By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
Veteran Seattle-area broadcast journalist Brandi Kruse acknowledges she is not “a gun enthusiast” and doesn’t own a firearm, but she can spot political hypocrisy from a distance, so when she went on air earlier this week at her podcast, “[un]Divided,” she went after Evergreen State Democrat lawmakers with a verbal battering ram.
Kruse, formerly with Seattle’s KCPQ—the local Fox News affiliate—now runs the podcast, still asking the uncomfortable questions that make some people squirm. That may be what she did when she challenged Democrats in the State Legislature about the passage of House Bill 1240 over the weekend, which bans the future sale, import and manufacture of so-called “assault weapons” in Washington State; she asked questions and raised issues certain to make Democrat lawmakers uncomfortable back home during “townhall” gatherings.
This is the measure long sought by Democrat Attorney General Bob Ferguson and Democrat Gov. Jay Inslee, the man whom many believe Ferguson hopes to succeed in 2024. When it was passed out of the Senate Saturday, Ferguson went on Twitter to cheer. In a prepared statement, Ferguson declared, “The Senate today put public safety above the interest of the gun lobby. The devastation of mass shootings extends far beyond the casualties and injuries. Mass shootings traumatize entire communities. We must stop selling these weapons of war in Washington.”
It drew a quick reaction from Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.
“Democrats in the Washington State Legislature put politics ahead of constitutional rights,” he countered.
Kruse’s short analysis: “I’m a big fan of our constitution and I don’t think, the way this law is structured, that it can survive constitutional muster.”
She interviewed longtime firearms retailer Wade Gaughran, owner of the Bellevue Indoor Shooting Range, who was just as critical of the officials who pushed the measure through. He noted that as a gun dealer, he must conduct business under the law and follow all of the rules.
“We expect some level of fair play and this law is obviously unconstitutional,” Gaughran said. “I mean, there’s no way that this is going to stand up long term. And I just expect the same level of lawful behavior from the opponents who are Democrats, right? And they’re in power now, and they’re ignoring their sworn duty to uphold the Constitution. And it really…you know, we don’t have a fair playing field, we don’t have a level playing field now, so it is, it’s tough.”
Kruse noted HB 1240 has an emergency clause, which means it becomes law the moment Inslee signs it. By doing so, it skates around the traditional July 1 date of enactment of new state laws, eliminating the potential for a big rush to gun stores by Washington citizens to buy a semiautomatic rifle prior to the ban becoming effective.
She then lowered the proverbial boom.
“I want to talk about the true moral hypocrisy of Democrats on the issue of violence,” Kruse said. “Here’s what bothers me. At the same time Democrats are pushing through these restrictions on law-abiding gun owners, they are simultaneously trying to ease punishment; make life easier for criminals who actually use guns to commit violent crimes, and to me, those two things are absolutely running afoul with one another. And it tells on Democrats and what their true intentions are with all of this.”
Kruse noted that neither Inslee, Ferguson or Seattle city officials took any action when a well-known community activist was caught on video handing out semi-auto rifles during the 2020 occupation of several square blocks in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood by protesters following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis at the hands of police in that city.
In recent years, Kruse noted, Democrats in Olympia have been pushing legislation that has been soft-on-criminals.
“They say their motivation is to save lives,” Kruse said of Democrats behind the semi-auto ban, “to save innocent lives. But my issue with that is this is the same party that for the past several years has been proposing bills that the only intention of these bills is to make life easier for criminals who use guns to hurt people.”
Therein lies the political and philosophical hypocrisy for which Evergreen State Democrats are becoming infamous.
