By Dave Workman
Senior Editor
The Second Amendment Foundation has filed a lawsuit against the City of Seattle, WA alleging that the city did not comply with a request for documents relating to January’s gun buyback under the Public Records Act.
According to SAF Special Projects Director Philip Watson, the foundation asked for all communications and other related documents in February under the PRA, and in return received more than 1,500 electronically reproduced e-mails between five people on Mayor Mike McGinn’s staff. Allegedly missing were other communications, notes and meeting agendas, including an e-mail exchange with, and regarding, Seattle gun rights activist Ralph Fascitelli, head of Washington CeaseFire.
Fascitelli confirmed to TGM that he had, indeed, traded e-mails
Watson learned about that from reading an article on the SeattleP-I.com’s on-line newspaper in June, by reporter Levi Pulkkinen, that discussed the exchange. Watson was stunned and disappointed.
The Public Records Act was passed by public initiative in the 1970s to guarantee government transparency and accountability, recalled Bellevue attorney Miko Tempski, whose law firm is representing SAF in this case.
“Our request to the city for communications and documents was clear and unambiguous,” Watson said in a prepared statement. “I should not have to read about something we asked for, and were denied, in a newspaper article months after our request.”
“Mayor Mike McGinn’s staff appears to have been playing games,” added SAF Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb. “This is not a game. Government, regardless what level, needs to be accountable and transparent. If the McGinn administration believes it is above meeting the requirements of the law, they need to re-think that position.”
There are four causes of action in the eight-page lawsuit, which details all of the materials originally requested by Watson.
The gun buyback was spearheaded by McGinn and his staff in reaction to the December Sandy Hook school tragedy in Connecticut. Fascitelli advised the mayor’s office via e-mail that such activities, while perhaps good for a headline, have not historically had any demonstrable impact on firearms-related crime.
Examiner reported here that some e-mails between McGinn staffers show contempt for gun owners and gun rights organizations.
The buyback was something of a fiasco because it attracted several private citizens who offered cash instead of gift cards for guns turned in by people with no questions asked. When the gun enthusiasts did the same thing, McGinn and other anti-gunners furiously complained about gun transactions without background checks. Some of the 700 guns actually retrieved by the city turned out to have been stolen, but with no record of who turned them in, there could be no investigation.
Another buyback is reportedly being discussed, but no date has been set. It is likely a different venue will also be chosen, as the first one was held in a parking lot under the freeway.
