By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
Only a week after TGM reported on the failure of Seattle and Washington state gun control laws and the dramatic rise in homicides as a result, people in north Seattle have told a local television station they are fed up with shootings in their neighborhood.
KING 5 News, the local NBC affiliate, is reporting that residents along and around Aurora Avenue North are alarmed at the number of shootings in their region. The KING report noted that Seattle Police crime data shows “there have already been more fatal shootings this year in central North Seattle than in all of last year, and it’s only October.”
Earlier this month, TGM reported crime “is continuing to surge” in Seattle, where a gun and ammunition tax adopted in 2015 as a scheme to reduce so-called “gun violence” has had the exact opposite result. Murders in the city have more than doubled since the tax was pushed through, and the city is on track to set a new record for homicides with more than two months remaining.
Likewise, gun control laws and anti-gun citizen initiatives passed since 2014, bringing restrictions on law-abiding gun owners but having no obvious deterrent effect on violent crime, are considered gross failures by Second Amendment advocates, including Alan Gottlieb, nationally-recognized gun rights advocate and chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA), based in Bellevue, Wash.
Seattle’s ‘Violence Surge’ Continues, Despite Gun/Ammo Tax, State Laws
According to the KING report, people living along the Aurora Avenue corridor north of 95th Street no longer feel safe in their own homes. The X site (formerly Twitter) for Seattle Homicides notes the city just logged its 63rd homicide this year.
The gun/ammunition tax, which was forecast to collect between $300,000 and $500,000 annually when it was pushed through the city council in July 2015 has never collected anything close to that amount. The most it ever produced was in 2020, when the tax revenue reported by the city to TGM was $184,836.
SEATTLE GUN TAX REVENUE
Tax Total Year Homicides*
$103,766 2016 19
$93,220 2017 27
$77,518 2018 32
$85,352 2019 36
$184,836 2020 53
$165,416 2021 40
$134,322 2022 52
Source: City of Seattle / *Seattle Police Dept.
Some of the people who spoke to KING indicated they were hoping to move out of the area, perhaps to another city in a neighboring county.
As noted in the Oct. 2 TGM report, the history of Washington gun control over the past nine years has been marked by increasing restrictions on law-abiding citizens, while the number of homicides has climbed.
2014 – Voters approve anti-gun Initiative 594, requiring so-called “universal background checks” on all firearm transfers, with certain exemptions for family members.
2015 – The Seattle City Council adopts a Chicago-style tax on retail firearm and ammunition sales. The tax on guns is $25 while the ammunition tax charges 5 cents for each centerfire cartridge, including shotgun shells, and 2 cents for every rimfire cartridge.
2018 – Voters approve gun control Initiative 1639, which defines a “semi-automatic assault weapon” and prohibits young adults (ages 18-20) from buying them. It also requires proof of training within the previous five years in order to complete the purchase.
2022 – The Washington Legislature passes the magazine ban and is immediately sued by the Second Amendment Foundation and several others.
2023 – The Legislature passes a ban on so-called “assault weapons” and is immediately sued in federal court, again by the Second Amendment Foundation and others. Another bill signed by Democrat Gov. Jay Inslee requires proof of safety training for any firearm purchase and expands the waiting period on gun purchases to ten days.
Washington State Homicides
2022 – 394*
2021 – 325
2020 – 298
2019 – 194
2018 – 232
2017 – 228
2016 – 195
2015 – 209
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Report/Crime Data Explorer
*Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs
Federal lawsuits are challenging the magazine and semi-auto firearms bans, and tenets of I-1639.
