By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
In what might be a huge public relations gaffe, the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence gun control group has given Washington State an “A-” grade for mandating waiting periods, requiring proof of training and banning so-called “assault weapons” in 2023, the same year Seattle has set a new homicide record following years of increasingly restrictive gun control.
According to KGMI News in Bellingham, Wash., “Overall, the center’s analysis of Washington’s gun laws and gun death rate ranks the state 9th safest.”
But a report at Seattle’s KOMO, the local ABC affiliate, tells a different story. Their report of a fatal stabbing on Thursday included the notation this was the 72nd slaying in the city this year, and that’s the “highest number in nearly three decades.”
TGM has reported on the rising homicide numbers in Seattle and all of Washington State, and for the Giffords group to award the state is at best ironic. It suggests the Giffords group, and other gun prohibition lobbying organizations, are far more interested in passing restrictive gun laws than actually reducing homicides.
Last year, there were 394 homicides in the state, the highest number recorded in decades, if not ever.
According to the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs’ annual crime report for 2022, “The report shows that there were 394 murders in 2022, an increase of 16.6 percent over 2021. This is the highest number of murders recorded since WASPC began collecting this data in 1980. Homicides have increased 96 percent since 2019. Crimes against persons, property and society all increased in 2022, and violent crimes showed an increase of 8.9 percent.”
The new gun control law requiring proof of safety training during the past five years, and adding a 10-day waiting period on gun purchases, takes effect Jan. 1. Sources in the firearms community have indicated there may be a lawsuit filed early next month, challenging the law on constitutional grounds.
So far, the establishment media in Seattle has not raised any questions about the dramatic rise in homicides during the same period that the state has adopted more stringent gun control laws. The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, a national grassroots gun rights group based in Bellevue, has declared gun control in Washington a failure.
“Seattle, and the whole of Washington State, is proof positive that passing laws which only impact honest gun owners accomplish nothing to reduce violent crime,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “We warned people in 2014 that Initiative 594 would not prevent murder or mayhem, and we were right. We told Seattleites in 2015 the tax on guns and ammunition in their city would not prevent shootings or slayings, and we were right. We cautioned voters in 2018 that Initiative 1639 would not keep guns out of the wrong hands, and we were right, again. In fact, we have consistently been right about public safety issues while the other side is only interested in public disarmament.
“How many more people must die before the gun ban bunch publicly acknowledges they’ve been wrong all along,” he wondered. “What will it take to compel Gov. Jay Inslee, Attorney General Bob Ferguson, Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell and their wealthy elitist anti-gun cronies to admit their agenda has failed miserably?
“The time has come for Washington State lawmakers and voters to roll back the extremist gun control measures, stop penalizing law-abiding gun owners and gun buyers for crimes they didn’t commit, and try a different tack,” Gottlieb suggested. “Almost three decades ago, we championed Hard Time for Armed Crime and Three Strikes laws. The public overwhelmingly supported both measures because instead of punishing the good guys, they concentrated on the bad guys. It’s time for that spirit to be revived.”
