen State
Gottlieb told the committee that state preemption should be strengthened rather than weakened.
“A patchwork quilt of gun laws places honest law-abiding gun owners at risk as they travel from city to city, county to county across our state,” he said
Keely Hopkins with the National Rifle Association (no relation to the Alliance’s Hopkins), testified about the history of state preemption and likewise said eliminating preemption would make it difficult for gun owners to legally travel across the state.
“Citizens that have no criminal intent should not be placed in jeopardy of violating local restrictions that they aren’t even aware of,” she warned.
Phil Watson, representing the Firearms Policy Coalition, bluntly told the committee, “If this measure were about marriage, book stores, churches, liquor stores, cars, hospitals, voting or abortion clinics it would be dead on arrival.”
Anti-gunners turned out in force, along with hundreds of firearms owners who returned to the state capitol three days after they had gathered on the steps of that building in opposition to the legislation.
More than 1,500 emails have been received by the Legislature on the gun issue, according to Sen. Jan Angel, (R-Port Orchard), and there were 343 requests to testify at the hearing.
One security officer told TGM that for the Monday hearing, people arrived a full 3 ½ hours before the hearing actually got underway. There were so many people that two overflow rooms had to be set up, and many people were mistakenly directed first to the Senate chambers, and then back to the Senate legislative building where they stood in the hallways listening to monitors.
While there were emotional remarks from people who had lost loved ones or had survived violent incidents including the Las Vegas mass shooting last Oct. 1, there was also testimony noting that rifles of any kind are used in a fraction of homicides in Washington.
State Sen. Kevin Van de Wege, a Sequim Democrat, sponsored the bump stock bill, telling the committee that the devices “shouldn’t be allowed.” He also said he is a “lifetime member of the NRA,” and considers himself “a pretty strong defender of the Second Amendment.”
But Gottlieb countered that the bump stock bill “goes far beyond” those devices.
“These devices do not turn a semi-automatic firearm into a machine gun,” he said. “There’s a lot of misinformation about what they do and accomplish.”
In opposing the proposed magazine ban, Gottlieb said they are not “large capacity” devices but original capacity magazines that have been used for more than a half-century by Evergreen State residents.
NRA’s Hopkins told the committee that law enforcement reports suggest that so-called “assault weapons” are used in only one to two percent of violent crimes. She cited data from the Washington Sheriffs and Police Chiefs Association that estimates rifles of any type are used in only three percent of violent crimes, “with semiautomatic rifles being just a small subset of that percentage.”
“Looking at five years of data,” she said, “there are nine times as many murders with knives, blunt objects, hands and feet than there are with rifles of any type.”
Hopkins also cautioned that focusing on semiautomatic rifles and standard capacity magazines will “do nothing” to impact crime in Washington state.
Brett Bass, a firearms instructor at the Bellevue Gun Club and a reservist with the Marine Corps, testified that the term “assault weapon” is something of a misnomer. True assault weapons, he said, are machine guns, while in some states even lever-action rifles with tubular magazines are considered “assault rifles.”
The testimony was evenly split between proponents and opponents of the gun control measures. Now that Democrats have full control of the Washington Legislature, they are bringing these measures up for hearings and votes.
One measure, SB 5992, would ban “bump stocks” and other trigger enhancement devices, according to opponents.
Another measure that gun owners view as a threat is SB 6049, which would ban so-called “high capacity” magazines. These, according to opponents, are original capacity magazines and the bill would not only impact owners of modern sport-utility rifles such as the AR-15, it would also create problems for handgun owners. Many modern semiautomatic pistols carry more than ten rounds in their magazines.
A third bill, SB 5463, is a “safe storage” bill that is aimed at convincing gun owners to lock up their firearms.
Even if the bills pass the Senate, they could face problems in the House. Last Friday, Democrat State Rep. Brian Blake declared his opposition to all of these measures vowing, “I will never vote against gun rights.” Blake may typify the state’s rural Democrats whose constituents are largely gun owners.
